Google Font API Library or FontFace

Question

Google launched the Google Fonts API, but @fontface appeared in the CSS3 standard, which allows us to have non-web-safe fonts on websites.

Can anyone suggest for and against each other. Which one is preferable and why?

Answer 1

To my knowledge, the Google Font API uses @font-face to download fonts. eg. http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Tangerine It also performs browser discovery to check on Internet Explorer, for which it will only serve IE .eot font files.

Now I will say that you are asking for a comparison between creating your own font files for use with @font-face and working with a Google solution.

Google Font API

Pro

• Ease of use
• Google CDN provides fast downloads and high performance
• Integrated Browser Detection
• Free!

against

• Small selection of fonts

Google’s licensing scheme, which requires that the font is not only freely available, but also Open Source, means that the number of fonts that will be available for this service will naturally be small.

Create your own @font-face file

Pro

• Huge selection of fonts

against

• Legal and licensing issues
• Purchasing an embedded license may cost extra
• Rolling your own fonts to support IE can be problematic

Of course, commercial options like Typekit have the best of both worlds, but you have to pay for it. Other sources of free embeddable fonts include Font Squirrel and League Roaming Type .

Answer 2

Use the Google API if it does not have a specific font that Google does not have. Otherwise, the Google API will make your life easier in my opinion.

The new Google API is basically a free version of TypeKit .

Answer 3

Keep in mind that @fontface is still not "100%" in IE, so it is pretty restrictive. If it's between @fontface and Google, you have nothing to lose with Google. In addition, Google bandwidth is free, while otherwise you will host font files.

Hope this helps :)