ionicons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons vs line-awesome
Icon Libraries for Web Development Comparison
1 Year
ioniconsfont-awesomebootstrap-iconsmaterial-iconsfeather-iconsheroiconsline-awesomeSimilar Packages:
What's Icon Libraries for Web Development?

Icon libraries provide developers with a collection of scalable vector icons that can be easily integrated into web applications. They enhance user interfaces by offering visual cues and improving the overall aesthetic of web pages. Each library has its unique design philosophy, icon styles, and usage scenarios, catering to different project needs and developer preferences.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
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ionicons1,806,32317,7006.44 MB29210 months agoMIT
font-awesome827,33074,702-4,1258 years ago(OFL-1.1 AND MIT)
bootstrap-icons484,3947,5442.93 MB451a year agoMIT
material-icons208,3873292.23 MB1117 days agoApache-2.0
feather-icons114,36825,282625 kB48710 months agoMIT
heroicons40,83322,077700 kB43 months agoMIT
line-awesome31,4881,264-455 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: ionicons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons vs line-awesome

Design Philosophy

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons are designed specifically for mobile applications, featuring a rounded and friendly aesthetic. Their design is optimized for touch interfaces, making them perfect for mobile-first projects.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome offers a diverse range of icon styles, including solid, regular, and light. Its design philosophy emphasizes versatility and comprehensiveness, catering to various use cases from simple UI elements to complex applications.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons are designed to complement the Bootstrap framework, featuring a simple and clean aesthetic that aligns with Bootstrap's UI components. They are designed to be easily recognizable and functional, making them suitable for a wide range of applications.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are designed according to Google's Material Design guidelines, ensuring a consistent look and feel across applications. Their design philosophy emphasizes clarity and usability, making them ideal for user interfaces.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons embrace a minimalist design philosophy, focusing on simplicity and clarity. Each icon is crafted with a consistent stroke width, making them ideal for modern web applications that prioritize a clean and elegant look.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are crafted with a focus on usability and aesthetics, providing a balanced mix of outline and solid icons. Their design is tailored for modern web applications, ensuring they look great in any context, especially with Tailwind CSS.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome focuses on a clean, line-based aesthetic, providing a lightweight alternative to traditional icon sets. Its design philosophy emphasizes minimalism, making it suitable for projects that require a subtle touch of elegance.

Customization

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons are customizable through CSS and provide various sizes and styles, making them suitable for different screen resolutions and devices. Their design allows for easy integration into mobile applications.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome provides extensive customization options, including the ability to animate icons and adjust their appearance using CSS. Its vast library allows for a high degree of personalization, making it a versatile choice for developers.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons can be easily customized using CSS, allowing developers to change colors, sizes, and other properties to fit their design needs. This flexibility makes them suitable for various projects without losing their integrity.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be customized through CSS, allowing developers to change colors and sizes to match their application's design. Their integration with Material Design ensures consistency across UI components.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are highly customizable due to their SVG format, allowing developers to change stroke widths, colors, and sizes effortlessly. This makes them adaptable to different design requirements and personal preferences.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are available in both outline and solid styles, providing flexibility in customization. Developers can easily adjust sizes and colors using CSS or inline styles, ensuring they fit seamlessly into any design.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome icons can be easily styled using CSS, allowing for adjustments in size, color, and other properties. This flexibility makes them a great choice for projects that require a clean and modern look.

Performance

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons are lightweight and designed for mobile performance, ensuring quick loading times and smooth interactions on mobile devices. Their SVG format enhances rendering speed and efficiency.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome can be heavier than other icon libraries due to its extensive collection of icons. However, it offers options to include only the icons you need, which can help optimize performance in larger applications.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons are lightweight and optimized for performance, ensuring quick loading times and minimal impact on overall application speed. Their SVG format contributes to efficient rendering in web browsers.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are optimized for performance, with a focus on fast loading times and efficient rendering. Their integration with Material Design principles ensures a smooth user experience across applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are designed to be lightweight, with a small file size that ensures fast loading times. Their SVG nature allows for quick rendering, making them ideal for performance-sensitive applications.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are optimized for performance, with a focus on minimal file size and efficient rendering. They are designed to load quickly, ensuring a smooth user experience in modern web applications.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome is designed to be lightweight, ensuring minimal impact on performance. Its simple line-based design allows for quick rendering, making it suitable for performance-sensitive applications.

Community and Support

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons have a supportive community, especially among Ionic Framework users. Resources and documentation are readily available, making it easier for developers to find help and examples.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome has a large and active community, providing extensive documentation, tutorials, and support. Its popularity ensures that developers can find help and resources easily.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons benefit from the extensive Bootstrap community, providing a wealth of resources, tutorials, and support for developers. This community-driven approach ensures continuous improvement and updates.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons benefit from Google's extensive support and documentation, ensuring that developers have access to resources and guidance for integration into their applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons have a growing community of users and contributors, offering support through documentation and community forums. Their open-source nature encourages collaboration and enhancements.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are supported by the Tailwind CSS community, which offers resources and documentation for integration. The community is active and provides support for developers using Tailwind in their projects.

