So many of these "freemium" things will spam you relentlessly asking you to upgrade.
This one doesn't have the best history either, although it's officially open source, at least at one point the build system was private[0]. I've not kept up with the drama, so I have no idea if that is still the case.
[0] https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/12199#iss...
In We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagreesFortAwesome
Font-Awesome
JavaScript2012–2026
FortAwesome / Font-Awesome
Font-Awesome
The iconic SVG, font, and CSS toolkit
38Distinct people
41Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
77KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
The iconic SVG, font, and CSS toolkit
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year41 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-03-07 04:16:41 UTC to 2026-04-12 16:41:51 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 2 | 6 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Version 7
Font Awesome is the Internet's icon library and toolkit, used by millions of
designers, developers, and content creators.
Documentation
Learn how to get started with Font Awesome and then dive deeper into other and advanced topics:
Docs for version 7
Where did Font Awesome 6, 5, 4 (or 3) go?
Now that Font Awesome 7 has been released we are marking version 6 as Long Term
Support (LTS). Version 6 will get critical bug fixes only. Version 3, 4, and 5 are
now end-of-life and we don't plan on releasing any further versions of these.
You can see a complete list of versions on our Versions
page.
Change log
The change log for releases is now available directly on our site.
Looking for older versions of Font Awesome? Check the releases.
Upgrading
From time-to-time we'll have special upgrading instructions from one version to the next.
Web upgrading guide
Desktop upgrading guide
Code of conduct
We will behave ourselves if you behave yourselves. For more details see our
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.
Contributing
Please read through our contributing guidelines. Included
are directions for opening issues.
Versioning
Font Awesome will be maintained under the Semantic Versioning guidelines as much as possible. Releases will be numbered
with the following format:
<major>.<minor>.<patch>
For more information on SemVer, please visit https://semver.org.
The major version "7" is part of an umbrella release. It includes many different types of files and technologies. Therefore
we deviate from normal SemVer in the following ways:
Any release may update the design, look-and-feel, or branding of an existing
icon
We will never intentionally release a patch version update that breaks
backward compatibility
A minor release may include backward-incompatible changes but we will
write clear upgrading instructions in UPGRADING.md
A minor or patch release will never remove icons
Bug fixes will be addressed as patch releases unless they include backward
incompatibility then they will be minor releases
License
Font Awesome Free is free, open source, and GPL friendly. You can use it for
commercial projects, open source projects, or really almost whatever you want.
Icons — CC BY 4.0 License
In the Font Awesome Free download, the CC BY 4.0 license applies to all icons packaged as .svg and .js files types.
Fonts — SIL OFL 1.1 License
In the Font Awesome Free download, the SIL OFL license applies to all icons packaged as web and desktop font files.
Code — MIT License
In the Font Awesome Free download, the MIT license applies to all non-font and non-icon files.
Attribution is required by MIT, SIL OFL, and CC BY licenses. Downloaded Font
Awesome Free files already contain embedded comments with sufficient
attribution, so you shouldn't need to do anything additional when using these
files normally.
We've kept attribution comments terse, so we ask that you do not actively work
to remove them from files, especially code. They're a great way for folks to
learn about Font Awesome.
Team
https://github.com/orgs/FortAwesome/people
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
41 sourcesGitHub Issue: Add Substack Logo to Font-Awesome
1 points · Open discussionFontAwesome 6 removes search terms from its metadata
3 points · Open discussionI guess that’s part of it. I don’t think the technique is necessarily a problem by itself, because it is often very easily traceable. However, it is annoying if the things being composed are not standard well-known functions, but user-defined ones.
A good example of what I mean is here (fresh on my mind because I was looking at it yesterday): https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/blob/master/js-p...
Somewhere this file defines an exported function called `icon`, but it took me way too long to find where and even longer to see what it was actually doing.
This might not be idiomatic JS code, but I’ve definitely seen other popular packages have similar code (especially internally).
In JavaScript for Impatient ProgrammersAdobe has requested Font Awesome to remove their Adobe icons
2 points · Open discussionFont Awesome 5 Free is now published in its GitHub repository
2 points · Open discussionStrange they've updated the main docs to 5.x yet their master branch is still on 4.x without a 5.x release.
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome
In (New) Font Awesome WebsiteI'm at a loss as to what you're referring to here.
The Font Awesome icons used in 2.3 and forward are located in /usr/local/www/vendor/font-awesome
we can (and do) use the GUI when there is no WAN connection
Edit: any chance you're running a browser plugin that is blocking the font-awesome fonts?
FA started adding logos and stuff to the fonts and there are 3rd party lists you can use that are more aggressive and font-awesome is in some. https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/wiki/Troubleshoo...
In pfSense: Open source network firewall distributionIcon Request: fa-sort-date-asc (and desc)
1 points · Open discussionWell at least now I know why they've held back so many useful icons from the free version.
This one's a classic: https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/1958
In Font Awesome 5I had submitted an issue about the removal of the non-identifying direct CDN link to FontAwesome in favor of a user-identifying JavaScript embed, and it was closed. I tagged in to another issue to make the same point,
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/9245#issu...
Still no answer. Am I the only one that cares that the current state of FontAwesome encourages tying your email address (via a unique token) to your site's specific FontAwesome usage?
In Font Awesome 5Ah, I see. Something like ◔ "CIRCLE WITH UPPER RIGHT QUADRANT BLACK".
Someone requested something similar here [1], and someone else made it using CSS here [2]. As the article explains though, it would need to be used in text for the Unicode committee to accept it.
[1] https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/4147
[2] http://codepen.io/denwo/pen/azjXzL
In How I added 6 characters to Unicode (and you can too)Ever since they started actively promoting their one-line embed (which requires an e-mail address so you can receive your uniquely-identifiable embed code, thereby associating every web site you build with your actual email address), I've stopped using them in my classes.
It's not awesome to erode privacy and disingenuously say it's easier to use their script, when they removed the actual easiest way, which referenced using a public CDN.
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/9245
In Fort Awesome – Like Font Awesome But BetterRendering issue: icon-spin fa-spin shake/wobble (chrome Firefox)
1 points · Open discussionShowing the 15 most recent of 41 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.