react-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons
Icon Libraries for Web Development Comparison
1 Year
react-iconsmaterial-iconsfeather-iconsSimilar Packages:
What's Icon Libraries for Web Development?

Icon libraries are collections of scalable vector icons that can be easily integrated into web applications. They provide developers with a set of pre-designed icons that can enhance user interfaces, improve usability, and convey information visually. The choice of an icon library can significantly impact the design consistency, ease of use, and overall aesthetic of a web application. Each of these libraries offers unique features, styles, and integration capabilities, catering to different design philosophies and project requirements.

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react-icons3,346,43511,99386.2 MB2052 months agoMIT
material-icons212,3313362.23 MB122 months agoApache-2.0
feather-icons112,59525,368625 kB489a year agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons

Design Philosophy

  • react-icons:

    React Icons provides a flexible approach, allowing developers to choose icons from various libraries like Font Awesome, Material Icons, and more. This versatility enables developers to mix and match icons based on the design needs of their application, promoting a more personalized and diverse visual experience.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are designed according to Google's Material Design principles, which emphasize depth, motion, and visual hierarchy. The icons are bold and expressive, providing a clear visual language that enhances usability and accessibility in applications that follow Material Design guidelines.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons embraces a minimalist design philosophy, focusing on simplicity and clarity. The icons are designed with a consistent stroke width and a clean aesthetic, making them suitable for modern web applications that prioritize a sleek and unobtrusive user interface.

Customization

  • react-icons:

    React Icons allows for easy customization of icons through React props. Developers can adjust size, color, and other properties directly in their components, making it convenient to integrate icons that match the application's design without additional overhead.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons offer limited customization options, primarily focusing on predefined styles and sizes. While they can be styled using CSS, the icons are designed to maintain a consistent look and feel, which may restrict extensive customization but ensures design coherence across applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are highly customizable, allowing developers to easily change the size, color, and stroke width of the icons using CSS. This flexibility makes it easy to adapt the icons to fit the specific design requirements of a project without losing their clean aesthetic.

Integration

  • react-icons:

    React Icons is specifically designed for React applications, allowing for straightforward integration through npm. Developers can import icons directly into their components, making it easy to manage and utilize a wide range of icons from different libraries without complex setup.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons can be integrated via Google Fonts or by downloading the icon set. They are optimized for performance and can be used seamlessly in projects that follow Material Design, ensuring that the icons load efficiently and maintain high quality.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons can be easily integrated into any web project by including the SVG files or using a CDN. They are lightweight and do not require any additional dependencies, making them a straightforward choice for developers looking for simplicity in integration.

Performance

  • react-icons:

    React Icons provides a performance advantage by allowing developers to import only the icons they need, reducing the overall bundle size. This selective import capability ensures that applications remain performant while still having access to a vast array of icons.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons are also optimized for performance, with a focus on efficient loading and rendering. They are available in various formats, including SVG and icon fonts, allowing developers to choose the best option for their project's performance needs.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons are lightweight and optimized for performance, ensuring that they do not significantly impact the loading time of web applications. Their SVG format allows for scalability without loss of quality, making them ideal for responsive designs.

Community and Support

  • react-icons:

    React Icons has a vibrant community due to its integration with React. The library is actively maintained, and developers can find numerous tutorials, examples, and support from the React ecosystem, making it a reliable choice for React projects.

  • material-icons:

    Material Icons benefit from strong community support and extensive documentation provided by Google. This ensures that developers have access to a wealth of resources, examples, and best practices for implementing Material Design in their applications.

  • feather-icons:

    Feather Icons has a growing community and is well-documented, making it easy for developers to find resources and support. The simplicity of the icons and their usage contributes to a positive developer experience.

How to Choose: react-icons vs material-icons vs feather-icons
  • react-icons:

    Choose React Icons if you are working within a React environment and need a versatile solution that allows you to easily import icons from various icon libraries. This package provides a unified interface for using icons from multiple sources, making it ideal for projects that require flexibility and a wide range of icon options.

  • material-icons:

    Choose Material Icons if you are developing applications that adhere to Google's Material Design guidelines. This library provides a comprehensive set of icons that are consistent with Material Design principles, making it suitable for applications that prioritize a cohesive user experience and visual hierarchy.

  • feather-icons:

    Choose Feather Icons if you prefer a minimalist design aesthetic with a focus on simplicity and clarity. This library is ideal for projects that require lightweight, easily customizable icons that can seamlessly blend into modern UI designs.

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.