Free Helvetica Alternatives, Measured

Free Helvetica Alternatives, Measured

No free font is Helvetica, which is a paid Linotype typeface sold today through Monotype's MyFonts. Two free families match its letter widths exactly: TeX Gyre Heros and Nimbus Sans. Arimo, the open version of Arial's metrics, matches them too, while Inter is a different design that runs about 8 percent wider. Which one you can use depends less on looks than on licence: Arimo is the easy one for a logo or a website, and Heros is fine for a logo or print, though serving converted Heros files on a website brings in the LPPL's distribution conditions.

The failure you pay for later is a swap that reflows every line, or a licence that does not cover your use, not a letter that looks slightly off in a screenshot. So the reference here is Adobe's published Helvetica metrics file, the measurements are widths and heights for 62 characters in each downloaded font, and the licence test is the text each project ships with. The numbers are ours and reproducible with the short script near the end. Treat our licence readings as orientation, not as advice on your own use.

Helvetica itself: what it is and what a licence costs

Helvetica is a commercial typeface. The copy of Adobe's PostScript Helvetica metrics file we used as the reference carries this notice: "Helvetica is a trademark of Linotype-Hell AG and/or its subsidiaries." On October 23, 2026 the MyFonts page for Helvetica by Linotype listed 36 styles and family packages, with "Complete family of 30 fonts: $655.82 CAD" and individual styles from $55.48 CAD (the store showed Canadian dollars to our request, so your price may display differently).

The licence types on that page matter more than the price. MyFonts presents four, and the one most designers buy first is Desktop.

The same page tells buyers to check the foundry's own licence agreement "as some restrictions may apply, such as use in logos/trademarks." So even a purchased Desktop licence needs reading before it goes into a brand mark.

Two practical points follow. First, a logo made in Helvetica and exported as outlines is a different use from putting Helvetica on a website, and the licences price them differently. Second, "I have Helvetica on my Mac" does not mean you hold a licence for every use. We did not read Apple's font terms for this guide, so we state nothing about them; if a project depends on a system-bundled copy, check the licence that came with it.

Metric-compatible versus look-alike

Two different promises hide inside "alternative".

• Metric-compatible means each character has the same advance width as the original, so a paragraph breaks on the same words and a layout does not move when you swap fonts. It says nothing about how the letters look.
• Look-alike means the letters resemble the original, with no promise about widths.

A good Helvetica clone is both. A merely similar font can look right in a headline and still reflow a long text. The distinction is why we measured widths first.

What we measured, and how

Reference: the Helvetica AFM file (Adobe's PostScript Core 14 Helvetica, version 002.000, creation date 1997) as redistributed in the open-source pdfkit repository. It lists a width and a bounding box for every character, plus CapHeight 718 and XHeight 523 on a 1,000-unit em. We read it as a measurement source and quote only the numbers. It describes the PostScript Helvetica, not the later Helvetica Neue or Helvetica Pro, so a current licensed Helvetica may differ slightly.

Candidates, downloaded October 23, 2026:

• TeX Gyre Heros, Regular, OpenType file, version 2.004, from CTAN.
• Nimbus Sans, Regular, OpenType file from the URW++ base 35 fonts repository (the files in Ghostscript's lineage).
• Arimo, regular master of the variable font from the Google Fonts repository, version 1.341.
• Inter, default master of the variable font from the Google Fonts repository, version 4.001.

We did not include Liberation Sans in the measurements. Its licence file states that its digitised data comes from Google's Arimo, Tinos and Cousine, and we could not download a TrueType release of it, so we treat it as Arimo's sibling and say so wherever it appears below.

Method, in one paragraph. For each font we read the advance width of the 26 uppercase letters, 26 lowercase letters and 10 digits (62 characters), converted to a 1,000-unit em, and compared each with the Helvetica value. We took cap height from the top of "H" and x-height from the top of "x". We then summed the widths of one 112-character test sentence ("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog while a hamburger font stack waits for 1234567890 invoices to print.") in each font and divided by Helvetica's total. We ignored kerning, so real text will differ slightly from these sums. We rendered sample letters to images and looked at them to compare shapes; the shape notes below are what we saw in those renders.

