Bitmap Font Editor vs FontCreator
Bitmap Font Editor
github.comFontCreator
fontcreator.comSide by side
| Figure | Bitmap Font Editor | FontCreator |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 2 |
| Spec score · Font Design Software | 7.8 (#14) | 8.2 (#7) |
| Intended users | The project describes itself as aimed at old home computers, particularly the SAM Coupe, and retro or embedded targets. | The maker describes Essentials as suited to everyday font creation and editing and Professional as suited to advanced development and production work. |
| Purpose | Font Editor is a desktop editor for monochrome bitmap fonts, aimed at retro and embedded targets. | FontCreator creates, edits, and exports professional fonts. |
Plans
FontCreator
- FontCreator 16 Essentials$49, paid once
- FontCreator 16 Professional$199, paid once
In their own words
Bitmap Font Editor
Bitmap Font Editor is a free desktop tool for creating monochrome bitmap fonts, particularly for retro computers and embedded targets such as the SAM Coupe. It supports fixed-width and variable-width fonts, with adjustable advance width for each glyph. Users draw glyphs in cells up to 32×32 pixels by clicking or dragging to paint and erase; draggable font guides and pinned reference glyphs are also available. Editing tools include undo, redo, copy, paste, clear, invert, flip, and shift. An editable sample text preview offers three zoom levels and white-on-black or black-on-white display. Raw font bitmaps can be imported with settings for starting codepoint, geometry, and byte layout. Projects use the losslessly round-trippable .fnt.json format. Export produces a 1bpp bitmap plus JSON sidecar files for widths and character mapping. Release 0.1.3 offers Windows, macOS, and Linux builds, with SHA-256 checksums. The source is MIT-licensed. Windows and macOS builds are unsigned, and system-font filling is disabled because Canvas 2D lacks TrueType hinting access.
FontCreator
FontCreator has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.