Free alternatives to Times New Roman
Times New Roman (Monotype): Commissioned for The Times of London and released in 1932 under Stanley Morison with drawings by Victor Lardent, Times New Roman is a sturdy transitional serif with narrow, space-efficient letters and strong, sharp serifs. Decades as a Windows and Office default made it the world's most familiar serif.
Times New Roman ships with Windows and macOS under OS licenses, which cover use on those systems but do not allow redistributing the font files or self-hosting them as webfonts.
Tinos, designed by Steve Matteson, is metric-compatible with Times New Roman, so every character occupies the same width and existing documents reflow identically. It is the standard drop-in on Linux systems and in Chrome OS.
PT Serif is a transitional serif with similar economy and firm serifs, designed for demanding text use across many languages. It is slightly wider and more modern in finish than Times New Roman.
Noto Serif offers Times-like transitional proportions with enormous language coverage and consistent weights. Its larger x-height and softer details give it a friendlier, more contemporary tone.
Libre Baskerville shares the transitional classification but is optimized for screen body text, with a taller x-height and wider forms. It reads more open and literary than the compact, newspaper-bred Times New Roman.
Lora is a well-balanced text serif with brushed curves and moderate contrast that covers the same essay-and-article territory. It is warmer and less austere, so it suits editorial sites better than formal documents.
Times New Roman is a trademark of its owner and is not distributed by DaFontFonts. This page recommends independent open-licence typefaces with a comparable feel; they are not copies and render with their own metrics and details.
Questions
Is Times New Roman free for commercial use?
You can use Times New Roman in documents you create on a licensed Windows or macOS machine, but the font files themselves are Monotype property: you cannot redistribute them, bundle them in apps, or self-host them as webfonts. Tinos is a free, metric-compatible replacement under an open license.
What is the closest free alternative to Times New Roman?
Tinos, by Steve Matteson, was designed to be metric-compatible with Times New Roman, so it matches its widths exactly. PT Serif and Noto Serif are strong choices when exact metrics do not matter.