The name may not tell you much about it, but most of us know and see Roboto every day. Google Android Design created this typeface in 2011. It made it the signature font for their mobile operating system, as well as their Campus network and Gmail platform.

What makes Roboto special is its dual nature. At first, it strikes viewers with its purely geometric and mechanical skeleton. After a while, it wins their attention with its open curves and friendly font feature. Unlike similar fonts, Roboto doesn’t compromise on Grotesk distortions and rigid rhythms. Instead, it allows letters to simply settle in their natural widths. Alongside being practical and useful, Roboto is popular due to its humanist and natural flow.

If you are a sworn Roboto fan, check out the Condescended and the Slab Family next to the regular one.

On the other hand, if you are trying to make your design project unique and playful, there are some fonts that are similar to Roboto, but not that overused.

Fonts similar to Roboto

Noto Sans

With Noto Sans, you can write in any language, be it ancient or modern. Unlike Roboto, this sans serif is unmodulated and comes with even 65,535 glyphs.

The font was first designed for Chinese language variations, such as the simplified Han ideograms variants. Next to it, it also supports Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hiragana, Hangul, and Katakana languages. When it comes to diversity, this font is simply unbeatable!

Helvetica

Let us also remind you of a true classic – everybody’s friend Helvetica! Despite being wildly applied in all possible contexts, Helvetica is still designers’ first choice. Better yet, we are not talking of a single font here, but rather a treasure chest of the best ancient serif fonts which make every design warm and romantic. Whatever your plans are, you can’t mess up with Helvetica – it simply works.

Comic Sans MS

Comic Sans MS is another well-known sans serif we first discovered on Windows 95 plus. It is sometimes left aside for being a groovy, novelty tool, but we can all agree it is one of the most readable typefaces on the market. You can barely find a Roboto alternative that does such a good job on small titles.

Hermit

This monospaced font is also very similar to Roboto, but its designer did a much better job planning and programming it. The font is understandable, easy on the eye, and adheres in detail to every standard. Its spacing is adequate, its special characters are unique, and there is probably no reader out there who doesn’t appreciate it.

Variety is also one of the reasons to give Hermit a chance. All necessary weights are present and powerline symbols are already integrated. There is even a portal for editing, coding, and hacking support. It is almost impossible to get all these features for free, but Hermit made this happen.

Akkurat

Akkurat is a 2004 Lineto type foundry product designed by Laurent Brunner. It belongs to the family of grotesque sans serifs and it is adored among the print world, to say at least. Yet, designers often criticize it for not having as vast features as other Roboto alternatives.

Open Sans

Open Sans was signed by the Type Director of Ascender Corp Steve Matteson. Follow the above mentioned link for its friendliest, most neutral version with even 897 characters. You will also discover that it supports Cyrillic and Greek characters next to the ISO Latin ones. Whatever you choose, Open Sans will remain perfectly legible and optimized for any project.

Interstate

Interstate was named this way as it was inspired by the writing on US highway signs. The idea of designer Tobias Frere-Jones was to make the letterforms legible on a longer distance. Ever since its first appearance in 1993, Interstate has been the best-sold product of the Font Bureau.

DIN

DIN is probably the oldest member on this list of fonts similar to Roboto. It has been with us for almost a century, and it is still the number one choice for technical and engineering application. It may appear primitive and unrefined to the modern eye, but it still attracts plenty of attention.

Nudista

Building upon the DIN design, Nudista’s oval-shaped letters can be just as useful for technical application. Yet, the monolinear font designed by TomášBrousil appeared only in 2009 and is therefore not that common and overused. It comes in five different weights, each with a matching italic version.

Georgia

Georgia is, in a matter of speaking, the most traditional, rational choice among sans serif typefaces. It replicates writings from the 19th century, as it packs them with both thin and thick strokes, vertical axes, and ball terminals. Its text figures blend perfectly into continuous text – something you can’t count on when it comes to computer fonts. It is a number-one choice in calligraphy settings, which is why you will often meet it during political campaigns.

Univers

Univers is a complete classic Swiss work of art. The typeface belongs to the neo-grotesque font family and was created pretty much at the same time as Helvetica and Folio. As a matter of speaking, it is the flexible ‘brother’ from the Helvetica family. If you explore it, you will see that designer Adrian Frutiger gave it a much larger set of widths and weights to work with.

Cabin

Is there a better way to return to humanist and modern fonts than checking out Cabin? Despite being a geometric sans, Cabin makes use of optical adjustments, stylish proportions, and a wide range of widths and weights. Designers Eric Gill and Edward Jonson worked with monolinear stroke contracts and thin curves. This way, they gave Cabin a unique and recognizable appearance.

AktivGrotesk

AktivGrotesk was created with a single goal – to take Helvetica out of the way. Design group Dalton Maag solved Helvetica’s quirks with sorted Univers features, and the result was incredibly warm. We could argue that there are more adorable Grotesk alternatives out there, but this one simply sticks to the eye.

Neue Haas Unica

Neue Haas Unica compensates for the lacks and flaws of AktivGrotesk, as it is cleaner, warmer, and most importantly – sharper. Designer ToshiOmagari achieved this by using slightly narrower letterforms and looser spacing. This typeface is offered in even nine different weights and matching italics. This was not the case with Monotype’s pioneer grotesque typeface – the 1970 Hass Unica.

Nimbus Sans

Nimbus Sans, on the other hand, was the German attempt to solve the problems of Helvetica and to clean it up. We could discuss how successful this URW++ attempt was, but the guys did come up with a richer product. Nimbus Sans can be purchased in many different cuts, and users get to pick from an extended and a condensed version.

Highway Gothic

Similar to Interstate, Highway Gothic aims to make highway signs impactful and easily readable at high speeds. The typeface belongs to the standard FHWA Series of alphabets of the US Federal Highway Administration. Nevertheless, it is used in many countries worldwide.

Swiss 721

Bitstream also took their shot to take Helvetica down. In 1982, they released Bitstream – a font family with extended/condensed widths and seven weights.

Transport

Transport is another traffic tool that tries to make signs more legible. It is a British product delivered by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir in the 1960s.

Compared to similar sans serifs, Transport has pretty limited assets. The original double-weight kit was replaced with the 2012 six-weights pack called New Transport.

Verdana

Verdana is the common name for the four TrueType fonts signed by expert designers Matthew Carter and Tom Rickner. They can solve a variety of problems of on-screen displays. We recommend them for all types of web designs.

When choosing the perfect font for your design, always have the reader in mind. Who are they? What do they expect?

If the font doesn’t work for the reader, it may cause some serious damage to your business. On the other hand, if it portrays your values in the right ways, it can work out miracles.

If you enjoyed reading this article on fonts similar to Roboto, you should check out this one about fonts similar to Impact.

We also wrote about a few related subjects like the Roblox font and what font does Roblox use, the best 72 free fonts for logos to create modern and creative designs, fonts similar to Futura, fonts similar to Avenir, fonts similar to Calibri, fonts similar to Gotham, and fonts similar to Montserrat.