Fontello vs Runebender

Fontello is a free web and API service for turning vector artwork into icon webfonts for websites. It can reduce glyph collections and combine symbols from multiple fonts into one generated file. The web app includes open-source artwork and accepts custom SVG icons or SVG fonts by drag and drop. Generated files arrive in a single ZIP archive, with a config.json file that can be imported later to continue editing. Its API can create a session from a font configuration, reopen that project, and download the resulting font; API sessions remain stored for 24 hours. Fontello lists Makefile, Node.js, Ruby, and Grunt integrations for workflow automation. It does not offer accounts for project storage, so archives should be kept in version control. Generated font icons are single-color. The code is MIT-licensed, while embedded fonts retain their own licenses.

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.