Apple Font Tool Suite vs AFDKO

Struggling to choose between Apple Font Tool Suite and AFDKO? Both products offer unique advantages, making it a tough decision.

Apple Font Tool Suite is a Office & Productivity solution with tags like font, typography, design, editing.

It boasts features such as Edit OpenType and TrueType fonts, Preview fonts, Validate fonts, Generate font tables, Subset fonts, Merge fonts, Convert between font formats and pros including Powerful font editing capabilities, Integrated suite of tools, Included with macOS - no extra cost, Optimized for macOS.

On the other hand, AFDKO is a Development product tagged with font, opentype, typeface, typography, afdko.

Its standout features include OpenType font development toolkit, Font validation tools, Font hinting tools, Font editing tools, Font testing tools, Command line interface, Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), and it shines with pros like Free and open source, Powerful font development capabilities, Widely used industry standard, Active community support, Works with major font editors, Supports complex OpenType features.

To help you make an informed decision, we've compiled a comprehensive comparison of these two products, delving into their features, pros, cons, pricing, and more. Get ready to explore the nuances that set them apart and determine which one is the perfect fit for your requirements.

Apple Font Tool Suite

Apple Font Tool Suite

The Apple Font Tool Suite is a set of utilities for font development on macOS. It includes tools for editing font files, validating fonts, generating font previews, and more. Useful for designers and developers working with fonts.

Categories:
font typography design editing

Apple Font Tool Suite Features

  1. Edit OpenType and TrueType fonts
  2. Preview fonts
  3. Validate fonts
  4. Generate font tables
  5. Subset fonts
  6. Merge fonts
  7. Convert between font formats

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

Powerful font editing capabilities

Integrated suite of tools

Included with macOS - no extra cost

Optimized for macOS

Cons

Mac-only - no Windows or Linux support

Limited documentation and help resources

Less full-featured than some paid font editor tools


AFDKO

AFDKO

AFDKO (Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType) is an open source toolkit for developing complex OpenType fonts. It provides a set of tools, libraries and documentation that allows font developers to create and edit OpenType fonts.

Categories:
font opentype typeface typography afdko

AFDKO Features

  1. OpenType font development toolkit
  2. Font validation tools
  3. Font hinting tools
  4. Font editing tools
  5. Font testing tools
  6. Command line interface
  7. Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Free and open source

Powerful font development capabilities

Widely used industry standard

Active community support

Works with major font editors

Supports complex OpenType features

Cons

Steep learning curve

Command line interface not user friendly

Limited documentation

Buggy at times

Difficult to customize and extend