# rougier/freetype-gl

OpenGL text using one vertex buffer, one texture and FreeType

Repository: https://github.com/rougier/freetype-gl
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/freetype-gl
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: opengl, freetype, font, c
Last push: 2026-07-20T07:32:29+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 65/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 93, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4720, "days_push": 44, "days_rel": 590, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1745, forks 278 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:30.704230+00:00)

## What it is
A small C library for rendering Unicode text in OpenGL using a single texture atlas and a single vertex buffer, built on top of FreeType. It provides glyph packing, font caching, markup-based text properties, and optional distance-field text rendering.

## Use cases
- render text in an OpenGL application
- draw Unicode strings with a single texture and vertex buffer
- pack font glyphs into a texture atlas
- render fonts without FreeType at runtime using pregenerated headers
- display styled text with colors and underline in OpenGL
- add font rendering to a game engine in C

## When to choose
- you need lightweight, low-level text rendering in OpenGL from C or C++
- you want a single texture atlas and vertex buffer for efficient glyph drawing
- you need Unicode support with markup-style text properties
- you want to bake fonts into headers to avoid a FreeType runtime dependency

## When to avoid
- you need a full GUI text layout engine with complex shaping (use HarfBuzz-based stacks)
- you are not working with OpenGL directly
- you need DirectWrite/CoreText/Direct2D native platform text rendering
- you want a high-level UI framework rather than a rendering primitive

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: graphics, image-processing, sdk
- domain: graphics, cross-platform
- platform: cpp, c, cross-platform, windows
- tags: opengl, freetype, font-rendering, text-rendering, texture-atlas, unicode, game-development, linux, macos, android

## Member repositories
- rougier/freetype-gl (main) score 65

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:30.704230+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:29:16.817707+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rougier/freetype-gl (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:30.704230+00:00, sha 762d52c962c7)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.