The results

Reading the table:

• Heros and Nimbus Sans are width-identical to Helvetica for every letter and digit we tested. Both are built to be the Helvetica substitute, and the numbers agree. A paragraph set in either breaks at the same place as in Helvetica, ignoring kerning.
• Arimo matches the widths too, with the test sentence summing to 50,193 against Helvetica's 50,189. Arimo is built to be Arial-metric-compatible, so the numbers also show that Arial's widths coincide with Helvetica's. Its cap height is shorter, about 4 percent below Helvetica's, so the capitals look smaller against the lowercase.
• Inter is not a drop-in. Only one of the 62 characters has the same width, the average difference is about 42 units, and the test sentence is 7.9 percent longer. At 16 pixels the 112-character sentence measures about 803 pixels in Heros, Nimbus Sans and Arimo and about 866 pixels in Inter. In a column 840 pixels wide it fits on one line in the first three and wraps in Inter.
• The cap heights differ from Helvetica's even where widths do not. Heros and Nimbus Sans caps are 1.5 percent taller, which is small but real when a wordmark is set against a Helvetica one.

None of these numbers says which font looks best. They say which can replace Helvetica in an existing layout without moving things.

How the shapes compare

Helvetica's recognisable details are a capital R with a curved, near-vertical leg, a G with a spur at the lower right, a lowercase a with a small tail, a C whose terminals are cut horizontally, and a t with a flat-cut top. In our renders:

• Heros and Nimbus Sans show all five, and their letters are nearly indistinguishable at the sizes we looked at.
• Arimo shows the Arial variants: a straight diagonal leg on the R, angled cuts on the C terminals and the top of the t, and a G without the spur.
• Inter has its own letterforms with a taller x-height. It belongs to the look-alike category, in a design that is close in spirit but not in detail.

Your eyes are the final test for a brand wordmark, and a side-by-side printout on the real stock settles it faster than any table.

Kerning: what the width test leaves out

Metric compatibility is about advance widths. Kerning, the adjustment of space between specific letter pairs, is separate, and it is where the clones part company with Helvetica. We read pair adjustments in units of 1,000 per em from the Helvetica AFM file and from the three clones, using opentype.js, for twelve common pairs. Eight of them:

All four agree in sign and roughly in size: each font tightens the same pairs. They differ in degree, by up to 55 units (for Y o, Helvetica's -140 against -85). At 16 pixels, 55 units is 0.9 pixels, and it applies only where that pair occurs. In running text the effect on a line's length is small but not zero, so a clone with identical widths can still end a line a word earlier or later than the original once kerning is on. For logotype work set in capitals, where pairs like A T and L T dominate, the clones will look slightly looser than Helvetica; adjust by eye, or turn off automatic kerning and set it by hand.

Two limits on this table. We ignored kerning in the earlier tables, as stated, so the paragraph-wrapping test describes the widths-only case. And we could not read Inter's kerning with this tool: it returned zero for every pair, which we treat as a limit of our tool with that font's data and not as a statement that Inter has no kerning.

Font files and licence texts measured

Files downloaded and pages read on October 23, 2026.

• Adobe Helvetica AFM metrics (Core 14, version 002.000), as redistributed at github.com/foliojs/pdfkit; the file carries the trademark notice quoted above.
• MyFonts, Helvetica by Linotype, licensing options and prices as displayed in CAD.
• TeX Gyre Heros 2.004 and its GUST Font License, CTAN; the LaTeX Project Public License 1.3c.
• URW++ base 35 fonts, Nimbus Sans with its LICENSE, COPYING and fontconfig files.
• Google Fonts repository: Arimo and Inter font files and their OFL.txt, with Arimo's METADATA listing the licence as OFL; Liberation Fonts LICENSE file.
• Widths, heights and ratios in the table are our measurements with opentype.js 1.3.4. Kerning was ignored.
• Not covered: Apple's terms for its bundled Helvetica, how the AGPL applies to web or app use of Nimbus Sans, measurements of Helvetica Neue or Helvetica Pro, Liberation Sans measurements, and any claim about fonts we did not test.
• Licence readings here are ours and are no substitute for advice on your own use.

