Runebender vs Type Light

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.

Type Light is a free TrueType font editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It creates and modifies TTF fonts, including custom symbol and barcode fonts. Drawing tools make glyphs from straight lines and quadratic Bézier curves, with operations for combining or subtracting shapes. You can assign Unicode values or custom encodings to glyph slots and set horizontal metrics. Basic kerning tables and pair adjustments are supported. Metadata controls cover family name, style flags, copyright strings, and embedding permissions. The editor exports Windows-compatible TTF files that the product page says work in Office applications, Adobe products, and web browsers. No registration is required, and the free plan has no feature restrictions or trial period. Created fonts may be used commercially. Type Light does not provide OpenType features, variable fonts, or PostScript Type 1 support, and its undo history is limited.