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EnglishCan I use OpenMoji emojis for free, and under what license?
Updated
Yes. Every emoji in the OpenMoji set is free to use under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. That applies to all 4,495 emojis in the current release (OpenMoji 17.0.0), including the colored and outlined variants, skin tone combinations, and the 270 flags. The license is stated directly on the project's homepage, so there is no separate commercial tier or permission request to worry about.
The practical question is not whether you can use them, but what the license asks of you when you do.
What CC BY-SA 4.0 requires
CC BY-SA 4.0 is a Creative Commons license with two active conditions:
- BY (Attribution): You must credit the creator. For OpenMoji, that means naming the project and its authors, and indicating the license.
- SA (ShareAlike): If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license.
There is no NonCommercial (NC) or NoDerivatives (ND) restriction in this license, so commercial use is permitted as long as you meet the two conditions above.
A concrete example
Suppose you ship a mobile app with a settings screen that uses several OpenMoji icons, and you recolor one of them to match your brand palette.
- Using the icons unmodified: attribute OpenMoji and the license somewhere reasonable (an about screen, credits file, or documentation).
- Recoloring or otherwise modifying an icon: that modified icon is a derivative, so it must also be released under CC BY-SA 4.0 — you cannot claim it under an incompatible proprietary license.
If you only use the emojis as-is inside a larger work (a website, an app, a slide deck), the ShareAlike condition applies to the emojis themselves, not to your entire unrelated project. The trigger is whether you modified the emoji, not whether your product is commercial.
What OpenMoji actually is
OpenMoji is an open source emoji project from 80+ students and 2 professors at HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, plus external contributors. Key facts that affect how you can use it:
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0, free to use |
| Emoji count | 4,495 |
| Unicode support | Follows the Unicode Emoji standard (v17.0) |
| Styles | Colored and outlined |
| Skin tones | Fitzpatrick scale plus multiple combinations |
| Flags | 270 (Andorra to Zimbabwe, plus special ones like Pirates) |
| Extra categories | Special interest categories beyond standard Unicode, including technology and design |
The consistent single style guide is the main reason to pick OpenMoji over mixing sources: every emoji is designed, tested, and reviewed to fit together, so a set of them looks intentional rather than assembled.
When OpenMoji is a good fit — and when it isn't
Choose OpenMoji when:
- You need a large, stylistically consistent set that covers standard Unicode plus niche technology/design topics.
- You want both colored and outlined versions from one source.
- You need skin tone and flag coverage.
- You can comply with attribution and, for derivatives, ShareAlike.
Look elsewhere when:
- You need to modify emojis and release them under a proprietary or incompatible license — ShareAlike blocks that.
- You cannot provide attribution in your context.
- You need a license with no copyleft obligations at all.
How to get started
- Go to openmoji.org and use the search to find the emoji you need.
- Download the colored or outlined version in the format your project uses.
- Add attribution — for example, a credits line naming OpenMoji and CC BY-SA 4.0.
- If you modify an emoji, release that modified version under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The project also invites participation and contribution, and you can try OpenMoji on your phone if you want to preview the set before committing to it in a design.