Free fonts similar to Segoe UI

The alternatives in detail

How to recognize Segoe UI

Developed for Microsoft with Steve Matteson and introduced with Windows Vista in 2006. It is the Windows system font.

• Open apertures and gently flared, humanist shapes.
• It appears in stacks next to -apple-system and Roboto, which signals a system font stack.
• Text looks native on Windows and different everywhere else.

In a site’s CSS it may appear as Segoe UI Variable, Segoe UI Web, Segoe. Not sure what you are looking at? Identify the font on the live page first.

Seen on sites we inspected

These pages show the exact sizes, weights and spacing measured on the live site, for Segoe UI or the brand typeface that replaced it.

• What font does LinkedIn use?
• What font does Microsoft use?
• What font does Facebook use?

Is Segoe UI free?

It ships with Windows, and the copy on your PC is not licensed for serving from your own website. Since 2025 it is also offered through Adobe Fonts. Most sites simply name it in a system font stack, so only Windows visitors see it.

The alternatives on this page are open source, so you can use them on commercial sites, self-host the files and ship them in products. Read more in font licensing in plain English.

Use Open Sans in your CSS

Put the free font first and keep sensible fallbacks behind it. Self-hosting the files is the most private and usually the fastest option.

@font-face {
  font-family: "Open Sans";
  src: url("/fonts/open-sans-400.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 400;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Open Sans";
  src: url("/fonts/open-sans-700.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 700;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Open Sans", "Segoe UI", system-ui, -apple-system, Roboto, sans-serif;
}