- Icon Monks
- Guides
- Choosing a library
How to choose an open source icon library
Pick the library whose license, coverage and packages fit your product, then stick to it. The questions that matter most are: can you use it commercially, does it have the icons you need in one consistent style, does it ship native packages for every platform you build on, and is it still maintained.
The checklist
| Question | Why it matters | Icon Monks |
|---|---|---|
| Is the license permissive? | MIT, ISC or Apache 2.0 let you ship commercially without credit | MIT |
| Does it cover your product? | Mixing sets to fill gaps breaks visual consistency | 6,054 icons in 31 categories, including brands and emoji |
| How many weights? | Fill and outline pairs show state; bold helps at small sizes | Six: thin, light, regular, bold, fill, duotone |
| Native packages? | Same names on web, iOS and Android speed up handoff | React, Vue, web component, icon font, SVG, Flutter, SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose |
| Is it tree-shakeable? | Only the icons you use should reach users | Yes, one module per icon |
| Is it consistent? | One grid and stroke system makes icons look like a set | One path per icon on a 256-unit grid, linted on every build |
| Is it maintained? | Frameworks change; you want fixes and new icons | Regular releases on GitHub, npm and pub.dev |
Match the library to your stack
For React, Vue or Next.js, choose a library with typed components and per-icon modules. For Flutter, SwiftUI or Jetpack Compose, look for a real native package rather than raw SVG files, so icons tint and scale like system icons. For plain HTML or WordPress, an icon font or web component saves a build step. Icon Monks covers all of these with one set of names.
Where Icon Monks is not the best fit
There is no React Native package yet. You can render the SVG strings from toSvg() in @icon-monks/core with react-native-svg in the meantime. There is also no Figma plugin yet; copy SVG from the icon browser instead. If you need hand-drawn or 3D styles, a different set will suit you better.
Test before you commit
List the 30 icons your product needs most, search for each one, and put them side by side at your real size, usually 20 or 24 px. Gaps and inconsistencies show up in minutes. Then check the license file in the repository, not just the website.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free icon library for React?
One with typed, tree-shakeable components, a permissive license and the icons your product needs. Icon Monks fits that with 6,054 icons in six weights under MIT, but test your own list of 30 icons before choosing.
What is the best free icon library for Flutter?
Pick one that ships IconData constants backed by fonts, so icons work with the standard Icon widget and IconTheme. The icon_monks package on pub.dev does this in five weights.
Can I mix icons from two libraries?
You can, but differences in grid, stroke width and corner radius show. If you must, use one library for each kind of icon, for example brand logos from one set and interface icons from another.
More guides
Last updated with version 0.4.3. Release notes