Open source icon licenses explained

"Free icons" rarely means "no rules". Every open source icon set has a license that says whether you may use it commercially, whether you must credit the author and what happens when you modify the icons. The good news: most popular sets use permissive licenses that allow almost anything. This guide explains each license you will meet on Iconyz, in plain English.

This is a practical summary, not legal advice. The license text linked on each icon set page is what counts. For a high-stakes product, ask a lawyer.

The short answer

Of the 238 icon sets on Iconyz, 108 use the MIT license, 52 use CC BY 4.0 and 31 use Apache 2.0. Only two sets forbid commercial use. Here is what each license family means for a typical website or app:

MIT, ISC, BSD and Apache 2.0

These permissive licenses were written for software, and icon sets published as code packages usually adopt them. They let you use, copy, modify and sell products containing the icons. There is one condition: when you redistribute the icons, for example in an app bundle, a theme or an npm package, you must include the copyright notice and license text.

In practice, most teams add the license to their "open source notices" or third-party licenses page, next to their other dependencies. You don't need to credit the author next to each icon.

Apache 2.0 adds a few details: include a copy of the license, keep any NOTICE file the project ships, and state if you changed the files. It also grants patent rights, which is why large companies such as Google and IBM favor it.

CC0 and the Unlicense

These dedicate the work to the public domain as far as the law allows. You can do anything with the icons without credit. Note that public domain covers copyright only: a CC0 logo set such as Simple Icons still depicts trademarks (see below).

CC BY 4.0: free with credit

Creative Commons Attribution is the second most common icon license. You may use the icons commercially and modify them, but you must give appropriate credit:

• the author's name,
• a link to the license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
• a link to the source, if practical,
• and a note if you changed the icons.

The credit has to be reasonable for the medium: a line in your site footer, an "About" or "Credits" page, or the app's settings screen are all common. Keeping the license in a file that users never see is generally not enough for CC BY.

CC BY-SA: share-alike

Same as CC BY, plus a condition: if you adapt the icons, for example by redrawing, recoloring or combining them, you must release those adapted icons under the same CC BY-SA license. Using unmodified icons in your product does not put your product under CC BY-SA.

CC BY-NC: no commercial use

"NC" means non-commercial. You may not use these icons in anything primarily intended for commercial advantage or payment, and that includes most business websites and paid apps. Use them for personal and educational projects only, or ask the author for a commercial license.

SIL Open Font License (OFL)

Icon fonts often use the OFL. You may use the icons in any project, commercial included, and embed or bundle the font with software. You may not sell the font file on its own. If you modify the font, you must release it under the OFL and must not use the original's reserved font name.

GPL and MPL

These copyleft licenses come mostly from WordPress-related sets such as Dashicons. They allow commercial use, but if you distribute the icon files, modified or not, you must do so under the same license with its text included. How GPL applies to images embedded in a larger product is debated, so if you ship closed-source software, prefer a permissive set or check with a lawyer. MPL 2.0 is narrower: copyleft applies only to the MPL files you modify.

Brand logos and trademarks

Logo sets such as SVG Logos and Simple Icons are licensed permissively, but the logos themselves are trademarks of their owners. You may generally use them to refer to the product, as in "Sign in with GitHub" or "Works with Slack", following each brand's guidelines. Don't modify them, and don't use them in a way that suggests endorsement.

How to give attribution

A good credit names the title, author, source and license. Each icon set page on Iconyz shows the author and links the license. For example:

Icons: "Twitter Emoji" by Twitter, CC BY 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

<p class="credits">
  Emoji by <a href="https://github.com/twitter/twemoji">Twitter</a>,
  licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>.
</p>

For MIT, ISC, BSD and Apache sets, add the license text to your third-party notices instead:

Tabler Icons — MIT License
Copyright (c) <years> Paweł Kuna
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy…

Copy the exact copyright line from the set's own LICENSE file, linked from its set page.

Quick checklist

1. Open the icon set page and read its license line.
2. Commercial project? Avoid sets marked NC.
3. CC BY or CC BY-SA? Add a visible credit.
4. MIT, ISC, BSD, Apache, OFL or GPL? Ship the license text with your product.
5. Logos? Follow the brand's guidelines and don't alter them.

Want to avoid attribution entirely? Browse by category and look for MIT, Apache or CC0 in the license table, for example in UI 24px icons. Or read how to choose an icon set.