The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Best free alternatives to
Courier
Howard Kettler drew Courier at IBM in 1955 — a slab-serif monospaced typeface for IBM's Selectric typewriters that became the de facto visual shorthand for "typewritten." Adrian Frutiger later refined it for Linotype in 1969. Equal character widths, slab serifs, the appearance of mechanical authority. These five free typefaces work in the monospaced register Courier defined.
The closest font to CourierThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Display + body that work together
Pages that earn the read
Two thousand years of letterforms boil down to a handful of decisions — width, weight, proportion. Pick a pair you trust, and let the rest take care of itself.
Mono · Editorial Cousine + Source Serif 4
Letters that hold their nerve
Crisp, even strokes give the display its punch. Quiet serifs underneath stay readable across thousands of words — used together by editors at the kind of paper that still prints corrections.
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Most-cited free fonts
Common questions about Courier alternatives
- Is Courier free?
- No — Courier is a commercial typeface from IBM. It is licensed per style or per family. The closest free alternative is Cousine, available on Google Fonts.
- What font is similar to Courier?
- Cousine is the closest free match. Drawn by Steve Matteson to be metric-compatible with Courier New — same character widths, same line metrics, drop-in replacement when document fidelity matters most. The least-romantic but most-faithful match in this list.
- Can I use Cousine in commercial projects?
- Yes — Cousine is published under a free license on Google Fonts and can be used in commercial work. Confirm the license text at the source before shipping.