react-icons vs @fortawesome/fontawesome-free vs bootstrap-icons vs ionicons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs line-awesome
Icon Libraries for Web Development Comparison
1 Year
react-icons@fortawesome/fontawesome-freebootstrap-iconsioniconsmaterial-iconsfeather-iconsline-awesomeSimilar Packages:
What's Icon Libraries for Web Development?

Icon libraries provide a collection of scalable vector icons that can be easily integrated into web applications. They enhance user interfaces by offering visually appealing icons that represent actions, objects, or concepts. These libraries often come with various styles and sizes, enabling developers to maintain consistency and improve usability across their applications. Choosing the right icon library can significantly impact the design and user experience of a web application.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
Github Stars Ranking
Stat Detail
Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
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License
react-icons3,408,34412,07886.2 MB2083 months agoMIT
@fortawesome/fontawesome-free1,149,43575,20218.5 MB4,1645 months ago(CC-BY-4.0 AND OFL-1.1 AND MIT)
bootstrap-icons461,5347,6262.99 MB4184 days agoMIT
ionicons319,36817,7684.69 MB437 days agoMIT
material-icons206,2793422.23 MB123 months agoApache-2.0
feather-icons112,12225,433625 kB491a year agoMIT
line-awesome31,3351,271-455 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-icons vs @fortawesome/fontawesome-free vs bootstrap-icons vs ionicons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs line-awesome

Design Style

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allows for a variety of design styles as it aggregates icons from multiple libraries, providing a flexible solution for React developers.

  • @fortawesome/fontawesome-free:

    Font Awesome offers a diverse range of styles including solid, regular, and light icons, allowing for flexibility in design. Its extensive collection caters to various design needs, from playful to professional.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons feature a simple and clean design that aligns with Bootstrap's aesthetic, making them ideal for web applications that prioritize usability and clarity.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons provide a mix of filled and outline styles, designed specifically for mobile applications. Their design is tailored for touch interfaces, ensuring usability on smaller screens.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons follow Google's Material Design principles, offering a consistent and recognizable style that enhances user experience in applications adhering to these guidelines.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are characterized by their minimalist design, focusing on simplicity and elegance. This makes them suitable for modern applications that require a clean and unobtrusive look.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome features a contemporary line-based design that is both stylish and versatile, making it suitable for modern web applications that aim for a sleek appearance.

Customization Options

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allows for easy customization of icons as React components, enabling developers to modify properties like size and color directly within their JSX.

  • @fortawesome/fontawesome-free:

    Font Awesome provides extensive customization options, allowing developers to change sizes, colors, and even add animations, making it highly adaptable to different design requirements.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons offer limited customization but are designed to work seamlessly with Bootstrap's utility classes, allowing for easy adjustments in size and color through Bootstrap's framework.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons can be customized through CSS, and their SVG format allows for easy manipulation of colors and sizes, making them adaptable for various design needs.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be customized using CSS, and they support different sizes and colors, making it easy to integrate them into various design contexts without losing their recognizable style.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are easily customizable as they are built with SVG, allowing developers to change stroke width and color directly in the SVG attributes, enhancing flexibility.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome icons can be styled using CSS, allowing for customization of color and size, but they maintain a consistent line style that should be preserved for design integrity.

Integration and Usage

  • react-icons:

    React Icons simplifies the process of using icons in React applications by allowing developers to import icons as components, making integration seamless and straightforward.

  • @fortawesome/fontawesome-free:

    Font Awesome can be easily integrated into any project via CDN or npm, and it provides a comprehensive set of classes for easy usage within HTML and CSS.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons are designed to work seamlessly with Bootstrap, making integration straightforward for Bootstrap users, and they can be included via CDN or npm.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons can be integrated via CDN or npm, and they are particularly suited for mobile applications, enhancing their usability in touch environments.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be easily integrated using Google Fonts or npm, and they are designed to work well with Material Design frameworks, making them ideal for such projects.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons can be integrated through CDN or npm, and their SVG format allows for easy inclusion in HTML, making them simple to use in any web project.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome can be included via CDN or npm, and it provides a straightforward way to add icons to any web project without complex setup.

Community and Support

  • react-icons:

    React Icons has a supportive community within the React ecosystem, and its documentation is clear, making it easy for developers to implement and customize icons.