  • line-awesome:

    Line Awesome is supported by a growing community, offering documentation and resources for developers. Its open-source nature encourages contributions and improvements from users.

How to Choose: ionicons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons vs line-awesome
  • ionicons:

    Select Ionicons for mobile-first applications, especially if you are developing with Ionic Framework. Ionicons provides a rich set of icons optimized for mobile interfaces, ensuring a cohesive look across platforms.

  • font-awesome:

    Opt for Font Awesome if you need a comprehensive icon library with a vast selection of icons and additional features like icon animations and social media icons. It's great for projects requiring a diverse range of icons.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Choose Bootstrap Icons if you are already using the Bootstrap framework and want a consistent icon set that integrates seamlessly with Bootstrap components. It offers a straightforward implementation for Bootstrap users.

  • material-icons:

    Opt for Material Icons if you are following Google's Material Design guidelines. This library provides a wide range of icons that are designed to work well with Material Design principles, ensuring consistency in your UI.

  • feather-icons:

    Select Feather Icons for a lightweight and minimalist design approach. Ideal for projects that prioritize simplicity and elegance, Feather Icons are easily customizable and perfect for modern web applications.

  • heroicons:

    Choose Heroicons if you are building applications with Tailwind CSS or need a set of beautifully crafted icons that follow a consistent design style. Heroicons are particularly suited for modern web applications with a focus on UI/UX.

  • line-awesome:

    Choose Line Awesome if you prefer a line-style icon set that is lightweight and easy to integrate. It’s a great alternative to Font Awesome for projects that require a more minimalist aesthetic.

README for ionicons

Ionicons

Ionicons is a completely open-source icon set with 1,300 icons crafted for web, iOS, Android, and desktop apps. Ionicons was built for Ionic Framework, so icons have both Material Design and iOS versions.

Note: All brand icons are trademarks of their respective owners. The use of these trademarks does not indicate endorsement of the trademark holder by Ionic, nor vice versa.

We intend for this icon pack to be used with Ionic, but it’s by no means limited to it. Use them wherever you see fit, personal or commercial. They are free to use and licensed under MIT.

Contributing

Thanks for your interest in contributing! Read up on our guidelines for contributing and then look through our issues with a help wanted label.

Using the Web Component

The Ionicons Web Component is an easy and performant way to use Ionicons in your app. The component will dynamically load an SVG for each icon, so your app is only requesting the icons that you need.

Also note that only visible icons are loaded, and icons which are "below the fold" and hidden from the user's view do not make fetch requests for the svg resource.

Installation

If you're using Ionic Framework, Ionicons is packaged by default, so no installation is necessary. Want to use Ionicons without Ionic Framework? Place the following <script> near the end of your page, right before the closing tag, to enable them.

<script src="https://unpkg.com/ionicons@latest/dist/ionicons.js"></script>

Basic usage

To use a built-in icon from the Ionicons package, populate the name attribute on the ion-icon component:

<ion-icon name="heart"></ion-icon>

Custom icons

To use a custom SVG, provide its url in the src attribute to request the external SVG file. The src attribute works the same as <img src="..."> in that the url must be accessible from the webpage that's making a request for the image. Additionally, the external file can only be a valid svg and does not allow scripts or events within the svg element.

<ion-icon src="/path/to/external/file.svg"></ion-icon>

Variants

Each app icon in Ionicons has a filled, outline and sharp variant. These different variants are provided to make your app feel native to a variety of platforms. The filled variant uses the default name without a suffix. Note: Logo icons do not have outline or sharp variants.

<ion-icon name="heart"></ion-icon> <!--filled-->
<ion-icon name="heart-outline"></ion-icon> <!--outline-->
<ion-icon name="heart-sharp"></ion-icon> <!--sharp-->

Platform specificity

When using icons in Ionic Framework you can specify different icons per platform. Use the md and ios attributes and provide the platform specific icon/variant name.

<ion-icon ios="heart-outline" md="heart-sharp"></ion-icon>

Size

To specify the icon size, you can use the size attribute for our pre-defined font sizes.

<ion-icon size="small"></ion-icon>
<ion-icon size="large"></ion-icon>

Or you can set a specific size by applying the font-size CSS property on the ion-icon component. It's recommended to use pixel sizes that are a multiple of 8 (8, 16, 32, 64, etc.)

ion-icon {
  font-size: 64px;
}

Color

Specify the icon color by applying the color CSS property on the ion-icon component.

ion-icon {
  color: blue;
}

Stroke width

When using an outline icon variant it is possible to adjust the stroke width, for improved visual balance relative to the icon's size or relative to the width of adjacent text. You can set a specific size by applying the --ionicon-stroke-width CSS custom property to the ion-icon component. The default value is 32px.

<ion-icon name="heart-outline"></ion-icon>
ion-icon {
  --ionicon-stroke-width: 16px;
}

Migrating from v4

See the 5.0 release notes for a list of icon deletions/renames.

License

Ionicons is licensed under the MIT license.

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