889 stars · Apache-2.0 · v3.12.1 (2026-06-02) · Track this in Scout
Turns font source files into finished, installable font files.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
Fontmake is a Python command-line program that compiles .glyphs or UFO source files into TrueType and OpenType fonts, and into the single-file variable fonts that cover a whole family. It is the tool Google Fonts uses to build its own library.
What it is good for. Anyone with a typeface in a design tool who needs installable files, and anyone maintaining a font project who wants its builds to run the same way every time instead of being exported by hand.
- It is the tool the Google Fonts library itself is built with, which is a strong statement about whether it works on real font projects.
- Apache licence 2.0, read from the file at
main/LICENSE, plain and unmodified, with no conditions beyond attribution — a genuinely safe licence here. - Small, old and current: 889 stars, created in December 2015, release 3.12.1 of 2 June 2026 and code pushed on 14 September 2026.
- The licence file's copyright holder was never filled in. The line reads exactly
Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner], so Google is not named in it anywhere. The terms are standard; nobody is named as owning the work. - It is one link in a chain, not a solution. It expects valid source files, and when something fails the message comes from
fontTools,glyphsLiborufo2ftrather than from fontmake, so understanding it needs real font-engineering knowledge. - 263 open issues against 7 open change requests, and Google is openly building a replacement in another language —
googlefonts/fontc, whose stated aim is "Wherein we pursue oxidizing fontmake". Command line only; no window, no buttons, and you need the flag vocabulary before anything comes out.
- googlefonts/fontc
Compiles the same font sources to the same files as a rewrite in another language aiming to be faster, but far less mature.
Track this in Scout - fonttools/fonttools
Builds and manipulates font files from Python and is the layer fontmake sits on, but is a library and low-level tools rather than a build driver.
Track this in Scout - googlefonts/glyphsLib
Converts .glyphs files to UFO only; it is a translator fontmake calls and it compiles nothing.
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# Needs: Python 3.10 or later. The project recommends a separate environment. python3 -m venv ~/venvs/fontmake source ~/venvs/fontmake/bin/activate pip3 install fontmake # Build TrueType and OpenType files from a Glyphs source: fontmake -g MyFont.glyphs -o ttf otf