  • @fortawesome/fontawesome-free:

    Font Awesome has a large community and extensive documentation, providing ample resources for developers to troubleshoot and find usage examples.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons benefits from the Bootstrap community, offering support and documentation that aligns with Bootstrap's framework, making it easy for users to find help.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons is well-supported within the Ionic community, providing documentation and resources tailored for mobile development, making it a reliable choice for mobile projects.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons benefit from Google's extensive documentation and community support, making it easy for developers to find resources and examples.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons has a growing community and provides documentation that is straightforward, but it may not be as extensive as larger libraries.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome has a smaller community but offers sufficient documentation for users to get started and find support when needed.

How to Choose: react-icons vs @fortawesome/fontawesome-free vs bootstrap-icons vs ionicons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs line-awesome
  • react-icons:

    Use React Icons if you are building a React application and want a simple way to include icons from various libraries in your project. This package allows you to import icons as React components, making it easy to integrate and customize them within your React components.

  • @fortawesome/fontawesome-free:

    Choose Font Awesome if you need a comprehensive icon set with a wide variety of icons and styles, including solid, regular, and light options. It's ideal for projects that require a robust and versatile icon solution with extensive documentation and community support.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Select Bootstrap Icons if you are already using Bootstrap in your project and want a simple, consistent set of icons that integrates seamlessly with Bootstrap components. It's a lightweight option that provides essential icons without the overhead of a larger library.

  • ionicons:

    Use Ionicons if you are developing mobile or hybrid applications, as it provides a set of icons specifically designed for these environments. It includes a variety of icons that are optimized for touch interfaces, making it a good choice for mobile-first projects.

  • material-icons:

    Select Material Icons if you are following Google's Material Design guidelines. This library provides a comprehensive set of icons that align with Material Design principles, making it ideal for applications that aim for a consistent Google-like aesthetic.

  • feather-icons:

    Opt for Feather Icons if you prefer a minimalist design with a focus on simplicity and elegance. This library is great for projects that require a clean aesthetic and offers a small footprint, making it suitable for performance-sensitive applications.

  • line-awesome:

    Choose Line Awesome if you want a modern alternative to Font Awesome with a focus on line-based icons. This library is perfect for projects that require a sleek and contemporary look while still offering a wide range of icons.

README for react-icons
React Icons

React Icons

npm

Include popular icons in your React projects easily with react-icons, which utilizes ES6 imports that allows you to include only the icons that your project is using.

Installation (for standard modern project)

yarn add react-icons
# or
npm install react-icons --save

example usage

import { FaBeer } from "react-icons/fa";

function Question() {
  return (
    <h3>
      Lets go for a <FaBeer />?
    </h3>
  );
}

View the documentation for further usage examples and how to use icons from other packages. NOTE: each Icon package has it's own subfolder under react-icons you import from.

For example, to use an icon from Material Design, your import would be: import { ICON_NAME } from 'react-icons/md';

Installation (for meteorjs, gatsbyjs, etc)

Note This option has not had a new release for some time. More info https://github.com/react-icons/react-icons/issues/593

If your project grows in size, this option is available. This method has the trade-off that it takes a long time to install the package.

yarn add @react-icons/all-files
# or
npm install @react-icons/all-files --save

example usage

import { FaBeer } from "@react-icons/all-files/fa/FaBeer";

function Question() {
  return (
    <h3>
      Lets go for a <FaBeer />?
    </h3>
  );
}

