When it comes to sans-serif fonts, Helvetica is the first name that comes out on top. Even though it was made in 1957, Helvetica is still one of the most widely used fonts available today.
Many reputable brands use Helvetica for their logo designs, including Target, American Apparel, Lufthansa, and Knoll. The clean and graceful design of the letters is what makes Helvetica so desirable and sought after by many designers.
However, Helvetica is not a font you can use freely. Acquiring a license to use Helvetica in your commercial or client projects can be quite expensive and it comes with quite a few restrictions too.
The good news is you can always get fonts similar to Helvetica at a much lower price, even for free. And we’ve handpicked the best fonts like Helvetica for this collection.
These fonts look just like Helvetica but with minor differences. There are both free and premium fonts in there too. Have a look.
Helotypo
Helotypo is a modern sans-serif typeface inspired by fonts like Helvetica. However, this font also features a few stylistic elements that add more value to its letter design. It also comes with lots of OpenType features, ligatures, glyphs, symbols, and multilingual support. You can craft professional-looking logos and headings with this font.
Helovatica
As you can guess from its name, this font is crafted as a derivation of Helvetica. While it follows the design of Helvetica very closely, this font also incorporates a few of its own unique touches in some letters. This makes it much more than just a duplicate copy of Helvetica. This font is ideal for corporate and business branding designs.
Visby CF
Visby CF is a modern sans-serif font that comes with a geometric letter design. This font has a set of letters that resembles Helvetica but with a few slight adjustments. Although, this font is much more flexible than Helvetica itself. Visby CF comes with 8 different weights and obliques. As well as Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.
Exensa Grotesk
Exensa is a high-quality sans-serif font featuring a clean and modern letter design. This font has sharp letters that try to mirror the look of Helvetica but in its own style. It comes in 5 different weights ranging from light to black. And it includes SVG fonts as well. You can use it to craft titles and logos for luxury brands and high-end businesses.
LORIN
Lorin is another geometric sans-serif font that has a design similar to Helvetica. This font has clean letters with sharp edges that offer a beautifully aesthetic look for your typography designs. It’s especially suitable for high-end logo and branding designs. The font includes 4 weights ranging from light to extra bold.
JUST Sans
Just Sans is another popular font family with a letter design similar to Helvetica. It includes an extensive selection of fonts for you to choose from, featuring 7 different font weights, a bonus variable font, OpenType features, and several stylistic sets. Each font features more than 620 characters with extended numerals as well.
SOLO
Solo is a simple and fresh sans-serif font with a clean letter design. It has the same looks and strokes as Helvetica and takes inspiration from the same Swiss designs that originated the Helvetica typeface. It comes in 3 different weights including light, regular, and bold. It’s available in WebFont and SVG formats too.
Stage Grotesk
This is a creative sans serif font that combines elements from classic fonts such as Helvetica with modern design elements to offer a unique look for your typography designs. It includes 14 different fonts featuring 7 weights with italics for each weight. There are more than 600 glyphs and symbols included in the font.
VISIA Pro
Visia Pro is the perfect font you can use to craft minimalist text and typography designs for professional projects. This font also follows a letter design similar to Helvetica but with much thinner and cleaner strokes. It also includes 7 weights including extra light to extra bold and heavy. It’s perfect for branding designs, logos, packaging designs, and everything in between.
HAMLIN
Hamlin is another font similar to Helvetica that follows a minimalist design approach. It has clean and simple letters with geometric designs. This font is especially suitable for high-end and luxury branding designs. It comes in 4 weights with WebFont and SVG fonts. If you’re going for a classic and timeless look, this font is perfect for your project.
Proda Sans
Proda Sans is a big family of sans-serif fonts. It has a beautiful letter design like Helvetica, except with a few slight adjustments. This font also has geometric designs that take inspiration from humanist-style typefaces from the mid-20th century. The font includes 9 weights ranging from thin to black as well as italic counterparts of each font, making it a total of 18 fonts.
Aceh
This font comes with a clean and geometric letter design similar to Helvetica but it has letters with much thicker strokes. However, you can always use a thinner font weight to craft different styles of typography. The font includes 9 different weights in multiple styles. There’s a total of 36 fonts included in this family of sans-serif fonts.
George Sans
George Sans is a stylish and modern sans serif font that takes inspiration from Helvetica and other popular fonts. It has its own unique style featuring creative letter designs. The letter “e” in particular has an attractive look that will add personality to your titles and logo designs. The font is available in 8 weights from light to bold as well as italics.
Neuvetica
Just as the name describes, Neuvetica is a sans-serif font that puts a modern spin on the classic Helvetica font style. It takes inspiration from Swiss designs and offers a truly hand-crafted letter design for adding unique typography to your projects. There’s a total of 14 fonts in this family, featuring 8 different weights. They are ideal for everything from logo designs to signage, labels, and more.
Magnify Pro
Another fantastic alternative to Helvetica, Magnify Pro is a clean and modern sans-serif font suitable for professional designs. This font comes in two different styles including regular and reverse contrast fonts. You can combine these two fonts to craft bold and creative typography designs for corporate businesses and brands.
Leo Sans
Leo Sans is a family of 10 sans serif fonts that feature weights ranging from thin to heavy. This font has clean-cut letters with sharp edges, just like Helvetica. However, it also has straight strokes without any curves. It’s perfect for crafting bold and professional titles for your branding designs.
Best Free Fonts Like Helvetica
If you’re looking for a font for a personal project, a free Helvetica alternative would be more than enough for simple typography designs. Try some of these free fonts.
Roboto
Roboto is the best free alternative to Helvetica you can find. It has a very relaxed license that allows you to use it with all sorts of commercial projects for free. And there are many font weights to choose from as well. Roboto is also available in condensed and slab styles.
Open Sans
Open Sans is another free font that comes with a design similar to Helvetica. This font is widely known for its readability and classic letter design. It’s perfect for titles, headings, paragraphs, and all kinds of typography designs. Open Sans is completely free to use with commercial projects.
BT Beau Sans
This is a family of sans-serif fonts you can download for free. It includes a range of font weights with different styles for crafting clean titles and logos. The letter design is also quite similar to Helvetica but with smaller changes. You can use it for free with commercial projects.
Founder
Founder is a free alternative to Helvetica that features a clean-cut letter design. It has letters with sharp edges and curves, just like Helvetica. There are 6 weights included in this font and you can use them for free only with personal projects.
Relato Sans
Relato Sans takes inspiration from Helvetica and Univers fonts. It has sharp and elegant letters that will fit perfectly with business and professional designs. The font comes in multiple weights. It’s free for personal use.
Axalp Grotesk
This free font features a very contemporary design inspired by Helvetica and other Swiss-made fonts. It’s ideal for crafting clean typography designs for modern brands and businesses. The free version of the font only includes the light font weight and it’s only available for personal use.
If you’re a fan of Times New Roman, you should check out our best fonts similar to Times New Roman collection.