FontsLike Search
Search fonts... /

Fonts like Helvetica

12 open fonts whose letters are closest to Helvetica, ranked by a glyph comparison. All free for commercial use.

Quick answer

The closest open font to Helvetica is Almarai (similarity 92), then Zalando Sans and Funnel Sans. Almarai is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and is free for commercial use.

Commercial reference font No preview: commercial font, described from its sources

Helvetica

We compared against TeX Gyre Heros, which CTAN describes: “may be used as a substitute for Adobe Helvetica in documents.” (CTAN page, read 2026-10-22)

Original History The original font, Helvetica, was prepared by Max Miedinger (with Eduard Hoffmann) in 1957 at the Haas type foundry.
Sources
why the stand-in, original designers (ctan.org, read 2026-10-22) ↗
CSS fallback font stack 
font-family: "Helvetica", "Almarai", sans-serif;

Use Helvetica when installed on the visitor's device, automatically falling back to Almarai (closest open lookalike).

Helvetica Licence & Permissions

Commercial font: the licence comes from whoever sells it.

Helvetica LicenceLicence unknown
Commercial workUnknown
Logo or wordmarkUnknown
WebsiteUnknown
App or gameUnknown
Modify the fontUnknown
Share the font fileUnknown
Sell the font fileUnknown
No credit needed in your workUnknown

Side-by-side comparison

Top lookalikes compared at the same size
#1 Lookalike Almarai Similarity 92 OFL-1.1
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#2 Lookalike Zalando Sans Similarity 88 OFL-1.1
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#3 Lookalike Funnel Sans Similarity 85 OFL-1.1
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

Top lookalikes: licence permissions

Commercial rights side by side
AlmaraiOFL-1.1
Commercial workAllowed
Logo or wordmarkAllowed
WebsiteAllowed, with conditions
App or gameAllowed, with conditions
Modify the fontAllowed, with conditions
Share the font fileAllowed, with conditions
Sell the font fileNot allowed
No credit needed in your workAllowed
Zalando SansOFL-1.1
Commercial workAllowed
Logo or wordmarkAllowed
WebsiteAllowed, with conditions
App or gameAllowed, with conditions
Modify the fontAllowed, with conditions
Share the font fileAllowed, with conditions
Sell the font fileNot allowed
No credit needed in your workAllowed
Funnel SansOFL-1.1
Commercial workAllowed
Logo or wordmarkAllowed
WebsiteAllowed, with conditions
App or gameAllowed, with conditions
Modify the fontAllowed, with conditions
Share the font fileAllowed, with conditions
Sell the font fileNot allowed
No credit needed in your workAllowed

All 12 open lookalikes, ranked

Comparison based on letter shape and edge texture
#1
Almarai OFL-1.1
Similarity 92 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#2
Zalando Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 88 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#3
Funnel Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 85 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#4
Pretendard OFL-1.1
Similarity 85 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#5
Inter OFL-1.1
Similarity 85 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
also: Inter Tight Font details & licence card →
#6
Geist OFL-1.1
Similarity 84 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
also: Geist Sans Font details & licence card →
#7
Mona Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 84 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#8
Istok Web OFL-1.1
Similarity 83 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#9
Liter OFL-1.1
Similarity 83 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#10
Open Sauce One OFL-1.1
Similarity 83 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
also: Open Sauce Two Font details & licence card →
#11
Hedvig Letters Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 83 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →
#12
Yantramanav OFL-1.1
Similarity 83 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Font details & licence card →

Fonts made for other scripts with similar Latin letters

Mingzat Lepc
Similarity 83 · OFL-1.1
How the similarity score works

Each score is calculated by comparing 62 letters and digits (A-Z a-z 0-9) rendered at a 160px cap height on a 32×32 grid with 3px gaussian blur, combined with edge-orientation texture (weighted at 15%).

Scores are normalized on a standardized scale: 100 represents identical letterforms, and 0 represents an average pair among the 1571 fonts compared.

Computed on 2026-10-22 using glyph-shape + edge-texture v2.