react-icons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons vs octicons
Icon Libraries for Web Development Comparison
1 Year
react-iconsfont-awesomebootstrap-iconsmaterial-iconsfeather-iconsheroiconsocticonsSimilar 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 visual representations of actions, objects, and concepts, making applications more intuitive and visually appealing. Each library has its unique style, usage scenarios, and design philosophies, catering to different design needs and preferences.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
Github Stars Ranking
Stat Detail
Package
Downloads
Stars
Size
Issues
Publish
License
react-icons3,352,42212,07686.2 MB2083 months agoMIT
font-awesome847,34375,192-4,1619 years ago(OFL-1.1 AND MIT)
bootstrap-icons454,2827,6222.99 MB4172 days agoMIT
material-icons204,0023412.23 MB123 months agoApache-2.0
feather-icons110,79125,430625 kB491a year agoMIT
heroicons39,04722,373700 kB96 months agoMIT
octicons9,7738,493-86 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-icons vs font-awesome vs bootstrap-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons vs heroicons vs octicons

Design Style

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allows for a mix of different icon styles in a single project, giving developers the flexibility to choose icons from various libraries while maintaining a consistent React component structure.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome provides a diverse range of icons with various styles, including solid, regular, and light. This versatility allows developers to choose icons that best fit their design needs, making it a popular choice for many projects.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons follow the Bootstrap design language, offering a clean and consistent look that integrates well with Bootstrap components. They are designed to be simple and easily recognizable, making them suitable for a wide range of applications.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are designed to adhere to Google's Material Design guidelines, offering a consistent and recognizable style that enhances user interfaces. They provide a comprehensive set of icons that are visually appealing and functional.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are characterized by their minimalist and lightweight design, featuring simple lines and shapes. They are perfect for modern web applications that prioritize a clean aesthetic and user experience.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons feature a modern and elegant design, with a focus on simplicity and clarity. They are crafted to fit seamlessly into Tailwind CSS projects, providing a cohesive visual experience that aligns with utility-first design principles.

  • octicons:

    Octicons have a unique design that resonates with the GitHub community, featuring a distinctive style that sets them apart. They are designed to integrate well with GitHub's interface, making them ideal for developer-focused applications.

Customization

  • react-icons:

    React Icons can be easily customized as React components, allowing developers to pass props for size and color directly, making it simple to integrate into React applications.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome offers extensive customization options, including the ability to use CSS classes to change icon styles, sizes, and colors. The Pro version also includes additional features like animation and icon layering.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons can be easily customized using CSS, allowing developers to change colors, sizes, and other styles to fit their application's design. They support various sizes and can be styled to match the Bootstrap framework.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be styled using CSS, but they also come with built-in support for different sizes and colors through the Material Design framework, making them easy to integrate into Material Design applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are highly customizable, allowing developers to change stroke width, color, and size directly through CSS. This flexibility makes them ideal for projects that require a unique visual style.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons can be customized using Tailwind CSS utility classes, making it easy to adjust size, color, and other styles directly in your markup. This integration with Tailwind enhances the customization experience.

  • octicons:

    Octicons can be customized using CSS, but they are primarily designed to be used as is. Their unique style is often best left unchanged to maintain the GitHub aesthetic.

Performance

  • react-icons:

    React Icons are efficient as they allow for tree-shaking, meaning that only the icons used in the application are included in the final bundle, helping to keep the application lightweight.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome can be heavier due to its extensive library, but it offers a CDN option that allows for optimized loading. Developers can selectively include only the icons they need to improve performance.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons are lightweight and optimized for performance, ensuring that they do not significantly impact load times. They are designed to be used in conjunction with Bootstrap, which also emphasizes performance.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are optimized for performance and can be loaded via a CDN, which helps reduce load times. They are designed to work seamlessly with Material Design applications, ensuring a smooth user experience.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are extremely lightweight, making them ideal for performance-sensitive applications. Their minimalist design ensures that they load quickly and do not bloat the application.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are designed to be lightweight and efficient, ensuring fast load times while providing high-quality visuals. Their SVG format allows for scalability without loss of quality.

  • octicons:

    Octicons are lightweight and designed for performance, making them suitable for applications that require quick loading times. Their integration with GitHub's interface ensures that they are optimized for developer use.

Community Support

  • react-icons:

    React Icons has a supportive community within the React ecosystem, with ample documentation and examples available for developers.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome has a vast community and extensive resources, including documentation, forums, and tutorials, making it one of the most supported icon libraries available.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Bootstrap Icons benefit from the large Bootstrap community, providing extensive documentation, tutorials, and community support for developers.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are backed by Google, ensuring robust documentation and community support, particularly for developers following Material Design principles.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons have a growing community and are well-documented, making it easy for developers to find resources and support for implementation.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons, being part of the Tailwind ecosystem, has strong community support and documentation, especially among developers using Tailwind CSS.

  • octicons:

    Octicons have strong support within the GitHub community, providing resources and documentation for developers looking to integrate them into their projects.

Integration Ease

  • react-icons:

    React Icons simplifies the process of using multiple icon libraries in React projects, allowing for easy imports and usage of icons as React components.

  • font-awesome:

    Font Awesome provides various integration methods, including CDN and npm packages, making it versatile for different project setups. It is widely compatible with most web frameworks.

  • bootstrap-icons:

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

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be integrated easily into any project, especially those following Material Design principles, with straightforward setup instructions and CDN options available.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons can be easily integrated into any web project, requiring minimal setup and allowing for quick implementation in various frameworks.

  • heroicons:

    Heroicons are designed for easy integration with Tailwind CSS, allowing developers to quickly add icons to their projects using Tailwind's utility classes.

  • octicons:

    Octicons are easy to integrate into any web application, especially those focused on developer tools or GitHub-related projects, with clear documentation provided.

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

    Use React Icons if you are working with React and want a simple way to include icons from multiple libraries in your project. It allows you to import icons from various icon sets as React components, making it easy to manage and customize.

  • font-awesome:

    Opt for Font Awesome if you need a comprehensive icon set with a wide variety of icons and styles. It is widely used and offers both free and premium icons, along with extensive documentation and community support.

  • bootstrap-icons:

    Choose Bootstrap Icons if you are already using Bootstrap for your project and want a cohesive design language. They are designed to work seamlessly with Bootstrap components and provide a consistent look and feel.

  • material-icons:

    Choose Material Icons if you are following Google's Material Design guidelines. They provide a large set of icons that are consistent with Material Design principles, making them suitable for applications that aim for a Google-like interface.

  • feather-icons:

    Select Feather Icons if you prefer a minimalist design with a focus on simplicity and elegance. They are lightweight and customizable, making them ideal for modern web applications that prioritize performance and aesthetics.

  • heroicons:

    Use Heroicons if you are building a Tailwind CSS project or prefer a clean, modern aesthetic. They are designed specifically for Tailwind and provide a set of beautifully crafted icons that fit well with utility-first design principles.

  • octicons:

    Select Octicons if you are developing for GitHub or want to maintain a GitHub-like aesthetic. They are designed to integrate well with GitHub's interface and provide a unique set of icons that resonate with the developer community.

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.