Question
What are the pros and cons of using self-hosted fonts?
Answer
Some of the pros of using a self-hosted font include:
1) Ownership of the web font license
2) The ability to subset fonts
3) The ability to buy the exact font you want
The main con to self-hosting a font is that it can be more expensive to purchase a web license to a font rather than paying a subscription fee for a hosted web font service like Typekit or Webtype. Of course, there are free font directories like Google Fonts. However, these directories may not have quite as many typefaces to choose from (although this is quickly changing) and they may not be as complete in terms of styling. For example, many typefaces in the Google Fonts directory only have one weight to choose from. What’s more, free typefaces may be overused which can dilute a company’ brand image.