Fonts like Tahoma
12 open fonts whose letters are closest to Tahoma, ranked by a glyph comparison. All free for commercial use.
Quick answer
The closest open font to Tahoma is Clear Sans (similarity 90), then Noto Sans Display and Radio Canada. Clear Sans is released under the Apache License 2.0 and is free for commercial use.
System font No preview: commercial font, described from its sources
Tahoma
Designer Matthew Carter
Vendor Microsoft Corp.
Supplied With
Windows 11Windows 10Windows 8.1
CSS fallback font stack
font-family: "Tahoma", "Clear Sans", sans-serif;Use Tahoma when installed on the visitor's device, automatically falling back to Clear Sans (closest open lookalike).
Tahoma Licence & Permissions
Fonts supplied with Windows (Microsoft's font FAQ)LicenseRef-Windows-Font
Commercial workAllowed, with conditions
Logo or wordmarkAllowed, with conditions
WebsiteNot allowed
App or gameNot allowed
Modify the fontNot allowed
Share the font fileNot allowed
Sell the font fileNot allowed
No credit needed in your workAllowed
Side-by-side comparison
Top lookalikes compared at the same size Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Top lookalikes: licence permissions
Commercial rights side by sideClear SansApache-2.0
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 fileAllowed, with conditions
No credit needed in your workAllowed
Noto Sans DisplayOFL-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
Radio CanadaOFL-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
Clear Sans Apache-2.0
Similarity 90 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#2
Noto Sans Display OFL-1.1
Similarity 84 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#3
Radio Canada OFL-1.1
Similarity 82 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#4
Noto Sans JP OFL-1.1
Similarity 82 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#5
Source Sans 3 OFL-1.1
Similarity 82 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#6
DejaVu Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 82 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#7
Varta OFL-1.1
Similarity 82 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#8
IBM Plex Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 81 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#9
Assistant OFL-1.1
Similarity 80 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#10
Asap Sharp OFL-1.1
Similarity 80 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#11
Hind Siliguri OFL-1.1
Similarity 80 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
#12
PT Sans OFL-1.1
Similarity 80 — 100 = identical letters, 0 = an average pair
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Fonts made for other scripts with similar Latin letters
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.