There’s always a catch.

FontAwesome was a great font when released, it offered a great variety of icons ever increasing that were always useful for everyone. This however has changed with time and now FontAwesome decided to cash in on the success of their free font. We’re not saying this is bad but this maybe a really important factor in your decision to upgrade.

FontAwesome 4 is Free, FontAwesome 5 is Free-ish

FontAwesome 4.7 is 100% free, meaning, all the icons you see in there are 100% free. They load fast, they look great, they are available in WebFont, so amusing you’re using them for your website, you are getting everything you need, free, and with no strings attached.

On the other side FontAwesome 5 is being advertised as a free font, yet it has a premium side. And that premium side costs $60. If you’re purely interested in the Free Font and you’re not willing to purchase a license upgrading to FontAwesome 5 is completely without purpose.

Quality VS Quantity. 

If you’re interested purely in the design of the icons and you’re not willing to purchase a $60 Pro License, sticking to FontAwesome 4.7 seems to be the greatest choice possible. For the simple fact that the icons in FontAwesome 5 that are free are great, but the ones in 4.7 seem to have had a bit more care attended to them when initially constructed.

However, if you plan to purchase the $60 license, then yes, the Pro Icons in FontAwesome 5 are great, and they offer different thicknesses and options.

Are there any alternatives?

There are quite a few, but I’m only going to name one. The best icon pack out there, without any doubt, for thin and perfectly crafted icons is IonIcons. Did we mention? It’s 100% free.

Should you upgrade?

To be honest, does your page really need a thin set of icons? It does? Did you know about IonIcons and all the other online alternatives you can Google in 15 seconds? You did. Then you should pay the extra 60$ and upgrade.