Comparison
Coolors vs ColorUI
Coolors pioneered the spacebar-to-generate workflow and remains the best-known free palette generator on the web. ColorUI is a newer all-in-one toolkit that goes deeper on color science (OKLCH, APCA, Display P3), accessibility, and developer exports — without an account or paywall.
This page is honest. Coolors is excellent at what it does. Below is a feature-by-feature look so you can pick the right tool for your project.
When ColorUI wins
- You need OKLCH, LCH or LAB output, or want perceptually-uniform gradient stops.
- You care about WCAG 2.1 AND APCA contrast, not just the WCAG ratio.
- You export design tokens (W3C DTCG, Style Dictionary, Tailwind, CSS vars) — ColorUI ships every format free.
- You want a free Display-P3 picker, mesh gradient, duotone, or color-blindness fixer in the same surface.
- You build with AI tools — ColorUI has a prompt studio, palette-to-prompt converter, and an MCP server.
- You need a fully open API, OpenAPI 3.1 spec, CLI, GitHub Action and Figma plugin out of the box.
When Coolors wins
- You want the most polished mobile app in the category — Coolors Pro is excellent.
- You need community palette feeds with social signals (likes, follows) at scale.
- You already pay for Coolors Pro and use the iOS/Android apps daily.
Feature matrix
Palette generation
Spacebar to generate
Yes
Yes
Tie
Lock individual colors
Yes
Yes
Tie
AI prompt-based generation
Free, every visit
Limited / paid
ColorUI
Adjust by harmony rule
Yes (color wheel)
Yes
Tie
Generate from image
Yes, mood presets
Yes
Tie
Color science
OKLCH output
Yes
No
ColorUI
LCH / LAB output
Yes
No
ColorUI
Display P3 picker
Yes
No
ColorUI
APCA contrast
Yes
No
ColorUI
WCAG 2.1 contrast
Yes (AA & AAA)
Yes
Tie
Color-blindness simulator
Yes (3 types) + auto-fix
Yes
ColorUI
Exports
CSS variables
Free
Free
Tie
Tailwind config
Free
Free
Tie
W3C Design Tokens (DTCG)
Free
No
ColorUI
Style Dictionary / Figma tokens
Free
Limited
ColorUI
Swift / Android XML
Free
Pro plan
ColorUI
PNG palette image
Free
Free
Tie
Surfaces
Web app
Yes
Yes
Tie
iOS app
PWA
Native
Android app
PWA
Native
Figma plugin
Yes
Yes
Tie
VSCode extension
Yes
No
ColorUI
Chrome / Edge extension
Yes
Yes
Tie
Raycast extension
Yes
No
ColorUI
CLI
Yes
No
ColorUI
GitHub Action
Yes
No
ColorUI
MCP server (AI agents)
Yes
No
ColorUI
Pricing & privacy
Free tier limits
No limits
Limited gradients/exports
ColorUI
Account required
Never
For saving palettes
ColorUI
Pro plan
–
$3-5/mo
ColorUI
Public API
Free, OpenAPI 3.1
No
ColorUI
Telemetry / fingerprinting
None
Standard analytics
ColorUI
Recommendation
For solo designers who live in the iOS app, stick with Coolors. For everyone else — especially developers, design-system teams, AI builders and accessibility-driven shops — ColorUI gives you more depth, more formats and more surfaces, completely free.
Other comparisons
ColorUI vs Adobe Color
ColorUI vs Adobe Color compared in 2025. Color wheel, harmony rules, accessibility, gradients, exports and Creative Cloud lock-in — pick the right tool.
ColorUI vs Realtime Colors
Realtime Colors helps you preview palettes live on a dummy site. ColorUI does the same and adds a real generator, accessibility, OKLCH and exports.
ColorUI vs Khroma
Khroma trains an ML model on 50 colors you like, then generates only those. ColorUI offers free AI prompt generation plus accessibility and exports.
ColorUI vs Huemint
Huemint generates palettes via a transformer model. ColorUI offers AI generation plus accessibility, modern color science, and a public API.