The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Segoe UI vs Arial
Two system sans-serifs that most people have read without ever choosing them. Segoe UI is Microsoft's humanist interface face, rounder and more open, built for Windows screens; Arial is Monotype's neo-grotesque, drawn to Helvetica's widths and shipped with both Windows and macOS as the generic default.
Segoe UI is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Open Sans, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Segoe UI → Arial is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Arimo, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Arial →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- Segoe UI, designed by Steve Matteson and first shipped with Windows Vista, is a humanist sans with rounder letters and a true cursive italic, where Arial (Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, Monotype, 1982) is a neo-grotesque with oblique italics and Helvetica's proportions and stroke width.
- Segoe UI was tuned for ClearType rendering and small UI sizes, while Arial was drawn as a generic sans for both body text and display and matches Helvetica's character widths so documents reflow identically.
- Arial is preinstalled on Windows and macOS, but Segoe UI ships only with Windows, so it needs a fallback everywhere else; neither can be copied from the OS and self-hosted as a web font.
- Both are commercial: Arial is sold by Monotype, Segoe UI can be licensed through Monotype for non-Windows use, and Segoe UI Variable is not licensable outside Microsoft products at all, so budget for the cost or use Selawik and Liberation Sans, their metric-compatible open-source stand-ins.
Segoe UI
Reach for Segoe UI when you are building Windows-native apps or anything that should feel at home in the Microsoft ecosystem, where it is already installed and designed for the screen.
Arial
Reach for Arial when you need a safe, universally installed neutral sans for documents, email, and cross-platform layouts where Helvetica-compatible metrics matter more than character.