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Let's say I want to use Helvetica Neue on my website. One solution is to convert the font for web use with websites which transforms the fonts through @font-face css property.
Other solution is to use the font through Adobe TypeKit.
I'm curios about the font rendering. Is it the same font rendering? I'm asking because the fonts looks so much better when you preview them on Adobe TypeKit.
Does anyone know if there is a real difference in web rendering?
Adobe TypeKit uses @font-face to define the fonts. It actually uses Javascript to dynamically link the correct fonts using the best method for the browser and OS in question and fires custom Javascript events when your fonts are loaded for example, but the actual fonts themselves are eventually loaded in the same way as you would load your own custom web-fonts, using @font-face.
Any difference in rendering is down to the fonts themselves. Font rendering is affected by a lot of factors, including differences between browsers and operating systems, how the font was created and optimised (hinting, for example) and the font formats being used. Screen fonts and print fonts are often optimised differently to deal with the different issues each medium presents.
There is a whole series of blog posts on the Typekit blog about font rendering:
In short, the difference in rendering is most likely your font.
