Heroicons is a solid choice — 1,297 icons, MIT licensed. But it is not the only one, and it is not the best fit for every project. Below are 8 open-source alternatives ranked by how directly they answer the reasons people look for a replacement: more coverage, more visual range, or a simpler license.
| Library | Icons | Variants | License | React package | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lucide Icons | 1,979 | outline only | ISC | lucide-react |
vs Heroicons |
| Radix Icons | 345 | outline only | MIT | @radix-ui/react-icons |
vs Heroicons |
| Feather Icons | 286 | outline only | MIT | react-feather |
vs Heroicons |
| Tabler Icons | 6,324 | outline only | MIT | @tabler/icons-react |
vs Heroicons |
| Phosphor Icons | 9,198 | thin, light, regular, bold, fill and duotone | MIT | phosphor-react |
vs Heroicons |
| Material Design Icons | 14,001 | outlined, rounded, sharp, two-tone and filled | Apache 2.0 | @mui/icons-material |
vs Heroicons |
| Material Symbols | 18,547 | variable weight, fill, grade and optical size axes | Apache 2.0 | @material-symbols/svg-400 |
vs Heroicons |
| Bootstrap Icons | 2,090 | outline, filled and more | MIT | bootstrap-icons |
vs Heroicons |
Tailwind CSS projects of any size, and teams that want their icons styled with the same utilities as the rest of their markup. The three drawn sizes also make Heroicons a good fit for interfaces with a strict type and spacing scale.
Outside the Tailwind ecosystem the utility-class ergonomics matter less, and Lucide or Tabler give you more icons. For dense 15px-scale interfaces, Radix Icons is drawn specifically for that.
Start from the constraint that actually binds your project. If it is coverage, sort by icon count — the difference between a 286-icon set and a 20,000-icon set is whether you ever have to design a glyph yourself. If it is visual range, look at variants per concept: a library with six weights lets you build hierarchy without a second dependency. If it is legal simplicity, avoid CC BY sets where attribution is impractical.
All of these libraries are indexed on IconStash, so you can search one concept and compare how every set drew it before committing.
The usual reasons are coverage, style range and licensing. Heroicons ships 1,297 icons in outline and solid. If you need concepts it does not cover, or several visual weights from one set, or a license without attribution, one of the alternatives below will fit better.
Every library listed here is open source and free for commercial use. Most are MIT, ISC or Apache 2.0, none of which require attribution. The exception in this list is any CC BY 4.0 set, which does require a visible credit — check the license column in the table above before committing.
Technically yes, but mixing sets usually looks inconsistent because each one draws to its own grid and stroke weight. If you need to fill a gap, prefer pulling a single icon and redrawing it to match your primary set.