EmojiOne has gone commercial

Arty

Well-known member
I was doing maintenance for icons sets used in my SimpleSVG project, script went haywire trying to get SVG images from EmojiOne repo. All SVG images are gone. They replaced repository with version 3 that no longer has SVG images. There is still version 2 repository, but I doubt they'll be maintaining it, so in long term EmojiOne just became a bad choice :(

EmojiOne version 3.0 changed license. Now the only thing you get for free are PNG images. PNG images are bigger than vector images and don't scale, making whole thing useless on modern websites. Vector images require premium license that costs $99 for personal use.

So what are alternatives?

1. Noto Emoji: https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji
Created and maintained by Google. Repository is rather messy, icons are sorted by unicode character and there is no keywords map, but its very good.

2. Firefox OS Emoji: https://github.com/mozilla/fxemoji
Created and maintained by Mozilla. SVG images are available as final images and as layered images. Keywords are mixed together as large words, like u1F0CF-playingcardblackjoker instead of playing-card-black-joker, but its very much usable and well designed.

3. Twitter Emoji: https://github.com/twitter/twemoji
Created and maintained by Twitter. Available as SVG images, as premade PNG images. Icons are missing keywords map, but otherwise its another excellent alternative.

4. EmojiDex: https://github.com/emojidex/emojidex-vectors
Another good set, but license prevents distribution, so it cannot be packaged with anything. And its not nearly as popular or big as other emoji sets.
 
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Why aren't your emojis covered by Creative Commons any longer?
When EmojiOne was originally founded, we didn't have any intention on making money off the artwork created. Our goal was to give people the ability to use emojis across different platforms/sites and also use our artwork for their own projects without having to worry about lawsuits.

Now EmojiOne is growing and people from all over the world are looking to incorporate our artwork into their products, websites and apps. To keep up with the demands and ensure we are still creating a quality product, we need to earn revenue to continue the company forward. With our newest (3.0) version of emojis, we have moved away from Creative Commons licensing of the images for products, but for digital use there will still be the ability for free (attribution only) usage.

To learn more about the licensing and attribution options, please visit the Developers section.

Why isn't EmojiOne Open Source any longer?

With EmojiOne growing as a company, there is a need for funds to cover day to day expenses. Through the Creative Commons / Open Source licensing, we were unable to make enough revenue to continue bringing you all of the wonderful emoji art you have come to love.

With our new version 3.0 emojis, we have moved away from the Creative Commons / Open Source licensing. Our version 2.x emojis can continue to be used, as we don't want to leave our loyal followers without that option, but we will not be keeping that set up to date with changes. We truly appreciate all of our fans and look forward to expanding our collection of emojis and emoji related products!

Can I use the newest EmojiOne emojis for free?
In order for EmojiOne to continue revolutionizing the emoji world, we had to move away from the Creative Commons / Open Source model to ensure our company is able to move forward. We have changed the structure of our newest emoji set to be available with a paid license for physical products, but will continue with free usage in the digital space with proper attribution.

We have a few different licensing options that we feel are reasonably priced. To learn more about the licensing and attribution options available, read about them in the Developers section.

As a Creative Agency, what are options for licensing your emojis?
We work with a lot of different Creative Agencies and have a few different licensing options available. You can view all of the options in the Premium Licensing page.

How much does EmojiOne cost to license?
With our newest version of emojis, there are a few options for licensing. You can learn more about the cost to license the artwork in the Developers section.

What a shame.

I would still love for @Shelley to release her smiley collection in SVG.

I would happily pay for them.
 
Honestly Arty your tool gives plenty of alternatives. Those that still charge for graphics like this, well, idk. I don't see it working out when there are so many quality icons open source. Thanks for the list of alternatives as well.
 
Does anybody know if Noto Emoji is usually kept up to date with the Android Releases (eg: new release, refresh of Noto Emoji)?
They do keep it up to date. Just recently added bunch of new emojis. I think Noto is the most complete emoji set available today in vector form:
Noto: 2115 icons
Emoji One v2: 1832 icons
Twitter: 874
FirefoxOS: 1034
 
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