What the width difference does to a real paragraph

Numbers per letter are abstract until text wraps. We set one 81-word, 461-character paragraph (written by us for this test) in each font at 16 pixels using a simple greedy line-break rule: put each word on the line if it fits, otherwise start a new line. Kerning is ignored for all fonts, including the Helvetica reference, so this is a model of reflow, not a browser screenshot.

In all three columns the three metric-compatible fonts break every line at the same word as Helvetica, and Inter adds a line and ends on a shorter last line. That is the practical meaning of "metric-compatible": a text block keeps its height, so the page below it does not move.

The same effect appears in interface strings, where it is less forgiving. At 14 pixels, ignoring kerning:

A button sized to its label with 16 pixels of padding on each side measured 123.8 pixels in the first set and 130.7 in Inter. If that button sits in a fixed-width cell, the difference is the gap between a label that fits and one that wraps or clips. The designer-friendly rule is to treat the swap as a design change when widths differ, and to re-check every fixed-width container.

Where Inter's letters differ most

The mean width difference of about 42 units hides a pattern. Widths from the Helvetica file against Inter, in 1,000-unit em:

Most lowercase letters are wider, and the lowercase carries body text, which is why paragraph length grows. The digit 1 is the outlier, much narrower in Inter, which suggests that Inter's default digits are proportional rather than the equal-width digits of the Helvetica file; that is our inference from the widths, not a statement from either project. If you set tables of numbers, check figure alignment after any swap.

Licence by licence

The licence is the point where lists usually fail. Each project ships a licence file, and we read the texts directly.

TeX Gyre Heros: GUST Font License, based on the LPPL

The licence file reads: "This work may be distributed and/or modified under the conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3c of this license or (at your option) any later version." It then adds a request, "but not legally required", that derived works be distributed under changed names.

The LPPL itself says in its conditions: "Activities other than distribution and/or modification of the Work are not covered by this license; they are outside its scope. In particular, the act of running the Work is not restricted." Using Heros to set a logo, a poster or a document is running the Work in that sense and is not restricted by the licence. Distribution is where conditions start. A complete unmodified copy may be distributed under clause 2. Modifying your own copy is allowed (clause 5), but distributing a Derived Work, which includes serving a converted web font to visitors, brings in the conditions of clause 6, so read them before shipping one.

Nimbus Sans: GNU AGPL version 3, with one exception

The URW++ base 35 repository's LICENSE file states that the fonts "are distributed under the GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3 (see the file COPYING), with the following exemption: As a special exception, permission is granted to include these font programs in a Postscript or PDF file that consists of a document that contains text to be displayed or printed using this font, regardless of the conditions or license applying to the document itself."

That exemption is narrow and specific: documents in PostScript or PDF. It says nothing about a website serving the font file, a mobile app bundling it, or a logo file that embeds the font. The AGPL is a strong copyleft licence; we are not in a position to tell you how it applies to those uses, and we would not assume it is harmless. For print and PDF output the exemption is clear. For anything that ships the font file itself, treat Nimbus Sans as a question for a lawyer, or pick Heros or Arimo.

One more fact explains why Nimbus Sans appears everywhere on Linux. The repository's fontconfig file maps it, under "Original PostScript base font mapping", to the family name "Helvetica". On systems that install this package, a request for Helvetica can therefore resolve to Nimbus Sans.

Arimo and Liberation Sans: SIL Open Font License 1.1

The Arimo licence file in the Google Fonts repository (copyright line "2026 The Arimo Project Authors") grants permission "to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font Software". Its conditions include that the font "may not be sold by itself", that copies carry the licence, that a Modified Version may not use a Reserved Font Name without permission, and that the font stays under the OFL. Liberation Sans's licence file carries the same OFL text, with "Reserved Font Name Liberation", and credits Google's Arimo, Tinos and Cousine as the digitised data.

For a designer this is the clean case. You can use it in a logo, on a website, in an app and in print, and you can convert it to a web format. The OFL in detail is in our commercial font licensing guide and the self-hosting steps are in the Google Fonts guide.

