Lucide vs Heroicons – Which Icon Library Should You Use?
Side-by-side comparison of Lucide and Heroicons: icon count, style, license, React support, and which to choose for your next project.
Lucide and Heroicons are two of the most popular open-source SVG icon sets for modern web apps. Both are MIT licensed, outline-first, and work natively in React. The difference is scope versus polish.
Design philosophy
Lucide is a community-maintained fork of Feather Icons, expanded to 1,500+ icons with a consistent 24px grid, 1.5px stroke, and rounded caps. Its goal is broad coverage across all product UI needs.
Heroicons was designed by the Tailwind CSS team with an emphasis on a small, hand-polished set (292 icons) deeply optimized for Tailwind utility class workflows. Every icon is reviewed for optical consistency before shipping.
Navigation icons compared
Common UI icons
Icon count & coverage
Lucide ships 1,500+ icons covering navigation, commerce, communication, media, development, and dozens of other categories. Heroicons covers 292 icons. Every icon is present, carefully crafted, and nothing is redundant.
For most product UIs, Heroicons’ 292 is enough. The moment you reach for a niche icon (a specific file type, brand logo, or technical concept), Lucide covers you.
React integration
Both have excellent React packages:
# Lucide
npm install lucide-react
# Heroicons
npm install @heroicons/react// lucide-react, single named export
import { Search, Bell, Settings } from "lucide-react";
<Search size={20} strokeWidth={1.5} />;
// heroicons, outline or solid path
import { MagnifyingGlassIcon } from "@heroicons/react/24/outline";
<MagnifyingGlassIcon className="h-5 w-5" />;Lucide’s API is slightly simpler, props like size and strokeWidth control everything. Heroicons leans on Tailwind classes for sizing and color.
With Tailwind CSS
Heroicons was built by the Tailwind team, sizing and color via utility classes is the intended API.
// Heroicons + Tailwind: the intended way
<MagnifyingGlassIcon className="h-5 w-5 text-gray-500 hover:text-gray-900" />
// Lucide + Tailwind: also works great
<Search className="h-5 w-5 text-gray-500 hover:text-gray-900" />Both icons use currentColor so Tailwind text utilities control the color. Lucide adds a size prop shorthand; Heroicons uses only className.
License
Both are MIT licensed, free for personal and commercial use, no attribution required.
When to choose each
| Use case | Pick |
|---|---|
| Tailwind-native product, design system | Heroicons |
| Need 500+ distinct icons | Lucide |
| Dashboard with niche category icons | Lucide |
| Wanting fewer, more consistent icons | Heroicons |
| Server Components (App Router) | Both work |
| Vue or Svelte project | Lucide (better multi-framework support) |