An easier FontForge alternative

What FontForge is good at

FontForge deserves its reputation. It’s free and open source, it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and it can do most of what the paid editors do. It exports OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2 and UFO, and it has Python scripting for anyone who wants to automate the boring parts. The latest stable release, 20251009, came out in October 2025, after a long gap since the start of 2023. It’s still maintained, just slowly.

Plenty of real fonts have been made in FontForge. If you have the patience to learn it, nothing stops you making a professional typeface with it.

Why FontForge is hard for beginners

The trouble is what it takes to get to a usable font. FontForge is an outline editor, so you draw every glyph yourself, point by point and curve by curve: capitals, lowercase, numbers, punctuation and accents. A basic Latin font is well over a hundred of them.

Then the spacing. Each letter needs space set on both sides, and awkward pairs like AV and To need kerning by hand. None of this is special to FontForge; every outline editor asks for it. But FontForge’s interface is dated and dense, and a lot of beginners spend their first evenings learning the app instead of designing letters.

If that sounds like where you got stuck, there are two ways out. Keep drawing, in an app that’s nicer to draw in. Or stop drawing from scratch.

If you want to keep drawing outlines

• Glyphr Studio. Free and open source, and it runs in the browser, so there’s nothing to install. It exports OTF, TTF, WOFF and WOFF2 and is actively updated. The closest swap for FontForge if free matters most.
• Glyphs Mini 2. €49 once, Mac only. A simpler version of Glyphs with one master, so no variable fonts. It hasn’t been updated much lately, so check it runs well on your Mac before you buy.
• Glyphs 4. €319 once, Mac only, released in July 2026. Many type designers use it, and it handles variable fonts. Students pay €159.
• FontLab 8. Mac and Windows. Pro is $499 for a lifetime license, and Starter is $97 for three months of use, with no renewal. A good pick if you’re on Windows and want a pro editor.

If you don’t want to draw every letter

• Your handwriting: Calligraphr. You print a template, write your letters, scan it and upload it. The free plan covers up to 75 characters; Pro is $10 a month.
• Pixel and geometric fonts: FontStruct. You build letters from shapes on a grid in the browser. It’s free, paid for by ads.
• You already work in Illustrator: Fontself Maker turns shapes you’ve drawn into a font from a panel in Illustrator. It’s a one-time purchase, but you need an Adobe subscription to use it.
• A full typeface without drawing: Letterhead, below.

Letterhead: start from a typeface, not a blank page

In Letterhead, you don’t draw glyphs. You pick a typeface that already works and change its shape with sliders for weight, width, slant, contrast, roundness and serifs, or by dragging the letters on the big preview. Every letter is built from the same controls, so when you make the stems heavier, every stem in the font gets heavier together.

The character set, the spacing and the file structure come with the typeface you start from. That’s the part that takes months in an outline editor, and here it’s done before you begin. You spend your time on the shape, and you can have a usable font in an evening.

It runs in the browser on Mac, Windows and Linux. The Free plan gives you Letterhead Sans and Letterhead Serif in Regular and Bold to start from, and downloads an OTF for personal use. One Custom Font is $29 once for one font family; Pro is $12 a month or $96 a year for as many as you make. Paid plans add TTF and WOFF2, kerning by hand or with Auto-Kern, and the right to sell what you make.

FontForge vs Letterhead

When to stay with FontForge

Letterhead isn’t a replacement for every FontForge job. Stay with FontForge, or another outline editor, when:

• You need control over every point, like a custom ampersand or one letter that breaks the rules.
• The design you have in mind is far from anything Letterhead’s typefaces can reach, like a script or a heavily decorated face.
• Free and open source matters to you, or you want to script your workflow in Python.
• You’re on Linux and want a desktop app rather than a browser tab.

Plenty of people use both: Letterhead to find a direction fast, an outline editor when a project needs hand-drawn detail.

Where to go next

For the full field, including iPad apps, see the best font making software. To try the slider approach for free, read about Letterhead as a free font maker, or go straight to how to make your own font. If you’re making a font to sell, start with how to sell a font you made.