Inter: SIL Open Font License 1.1

Inter's licence file in the same repository is the OFL with the line "Copyright 2020 The Inter Project Authors". The rights are the same as Arimo's. Inter's problem is not legal; it is that it is wider and has a taller x-height, so it is a replacement for a layout you are redrawing, not for one you are patching.

Summary by use

Repeat the measurement on any pair of fonts

The test needs Node and the opentype.js library, and it takes about ten minutes. Install opentype.js in a scratch folder, put the two font files and (for Helvetica) the AFM file in it, and run a script along these lines:

import opentype from 'opentype.js';
import fs from 'fs';
const font = opentype.parse(fs.readFileSync('candidate.otf').buffer.slice(0));
const scale = 1000 / font.unitsPerEm;
const text = 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog';
let width = 0;
for (const ch of text) width += font.charToGlyph(ch).advanceWidth * scale;
console.log(Math.round(width));
const h = font.charToGlyph('H').getBoundingBox().y2 * scale;
const x = font.charToGlyph('x').getBoundingBox().y2 * scale;
console.log('cap height', Math.round(h), 'x-height', Math.round(x));

Compare the totals with the same sentence summed from the AFM's WX column. If your two numbers match within a few units, the fonts break lines alike; if they differ by more than a percent, expect reflow. Variable fonts report the default master, so check which weight that is before comparing.

Run the swap on your own layout

Set a paragraph in your current Helvetica layout, swap in TeX Gyre Heros or Arimo, and check that the line breaks hold. If you are choosing among free logo fonts more broadly, our guide to free fonts for logos covers the licence checks for that job.

Swap mistakes that show up late

1. Calling a font a "clone" because the screenshot looks alike. Widths decide reflow.
2. Using Arial as the "free" Helvetica. Arimo's widths match Helvetica's in our test, and Arimo is the one with an open licence; we have not read Arial's own licence.
3. Shipping a Nimbus Sans file on a website because it is free. The AGPL exemption covers PDF and PostScript documents only.
4. Converting TeX Gyre to WOFF2 without reading the Derived Work conditions (clause 6) in the LPPL.
5. Comparing against Helvetica Neue and assuming the same metrics. We measured PostScript Helvetica only.
6. Setting a wordmark in Heros beside an original Helvetica one and ignoring the 1.5 percent cap height difference.

Which one to use

A CSS stack that names the paid font first is fine as far as we can tell, because naming a font in a style rule does not copy the font to the visitor. What it does is use whatever the visitor already has installed. A sensible order is Helvetica, then the free metric-compatible fonts you ship or expect on the system, then a generic family. If you want a fallback that does not shift the layout, pick a fallback with Helvetica's widths, which narrows the choice to Heros, Nimbus Sans or Arimo. An alternative with different widths, such as Inter, will shift lines on the fallback path.

Common questions about Helvetica alternatives

Is Helvetica free for commercial use?

No. It is a commercial font from Linotype, sold through Monotype's MyFonts under Desktop, Webfonts and App licences. The Desktop licence page lists logos and brand identity as allowed uses and websites, apps and e-books as not covered.

What is the closest free font to Helvetica?

By our measurements, TeX Gyre Heros and Nimbus Sans, which match Helvetica's widths on all 62 characters tested and show its distinctive letter shapes in our renders. They are the closest in both metrics and form.

Is Arial the same as Helvetica?

Not in shape. Arial was drawn to match Helvetica's widths, and the open Arimo shows the same widths in our test, but its R, C, G and t differ visibly.

Can I use TeX Gyre Heros for a logo?

The GUST licence is based on the LPPL, which says running the Work is not restricted. Check the LPPL clauses if you plan to distribute modified font files.

Can I put Nimbus Sans on my website?

The licence exemption covers inclusion in PostScript or PDF documents. A website font file is a different use that the exemption does not mention; get advice before relying on it.

Is Inter a Helvetica replacement?

It is a different design, about 8 percent wider in our test with a taller x-height. It works for new layouts, but it will reflow a Helvetica-based layout.

What happens if I name Helvetica in my CSS?

The browser will use the visitor's installed Helvetica if there is one and your next font if not. Naming a font does not itself send a copy; shipping a file does.