Icons

| Icon Library | License | Version | Count | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | ----: | | Circum Icons | MPL-2.0 license | 1.0.0 | 288 | | Font Awesome 5 | CC BY 4.0 License | 5.15.4-3-gafecf2a | 1612 | | Font Awesome 6 | CC BY 4.0 License | 6.5.2 | 2045 | | Ionicons 4 | MIT | 4.6.3 | 696 | | Ionicons 5 | MIT | 5.5.4 | 1332 | | Material Design icons | Apache License Version 2.0 | 4.0.0-98-g9beae745bb | 4341 | | Typicons | CC BY-SA 3.0 | 2.1.2 | 336 | | Github Octicons icons | MIT | 18.3.0 | 264 | | Feather | MIT | 4.29.1 | 287 | | Lucide | ISC | v5.1.0-6-g438f572e | 1215 | | Game Icons | CC BY 3.0 | 12920d6565588f0512542a3cb0cdfd36a497f910 | 4040 | | Weather Icons | SIL OFL 1.1 | 2.0.12 | 219 | | Devicons | MIT | 1.8.0 | 192 | | Ant Design Icons | MIT | 4.4.2 | 831 | | Bootstrap Icons | MIT | 1.11.3 | 2716 | | Remix Icon | Apache License Version 2.0 | 4.2.0 | 2860 | | Flat Color Icons | MIT | 1.0.2 | 329 | | Grommet-Icons | Apache License Version 2.0 | 4.12.1 | 635 | | Heroicons | MIT | 1.0.6 | 460 | | Heroicons 2 | MIT | 2.1.3 | 888 | | Simple Icons | CC0 1.0 Universal | 12.14.0 | 3209 | | Simple Line Icons | MIT | 2.5.5 | 189 | | IcoMoon Free | CC BY 4.0 License | d006795ede82361e1bac1ee76f215cf1dc51e4ca | 491 | | BoxIcons | MIT | 2.1.4 | 1634 | | css.gg | MIT | 2.1.1 | 704 | | VS Code Icons | CC BY 4.0 | 0.0.35 | 461 | | Tabler Icons | MIT | 3.2.0 | 5237 | | Themify Icons | MIT | v0.1.2-2-g9600186 | 352 | | Radix Icons | MIT | @radix-ui/react-icons@1.3.0-1-g94b3fcf | 318 | | Phosphor Icons | MIT | 2.1.1 | 9072 | | Icons8 Line Awesome | MIT | 1.3.1 | 1544 |

You can add more icons by submitting pull requests or creating issues.

Configuration

You can configure react-icons props using React Context API.

Requires React 16.3 or higher.

import { IconContext } from "react-icons";

<IconContext.Provider value={{ color: "blue", className: "global-class-name" }}>
  <div>
    <FaFolder />
  </div>
</IconContext.Provider>;

| Key | Default | Notes | | ----------- | --------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | color | undefined (inherit) | | | size | 1em | | | className | undefined | | | style | undefined | Can overwrite size and color | | attr | undefined | Overwritten by other attributes | | title | undefined | Icon description for accessibility |

Migrating from version 2 -> 3

Change import style

Import path has changed. You need to rewrite from the old style.

// OLD IMPORT STYLE
import FaBeer from "react-icons/lib/fa/beer";

function Question() {
  return (
    <h3>
      Lets go for a <FaBeer />?
    </h3>
  );
}
// NEW IMPORT STYLE
import { FaBeer } from "react-icons/fa";

function Question() {
  return (
    <h3>
      Lets go for a <FaBeer />?
    </h3>
  );
}

Ending up with a large JS bundle? Check out this issue.

Adjustment CSS

From version 3, vertical-align: middle is not automatically given. Please use IconContext to specify className or specify an inline style.

Global Inline Styling

<IconContext.Provider value={{ style: { verticalAlign: 'middle' } }}>

Global className Styling

Component

<IconContext.Provider value={{ className: 'react-icons' }}>

CSS

.react-icons {
  vertical-align: middle;
}

TypeScript native support

Dependencies on @types/react-icons can be deleted.

Yarn

yarn remove @types/react-icons

NPM

npm remove @types/react-icons

Contributing

./build-script.sh will build the whole project. See also CI scripts for more information.

Development

yarn
cd packages/react-icons
yarn fetch  # fetch icon sources
yarn build

Add/Update icon set

First, check the discussion to see if anyone would like to add an icon set.

https://github.com/react-icons/react-icons/discussions/categories/new-icon-set

The SVG files to be fetched are managed in this file. Edit this file and run yarn fetch && yarn check && yarn build.

https://github.com/react-icons/react-icons/blob/master/packages/react-icons/src/icons/index.ts

Preview

Note The project is not actively accepting PR for the preview site at this time.

The preview site is the react-icons website, built in Astro+React.

cd packages/react-icons
yarn fetch
yarn build

cd ../preview-astro
yarn start

Demo

The demo is a Create React App boilerplate with react-icons added as a dependency for easy testing.

cd packages/react-icons
yarn fetch
yarn build

cd ../demo
yarn start

Why React SVG components instead of fonts?

SVG is supported by all major browsers. With react-icons, you can serve only the needed icons instead of one big font file to the users, helping you to recognize which icons are used in your project.

Related Projects

Licence

MIT

  • Icons are taken from the other projects so please check each project licences accordingly.