The short version
- iFontMaker is a $9.99 iPad app where you draw each letter on the screen with a finger or Apple Pencil and export a TTF.
- SnapFont is a phone app where you write the letters on paper and take one photo. The letters are your real handwriting, not a drawing of it.
- iFontMaker is the better tool for designing a font. SnapFont is the better tool for capturing your handwriting.
- I make SnapFont; read this as one side's honest attempt.
Two apps, one word, different jobs
Both apps say "make your own font" and both give you a TTF at the end, which is where the similarity stops. iFontMaker is a font editor with a friendly face: a grid of characters, a canvas, and a pen. You draw the a, then the b, and so on, with Bézier tools if you want to clean up. SnapFont is a font capture tool: you never draw on the screen at all. You write a sheet with a real pen and photograph it.
Side by side
| Feature | SnapFont | iFontMaker |
|---|---|---|
| Device | iPhone, Android | iPad (also Windows) |
| Price | Free first font; Pro subscription for install/export | $9.99 one time |
| How letters are made | Written on paper, photographed | Drawn on screen with finger or Pencil |
| Looks like your handwriting | Yes, it is your handwriting | As close as you can draw it |
| Design a font from scratch | No | Yes |
| Editing individual shapes | Re-capture a letter | Full vector editing |
| Characters | 72 fixed | Any, including Greek, Cyrillic, Japanese |
| Time to a full font | About 20 minutes | Varies; drawing 60+ letters takes a while |
| Install on iPhone | Built in | Export and use a profile app |
| Output | TTF | TTF, web font |
Why drawing on glass is not the same
Everyone who has tried to sign their name on a tablet knows the problem. Glass has no drag, the pen is a different weight, and the letters come out as a slightly nervous impression of your writing. With practice and an Apple Pencil it gets close. It never gets to "that is exactly my hand," because it isn't; it is your hand doing an unfamiliar thing.
Paper has none of that. You write the way you have written for decades, and the photo captures it. That is the entire argument for SnapFont over any drawing tool, and it is the only argument, so weigh it against everything iFontMaker does that SnapFont cannot.
Using them together
This is more common than either app would admit. Capture the real handwriting with SnapFont, then open the exported TTF in iFontMaker (it imports font files) to fix the one letter that never comes out right, add a character SnapFont does not cover, or tidy a stroke. You get the honesty of paper with the control of an editor. The reverse, drawing in iFontMaker and hoping it looks like your handwriting, does not work as well, because the source was never your hand.
On price, the two are different shapes rather than different sizes. iFontMaker is $9.99 once and you own it. SnapFont is free to make and type with a font, and a subscription to install or export it. For one font, iFontMaker is cheaper; for someone who makes several over time, or who wants the install handled, the subscription is what pays for that.
Pick iFontMaker if
- You want to design a display font, not capture your writing.
- You need characters beyond the basic Latin set.
- You like editing outlines and want control over every curve.
- You would rather pay $9.99 once than subscribe.
Pick SnapFont if
- The point is that it looks like you, and drawings of you will not do.
- You have a phone and a pen, and not an iPad and an afternoon.
- You want the font on your iPhone without an extra profile app.
The wider field, including Calligraphr and the desktop tools, is in the free handwriting font generators comparison.