The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
SF Pro vs Helvetica Neue
Two neo-grotesques separated by three decades of screens. Helvetica Neue is Linotype's 1983 rework of Max Miedinger's 1957 Helvetica, tidied into a unified numbered family of weights and widths, while SF Pro is Apple's 2014 system face, drawn in-house with Helvetica and FF DIN as reference points and tuned for pixels rather than print.
SF Pro is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Inter, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to SF Pro → Helvetica Neue is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Inter, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Helvetica Neue →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- SF Pro ships as a variable font with optical sizes: Text has larger apertures and looser spacing for small type, and Apple's platforms switch to the tighter Display cut at 20pt and above.
- Helvetica Neue has no optical sizing, but offers nine weights across four widths (normal, condensed, compressed, extended) under a Univers-style numbering system, with a shared cap height across every weight.
- SF Pro is downloadable free from Apple but licensed only to registered Apple developers for mock-ups of software on Apple operating systems, with no embedding or use on other platforms.
- Helvetica Neue is a commercial Monotype family, so every weight and web license is a line item in the budget, but it can be used anywhere.
- Helvetica Neue's heavier punctuation and widened M and figures came from phototypesetting constraints, whereas SF Pro's forms were drawn for Retina rendering and dynamic tracking.
SF Pro
Reach for SF Pro when you're designing native iOS, macOS, watchOS, or tvOS apps and want text that matches the system UI pixel for pixel.
Helvetica Neue
Reach for Helvetica Neue for print, branding, and cross-platform work where you need the full width range and the freedom to use it anywhere, and can justify the licensing cost.