Palette Comparison
Palette A
Palette
Palette B
Palette
Comparison
Colors — A: 3, B: 3
Average lightness — A: 0.63, B: 0.73
Average chroma — A: 0.21, B: 0.15
No colors are shared between the two palettes.
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The palette comparison puts two editable palettes side by side and reports the numbers that actually differ between them: counts, average lightness, average chroma and any shared colours.
What is Palette Comparison?
Two palettes side by side do not explain themselves, which is why this page adds a summary underneath. The palette comparison gives each palette its own editor — add, remove and edit rows independently — and then reports four facts about the pair: how many colours each contains, each palette's average lightness, its average chroma, and which values appear in both.
- Colour count per palette, which is usually the first thing to differ and the least important.
- Average lightness, computed in OKLCH across each palette, so two sets can be compared for weight rather than for colour.
- Average chroma, which answers whether one palette is quieter than the other and by how much.
- Shared colours, listed by hex value when the two palettes contain exactly the same string, with an explicit message when nothing is shared.
The metrics are deliberately few, because the useful comparisons are few. Average lightness settles the most common argument in a palette review — whether a proposed set is broadly lighter or darker than the one in use — and average chroma settles its twin, whether the new palette is louder. The shared-colour check is exact-match only, which makes it a duplicate detector rather than a similarity test: two values one channel apart are reported as different, and that is the correct behaviour for spotting a copy of a token that should have been reused.
- Averages describe a palette's centre, not its range. A set with one near-black and one near-white can average out to the same figure as a set of mid-tones.
- No per-colour comparison: the summary says nothing about which specific value in A resembles which in B.
- Exact matches only for the shared list, so near-duplicates pass silently.
- No export and no persistence; the two palettes start from defaults each visit.
Reading the summary is a matter of knowing which figure settles which argument. When someone asks whether a new palette is too heavy, compare two palettes on average lightness alone; when the complaint is that it shouts, read average lightness and chroma together, because a set can be dark and quiet at the same time. The shared colors line answers a different question — whether the proposal is genuinely new or partly a copy of the palette already in use — and it is the fastest way to catch a token that was redefined instead of reused. A proposal that shares three of six values with the palette already in use is an iteration rather than a new direction, and that judgement is much harder to make from two strips side by side.
The page is most useful in a review: paste the palette in use into one side, the proposal into the other, and the summary turns an argument about taste into two numbers and a duplicate list. Where the question is perceptual rather than statistical — how far apart two specific colours are — the distance calculator answers it directly, and where the question is readability, the palette accessibility checker tests the values against a real background rather than against each other.
How to use Palette Comparison
- Load the palette in use into the left editor.
- Load the proposed palette into the right editor.
- Compare the average lightness and chroma figures first — they settle most review arguments.
- Check the shared list to catch values that should be reused rather than redefined.
When to use Palette Comparison vs related tools
Use this during a palette review, when two sets have to be judged against each other rather than on their own. The palette balance analyzer reports the same averages for one palette, the colour distance calculator measures specific pairs, and the palette accessibility checker tests whether either set works against a background.
Privacy & Security
This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.