Comparison of SVG and font based icons

icons.md

Webfont vs. SVG icons

Comparison

Font icons

Positives	Negatives
Great browser support	_
Easy for end users to implement	_
Small file size	_
_	No context if they fail to load...
_	...Or user overrides fonts^1
_	Rendering inconsistent between systems (antialiasing)
_	Not supported in Opera Mini

SVG icons

Positives	Negatives
No conflict with fonts	_
Consistent rendering between systems	_
Fixed colours and sizes*	Fixed colours and sizes*
_	No context if they fail to load^2
_	Larger filesize, slower to render than a webfont
_	Slightly more complex for end users to implement
_	Advantages of SVG lost by need for fallback^3

* With a design leadership hat on this is a positive IMO

1. Potentially solved by using ligatures but that drops support for <= IE9 (text-only fallback)
2. Could be solved by forcing end-users to implement text by displaying an error with :empty pseudo-selector
3. Could supply text-only fallback to non-SVG capable browsers (IE8, Android 2.x)

Anything I've missed?

When using font icons it's incredibly easy to change colours using CSS. As you've pointed out for SVG this can be a negative as well (design consistency!) but it also makes it very easy to display different states, animate changes, or invert colours to provide a reasonable contrast with varying backgrounds.