React Icons vs Simple Icons (2026)
When building modern web applications, choosing the right icon library can significantly impact both your application's aesthetic and its performance. In this comprehensive comparison, we pit React Icons against Simple Icons to help you make an informed decision for your React, Next.js, Vue, or Svelte project.
Together, these libraries represent some of the most popular open-source UI assets available today. React Icons boasts an impressive 52,000 icons (licensed under MIT), while Simple Icons counters with 3,200 highly-polished icons (licensed under CC0 1.0 (Public Domain)).
Below, we dive into the technical details: bundle size impacts, tree-shaking capabilities, TypeScript support, explicit commercial licensing rules, and real-world implementation examples.
TECHNICAL FEATURE COMPARISON
When comparing React Icons and Simple Icons, developer experience features like TypeScript definitions and tree-shaking support are just as important as the icon count. Review the matrix below to see how they stack up.
LICENSING & COMMERCIAL USE DEEP-DIVE
Legal compliance is critical when selecting assets for a commercial software project. Understanding the nuances between the MIT license used by React Icons and the CC0 1.0 (Public Domain) license used by Simple Icons will ensure your project remains risk-free.
React Icons uses the MIT License — one of the most permissive open-source licenses. You can use it in any commercial project, modify the icons, and redistribute them freely. The only requirement is preserving the copyright notice in copies of the software.
Simple Icons uses CC0 1.0 (Public Domain). All copyrights have been waived. You can copy, modify, distribute, and use the icons for any purpose — including commercial — without attribution.
PERFORMANCE & BUNDLE SIZE
Modern front-end frameworks like React and Next.js heavily penalize large JavaScript bundles. This makes tree-shaking—the ability of a bundler to remove unused code—a crucial factor when choosing between React Icons and Simple Icons.
- React Icons Performance: Because React Icons supports tree-shaking, importing a single icon will only add a tiny fraction of a kilobyte to your final bundle. You can safely install the entire package without performance concerns.
- Simple Icons Performance: Similarly, Simple Icons is fully tree-shakable. Your Webpack or Turbopack build step will strip out any unused icons, ensuring your First Contentful Paint (FCP) metrics remain exceptional.
REACT IMPORT SYNTAX & INTEGRATION
Here is how you actually write the code to import and use each library in a React or Next.js component. Both libraries offer distinct APIs and integration patterns.
import { FaHome } from 'react-icons/fa'
import { MdSettings } from 'react-icons/md'
import { HiUser } from 'react-icons/hi'
export default function App() {
return (
<div>
<FaHome size={24} />
<MdSettings size={24} />
<HiUser size={24} />
</div>
)
}import {
SiGithub,
SiVercel,
SiStripe,
SiReact,
SiNextdotjs,
SiTailwindcss,
} from '@icons-pack/react-simple-icons'
// All components use 'Si' prefix + PascalCase brand name
export function TechStack() {
return (
<div className="flex items-center gap-4">
{/* Use currentColor — inherits from parent */}
<SiGithub size={24} />
<SiVercel size={24} />
{/* Use official brand color */}
<SiStripe size={24} color="#635BFF" />
<SiReact size={24} color="#61DAFB" />
{/* Social links row */}
<a href="https://github.com" aria-label="GitHub">
<SiGithub size={20} className="text-gray-600 hover:text-gray-900" />
</a>
</div>
)
}FINAL VERDICT: WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?
Still undecided? Here is our definitive breakdown of when to use React Icons versus when to opt for Simple Icons.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Which is better: React Icons or Simple Icons?
Choosing between React Icons and Simple Icons depends entirely on your project's technical requirements and design aesthetic. React Icons provides 52,000 icons and is notable for one package replaces 25+ separate installs, while Simple Icons offers 3,200 icons and is best known for 3,109 brand icons — 6x more than font awesome brands (465) at zero cost.
Are React Icons and Simple Icons completely free to use?
Yes. Both libraries are highly permissive open-source projects. React Icons is licensed under MIT, and Simple Icons is licensed under CC0 1.0 (Public Domain). Both licenses permit free commercial usage, modification, and redistribution in both personal and enterprise projects.
Do these libraries support TypeScript natively?
Yes, React Icons includes excellent built-in TypeScript definitions. Similarly, Simple Icons offers robust native TypeScript support for an improved developer experience.
NPM INSTALLATION COMMANDS
npm install react-icons
npm install @icons-pack/react-simple-icons