Top Chroma Alternative Color Pickers for Designers and Developers
Chroma, a browser-based color picker, offers a simple and intuitive way to select colors, providing HEX, RGB, and HSL codes with a focus on color selection. Built with React Color, it's designed for ease of use and quick access to color information. However, for users seeking more advanced features, desktop integration, or different platform compatibility, exploring a Chroma alternative becomes essential. This article dives into some of the best alternatives available, catering to a wider range of needs for web developers, graphic designers, and anyone in between.
Top Chroma Alternatives
Whether you're looking for open-source solutions, cross-platform compatibility, or specific features like palette creation and magnification, there's a Chroma alternative out there that's perfect for your workflow. Let's explore some of the top contenders.
gpick
gpick is a versatile color picker and color scheme creation tool that stands out as an excellent Chroma alternative. It's a Free, Open Source solution available for Linux. Key features include the ability to create palettes from images, robust color scheme creation tools, fast color picking, and magnification. Unlike Chroma's browser-only focus, gpick offers a desktop color picker with the added benefit of extracting color palettes from images, making it a powerful tool for designers.
Just Color Picker
Just Color Picker is a Free tool available for Mac and Windows, providing a robust Chroma alternative for desktop users. It excels at capturing the color of any pixel on your screen and displaying its code in various formats. Its portability makes it incredibly convenient, allowing users to carry it on a USB drive and use it without installation, a feature not available with browser-based Chroma.
gcolor2
gcolor2 is a basic, Free, and Open Source color picker utility for Linux and Xfce, offering a straightforward Chroma alternative for those who need a simple screen color grabber. While it may not boast as many features as other alternatives, its simplicity and open-source nature make it appealing for users who prefer minimal, efficient tools specifically for color selection directly from the screen.
Sip
Sip is a Commercial color picker for Mac, designed with developers in mind, making it a premium Chroma alternative. It provides an incredibly simple and quick way to sample and encode any color on your screen, instantly. Its focus on developer tools makes it highly efficient for workflows requiring rapid color identification and code generation, offering a desktop-native experience that Chroma, being browser-based, cannot match.
Instant Eyedropper
Instant Eyedropper is a Free desktop color picker for Windows, offering a straightforward Chroma alternative. It simplifies the process of identifying color codes from any object on the screen, a task that can often be cumbersome. Its direct desktop integration provides a more immediate and seamless experience for capturing colors than switching to a browser tab for Chroma.
Pixie
Pixie is a small, Free utility for Windows that serves as an excellent lightweight Chroma alternative. It displays coordinates and the color of any pixel on your screen in various formats (HEX, HTML, RGB, CMYK, HSV). Its key features include being portable, super tiny, and useful for web development, always staying on top of other windows, which is a significant advantage over a browser tab for quick color checks.
Colora
Colora is a Free, Open Source color converter and screen color picker for Windows, presenting a powerful Chroma alternative. Though small, it's packed with features, offering both color conversion and screen picking capabilities. Being portable, Colora allows users to carry their preferred color tools with them, providing more flexibility than a browser-dependent application like Chroma.
ColorZilla
ColorZilla is a Free Web extension available for Chrome and Firefox, making it a direct competitor and strong Chroma alternative for web developers and graphic designers. It assists with a wide array of color-related tasks, offering more comprehensive features within the browser environment than Chroma's focused approach, including an eyedropper, color picker, and CSS gradient generator.
Color Cop
Color Cop is a Free, multi-purpose color picker for Windows, serving as a versatile Chroma alternative for web designers and programmers. It features an eyedropper, magnifier with variable magnification levels, and 3x3 and 5x5 average sampling modes. Its desktop application format provides a dedicated tool that can be more convenient for continuous use than a browser tab.
ColorMania
ColorMania is an advanced, Free color picker utility for Windows, created for web designers, graphic artists, and application developers. As a powerful Chroma alternative, it offers a more comprehensive set of features for color manipulation and selection within a desktop environment, catering to professional needs beyond basic color picking.
Ultimately, the best Chroma alternative depends on your specific requirements, whether it's platform compatibility, advanced features like palette creation, open-source preference, or simply a lightweight tool for quick color grabs. Explore these options to find the perfect color picker that seamlessly integrates into your design or development workflow.