FontCreator vs Runebender

FontCreator is a font editor for creating, modifying, and exporting OpenType, TrueType, variable, and color fonts. Its editing tools include quadratic and cubic curves, image import, an OpenType Layout Designer, and real-time validation. When changing an existing font, it can preserve OpenType layout feature data. Variable-font work can define axes, masters, and outline layers, while scalable color fonts can use COLR and SVG extensions. The listed supported formats include OpenType, TrueType, WOFF, and WOFF2; projects can also be exchanged in .glyphs, UFO, and designspace formats. FontCreator runs on Windows 7, 8, 10, or 11 (64-bit) and macOS 11 or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel. Essentials is presented for everyday creation and editing, while Professional targets advanced development and production work. The fully functional trial includes all features for 30 days, after which a license is required. Essentials costs 49.00 USD one-time; Professional costs 199.00 USD one-time.

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.