Icons
929Icons
MITLicense
OutlineStyle
16×16Grid

Octicons

929 MIT-licensed outline icons on a 16×16 grid. Because the set was built for a product with enormous interface surface area, it is unusually strong on development and collaboration concepts — repositories, pull requests, issues, branches, merges, and CI states are all covered in depth.

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About Octicons

What Octicons is

Octicons is GitHub's design-system icon library, and it has been shaped by a decade of real use across github.com, GitHub Desktop, GitHub Mobile, and GitHub Docs. The 929 icons are drawn on a 16×16 grid, matching the compact density of GitHub's own interface.

Because the set was built for a product with enormous interface surface area, it is unusually strong on development and collaboration concepts — repositories, pull requests, issues, branches, merges, and CI states are all covered in depth. GitHub also maintains strict contribution guidelines, so the icons are visually tight.

IconStash indexes the complete Octicons collection. You can search it alongside 27 other libraries, preview any icon at any size and colour, and export SVG, PNG, React JSX, Vue, CSS, or an SVG sprite without installing a package or creating an account.

Install and use Octicons

React

npm install @primer/octicons-react

The official package ships each icon as a tree-shakeable component, so bundlers only include the icons you actually import. Open any Octicons icon on IconStash and the Code tab shows that icon's exact import statement and JSX.

Plain SVG and other frameworks

You do not have to install anything. Every Octicons page lets you copy the raw SVG markup and paste it inline, which avoids a dependency entirely and gives you full control over colour, size, and stroke width.

IconStash also exports PNG at six sizes, Vue and CSS snippets, and SVG sprites — all generated in the browser from the original vector.

When to choose Octicons

Good fit

Developer tools, code hosting, CI dashboards, and any product whose users are software engineers. The vocabulary of Octicons is already familiar to anyone who uses GitHub daily.

Consider alternatives

For products that are not developer-focused, Lucide or Heroicons offer broader general-purpose coverage. For enterprise design systems, Carbon and Fluent UI are the closer peers.

Licensing

MIT. The full set, including the GitHub-specific mark-like icons, is free for commercial use. Note GitHub's trademark policy still applies to the GitHub logo itself.

Octicons compared to other libraries

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Frequently asked questions

What is Octicons?

Octicons is GitHub's design-system icon library, and it has been shaped by a decade of real use across github.com, GitHub Desktop, GitHub Mobile, and GitHub Docs. The 929 icons are drawn on a 16×16 grid, matching the compact density of GitHub's own interface.

Is Octicons free for commercial use?

Yes. Octicons is released under the MIT license, which permits unrestricted commercial use, modification, and distribution. No attribution is required, though it is appreciated. This makes Octicons one of the safest icon libraries to use in commercial SaaS products, client work, and proprietary applications.

How do I use Octicons icons in React?

Install the package with npm install @primer/octicons-react, then import icons as components. Every Octicons page on IconStash shows the exact import statement and usage snippet for that specific icon in the Code tab, so you can copy working code without checking the docs. Tree-shakeable packages mean your bundler only includes the icons you actually import.

Can I download Octicons icons as PNG?

Yes. Open any Octicons icon on IconStash and use the Download PNG button to export at 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, or 512 pixels. The PNG is generated client-side from the original vector, so it stays crisp at every size. You can also copy the raw SVG markup, export a React component, or build an SVG sprite without installing anything.

Are Octicons free to use outside GitHub projects?

Yes. Octicons are MIT licensed and free for commercial use in any product. The MIT license covers the icon drawings; GitHub's trademark and logo policy is separate and applies to the GitHub logo mark itself rather than to the general icon set.

Why is the Octicons grid 16×16?

GitHub's interface is dense, with icons sitting inline beside small text in file trees, diff views, and issue lists. A 16×16 grid keeps the icons optically matched to that density. They scale cleanly as vectors, but the level of detail is tuned for small sizes.

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