react-icons vs ionicons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons
Icon Libraries for Web Development Comparison
1 Year
react-iconsioniconsfont-awesomebootstrap-iconsmaterial-iconsfeather-iconsheroiconsSimilar Packages:
What's Icon Libraries for Web Development?

Icon libraries are collections of scalable vector graphics (SVG) or font-based icons that can be easily integrated into web applications. They provide a consistent visual language and enhance user interfaces by adding visual cues, improving usability, and offering aesthetic appeal. Each library has its unique design philosophy, icon styles, and usage scenarios, making them suitable for different types of projects and design systems.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
Github Stars Ranking
Stat Detail
Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
Publish
License
react-icons3,109,29611,87186.2 MB1983 months agoMIT
ionicons1,958,32317,6916.44 MB29010 months agoMIT
font-awesome839,42474,661-4,1158 years ago(OFL-1.1 AND MIT)
bootstrap-icons486,2717,5322.93 MB447a year agoMIT
material-icons208,6193252.23 MB116 days agoApache-2.0
feather-icons111,65425,254625 kB48410 months agoMIT
heroicons42,24622,036700 kB43 months agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-icons vs ionicons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons

Design Consistency

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allow you to mix and match icons from different libraries while maintaining a consistent design approach within your React application.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons have a cohesive design that is tailored for mobile interfaces, ensuring that icons are visually appealing and functional on small screens.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome offers a diverse range of icons with a consistent style, making it easy to create a unified visual experience across different platforms.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons maintain a consistent design language that aligns with Bootstrap's UI components, ensuring a cohesive look across your application.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are designed according to Material Design principles, providing a consistent look and feel that enhances user experience across applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are designed with a minimalist aesthetic, providing a uniform style that is both modern and elegant, suitable for various applications.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons provide a consistent design that complements Tailwind CSS, ensuring that icons fit seamlessly into the overall design system.

Customization

  • react-icons:

    React Icons can be styled using inline styles or CSS classes, allowing for easy customization within React components.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons allow for customization through CSS variables, enabling developers to change colors and sizes without modifying the source files.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome offers various customization options, including icon animations and layering, allowing for dynamic and engaging user interfaces.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons can be styled using CSS, allowing developers to change colors, sizes, and other properties easily to fit their design needs.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be customized using CSS, and they support different sizes and color variations, making them versatile for various applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are highly customizable, enabling developers to adjust stroke widths, colors, and sizes directly in the SVG, providing flexibility in design.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons can be easily customized with Tailwind CSS classes, making it simple to adapt their appearance to match your design system.

Performance

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allows for tree-shaking, meaning you can import only the icons you need, which helps reduce bundle size and improve performance.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons are designed with performance in mind, making them suitable for mobile applications where load speed is crucial.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome can be heavier due to its extensive library, but using only the required icons can mitigate performance issues.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons are lightweight and optimized for performance, ensuring minimal impact on load times when integrated into Bootstrap projects.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are optimized for web performance, and their font-based approach allows for quick loading and rendering in web applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are designed to be lightweight, which helps improve loading times and overall performance of web applications.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are optimized for performance and can be easily included as SVGs, ensuring fast loading times in web applications.

Integration

  • react-icons:

    React Icons is specifically designed for React applications, allowing for easy and efficient icon integration within React components.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons are optimized for use with the Ionic Framework, making them ideal for mobile app development and hybrid applications.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome offers various integration methods, including CDN, npm packages, and SVG, making it versatile for different project setups.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons integrate seamlessly with Bootstrap projects, making it easy to add icons without additional setup.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be integrated easily into any web project, especially those following Material Design principles, using CDN or npm.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons can be easily integrated into any project, requiring minimal setup and providing a straightforward way to include icons.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are designed to work perfectly with Tailwind CSS, providing easy integration for developers using this framework.

Community and Support

  • react-icons:

    React Icons has a supportive community within the React ecosystem, with ample documentation and resources to assist developers.

  • ionicons:

    Ionicons have a dedicated community, especially among Ionic developers, ensuring good support and resources for mobile application development.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome has a vast community and extensive documentation, offering numerous resources, tutorials, and support channels for developers.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons benefit from the large Bootstrap community, providing ample resources, documentation, and support for developers.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are widely used in the web development community, providing extensive documentation and support for developers following Material Design guidelines.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons have a growing community and good documentation, making it easy for developers to find help and resources.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are supported by the Tailwind CSS community, which provides documentation and resources for effective usage within Tailwind projects.

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

    Use React Icons if you are working within a React environment and want a simple way to include icons from various libraries. React Icons allows you to import only the icons you need, reducing bundle size and improving performance.

  • ionicons:

    Choose Ionicons for mobile-first applications, especially if you are developing with Ionic Framework. Ionicons offers a rich set of icons that are optimized for mobile interfaces, making it a great choice for hybrid mobile apps and responsive web applications.

  • font-awesome:

    Opt for Font Awesome if you need a comprehensive icon library with a vast collection of icons and additional features like icon animations and layering. It is suitable for projects that require a wide variety of icons and a robust ecosystem, including support for both SVG and web fonts.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Choose Bootstrap Icons if you are already using Bootstrap in your project and want a consistent icon set that matches the Bootstrap design language. They are easy to integrate and provide a straightforward approach to adding icons without additional dependencies.

  • material-icons:

    Select Material Icons if you are following Material Design guidelines. They provide a consistent set of icons that align with Google's design philosophy, making them ideal for applications that prioritize a clean, modern look and feel.

  • feather-icons:

    Select Feather Icons for a lightweight and minimalist design approach. They are perfect for projects that require a clean aesthetic and are easily customizable with stroke width adjustments. Ideal for modern web applications that prioritize simplicity and clarity.

  • heroicons:

    Use Heroicons if you are building a Tailwind CSS project or prefer a set of beautifully crafted icons that follow a modern design aesthetic. They are designed to work seamlessly with Tailwind and provide both outline and solid styles, making them versatile for different UI contexts.

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.