Can I use a font I found on another website? Font licensing in plain English

A font is software, and the license is the rulebook

You saw a typeface on someone’s site, you inspected it, and now you know its name. Can you use it in your own project? It depends on the license, and the license depends on where the font comes from.

A font file is a piece of software. As with most software, you do not buy the font itself. You buy, or are given, a license to use it in certain ways. That document is usually called an End User License Agreement, or EULA, and every foundry writes its own. Two fonts that look alike can come with very different rules.

This is why a font loading on a public website tells you nothing about your own rights. The site’s owner holds a license that covers their site. It does not extend to you, and downloading their font files to reuse them breaks that license, whatever your intentions.

Step one: find out what the font is and who serves it

Licensing starts with two facts: the real family name and the source. You can get both from your browser without installing anything.

1. Right-click the text and choose Inspect. In the Elements panel, open the Computed tab and scroll to the Rendered Fonts section at the bottom. It names the font that is actually drawn and says whether it is a network resource or a local file.
2. Open the Network panel, filter by Font and reload the page. Look at the domain of each font file. fonts.gstatic.com means Google Fonts. use.typekit.net means Adobe Fonts. The site’s own domain means self-hosted files: either a license bought from a foundry, or an open source font the team hosts itself.
3. If the CSS uses an internal alias such as brand-sans, read the file name in the Network panel or search the stylesheet for @font-face. The real family name is often in the file name.

The full walkthrough is in how to find a font with Chrome DevTools, and there is a dedicated guide to checking whether a font is from Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts.

With Font Inspector, click Pick text on page and then the text. The panel shows the family, the rendered font and its source. Get this font opens the family on Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts when that is the source. For self-hosted fonts it lists the files the page loads, and for many popular paid fonts it suggests free Google Fonts look-alikes. Those are similar, not identical.

One limit to keep in mind: finding a font does not license it. The extension tells you where to look. The foundry or provider tells you the terms.

The main license types and what each one covers

Commercial foundries sell licenses by type of use. Names and details vary from one EULA to the next, so treat this table as a map, not as the terms of any particular font.

The most common mistake is to assume one license covers everything. You bought the font for a brochure, so you upload it to the web server as well. At most foundries that needs a separate web license.

Subscriptions bundle several uses but still draw lines. Adobe Fonts covers commercial projects, client work, logos, print and video. It does not let you embed the fonts in an application or install them on a server. Those need a license from the foundry.

How web font licenses are usually metered

Web licenses are priced by how much the font is seen, not by how many designers use it. Three models cover most of what you will meet.

• Traffic tiers. You pick a tier that matches your monthly pageviews or unique visitors. If your traffic grows past the tier, you are expected to move up. Some foundries charge once for a tier and others bill every year, so read that line carefully.
• Domains. Some licenses name the domains the font may be served from, or count them. A second brand site can mean a second license.
• Subscription with hosted delivery. The provider serves the files through its own embed code and the fonts work for as long as you subscribe. With Adobe Fonts there is no pageview limit, self-hosting the files is not allowed, and if the subscription ends the site falls back to the next font in your stack.

Pay attention to whose name is on the license. It should belong to whoever owns the website, which is usually the client and not the freelancer or agency. Adobe is explicit about this: a client’s website must load Adobe Fonts through the client’s own Creative Cloud subscription.

Open source fonts: the OFL and Apache 2.0

Open source fonts are free to use, including commercially, and you may also modify and redistribute them. Two licenses are the most common.

SIL Open Font License (OFL)

The OFL was written for fonts and is the license behind most of Google Fonts. It lets you use, study, modify and redistribute the font freely. You can use it for websites, print, apps, logos and products you sell. You do not have to credit the designer in what you make. The license applies to the font files, not to the documents you create with them.

• The font may not be sold by itself. You can bundle it with software or a product you sell, but you cannot sell the font files on their own.
• The copyright notice and the license travel with the files. If you redistribute the font, include them.
• Reserved Font Names. If the author has reserved the font’s name, a modified version must use a different name unless the author gives written permission.
• Derivatives stay under the OFL. A modified version cannot be released under another license.

Apache License 2.0

Apache 2.0 is a general software license that some font families use. It also allows commercial use, modification and redistribution. When you redistribute the files you keep the license and notices and mark files you changed. It has no reserved name mechanism.

Everything on Google Fonts is open source, which is why it is the safe default for so many projects. The details, including logos and print, are in are Google Fonts free for commercial use?.

Two traps: “free for personal use” and system fonts

Free for personal use

Many free font sites carry fonts marked “free for personal use”. That means non-commercial use only: a birthday card, a school project. A client’s logo, a business website and merchandise are all commercial. The free version is often how the designer advertises the paid license.

The trap for client work is timing. You mock up a brand with a personal-use font, the client approves it, and only then do you look for the commercial license. If the terms are unclear or the designer cannot be reached, you redo approved work. Check before the first presentation, and get the terms from the designer’s own site, not from an aggregator.

System fonts

Fonts that ship with an operating system, such as Arial, Georgia or Segoe UI, are licensed to you as part of that system. Naming them in a CSS font stack is fine, because the browser uses the copy installed on the visitor’s device. Microsoft says so directly: you do not even need to be a Windows licensee to list a Windows font in a font stack.

What you may not do is redistribute the files. Microsoft’s font FAQ rules out copying Windows fonts to a web server or converting them to WOFF2. Print, graphics and logos made with them are allowed. Other vendors publish their own terms. How stacks work is covered in CSS font stacks and fallbacks.

Logos, outlined text, and what happens without a license

To set a logo you need a license that lets you install the font, normally a desktop license or a subscription. Once the text is converted to outlines or exported as an image, the artwork is no longer font software. Adobe’s licensing FAQ puts it this way: you can trademark the logo, but not the font in it. Your client needs no font license to use the finished artwork, only to edit the live text.

Open source fonts are simple here. Google states that its fonts can be used in any logo. With commercial fonts, read the EULA, because some foundries treat logo or trademark use as its own item.

What if you skip the license? Web fonts are easy to spot. Anyone can see which font files a page loads, using the steps above, and that includes foundries. If a foundry finds its font on your site without a matching license, expect a request to buy the correct one, possibly covering past use. Using software outside its license can also lead to a legal claim. Checking before launch costs a few minutes.

A checklist for a font you found on someone else’s site

1. Make sure it is live text and get the real family name from the rendered font, not only from the declared font-family. See how to identify the font on any website.
2. Identify the source: Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, self-hosted or a system font.
3. Google Fonts: it is open source. Open the family’s page, confirm the license and use it.
4. Adobe Fonts: you need a Creative Cloud subscription, the site must use Adobe’s embed code, and a client site needs the client’s own subscription.
5. Self-hosted: search for the family name, find the foundry and read its licensing page. Buy each license you need: desktop for design work, web for the site, app if it ships inside an app.
6. Match the web license to the site’s real traffic and put it in the site owner’s name.
7. Out of budget? Pick an open source alternative with similar proportions and test it with your own text in the font pairing playground. More options are in how to get the font you found.
8. File the EULA and the receipt with the project.

And one rule with no exceptions: do not download font files from another site’s server to use as your own.