Birdfont vs Runebender

Birdfont is a font editor for creating vector graphics and exporting TTF, OTF and SVG fonts. It runs on Linux, Windows and macOS, and supports monochrome and color font formats. SVG files from Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator can be imported. The Open Source plan costs nothing and includes TTF and monochrome SVG fonts, kerning, ligature substitutions, alternates, SVG import and commercial use. The Freeware plan also costs nothing, and allows creation of free fonts under the SIL Open Font license. Commercial costs $4.99, paid once; it includes commercial fonts and one year of upgrades, while the purchased version continues to work afterward. Plus costs $9.99, paid once and adds color fonts, OpenType SVG, OTF, COLR/CPAL, single-stroke CNC fonts and variable fonts. Plus can export multiple static fonts from a variable master. Birdfont is also available through Steam. The app does not collect user data by default; crash reports are optional.

Runebender is a free font editor for UFO and Designspace sources, with tools for glyphs, paths, filters, components, anchors, masters, interpolation, spacing, kerning, feature code, color fonts, text shaping, font information, and font checking. It opens UFO and Designspace files, Glyphs files and packages, and compiled TTF or OTF fonts; Glyphs files are converted to UFO, while compiled fonts are opened as UFOs in memory. Babelfont packages can also be imported. Experimental local models can suggest a heavier glyph master from a lighter one, and local chat is available through font-ml. The browser editor runs on the user's machine without uploading files, but it has interaction gaps and is not recommended for real work. The native application has no packaged release and is installed from source with Cargo. Runebender is alpha software and writes UFO and Designspace files in place, so the documentation advises working on copies and keeping sources under version control. The project is licensed Apache-2.0 or MIT and maintained independently, not as an official Linebender project.