Material Symbols is a solid choice — 18,547 icons, Apache 2.0 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material Design Icons | 14,001 | outlined, rounded, sharp, two-tone and filled | Apache 2.0 | @mui/icons-material |
vs Material Symbols |
| Material Symbols Light | 15,969 | one weight | Apache 2.0 | @material-symbols/svg-300 |
vs Material Symbols |
| Fluent UI Icons | 20,170 | regular and filled | MIT | @fluentui/react-icons |
vs Material Symbols |
| Carbon Icons | 2,644 | outline only | Apache 2.0 | @carbon/icons-react |
vs Material Symbols |
| Lucide Icons | 1,979 | outline only | ISC | lucide-react |
vs Material Symbols |
| Heroicons | 1,297 | outline and solid | MIT | @heroicons/react |
vs Material Symbols |
| Phosphor Icons | 9,198 | thin, light, regular, bold, fill and duotone | MIT | phosphor-react |
vs Material Symbols |
| Tabler Icons | 6,324 | outline only | MIT | @tabler/icons-react |
vs Material Symbols |
Products that want continuous control over icon weight and fill state, and teams that would rather ship one font file than manage five icon sets.
If you need individually imported SVG components with tree-shaking, the older Material Icons set or Lucide is a better fit — a variable font loads all 18,547 glyphs even if you use thirty of them.
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. Material Symbols ships 18,547 icons in variable weight, fill, grade and optical size axes. 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.