What is Chromatic used for?

Chromatic is a visual, interaction and accessibility testing and review service for UI components, made by the Storybook team. It is a good fit for testing a design system component library, reviewing UI changes before merge and catching accessibility regressions in CI.

Yes. Chromatic has a free plan, and paid plans start at $179 per month.

Is Chromatic open source?

No. Chromatic is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the Testing & QA category, open-source options include Karate, Airtest and Pa11y CI.

What are some alternatives to Chromatic?

Chromatic competes with Applitools and BrowserStack.

Chromatic: features, pricing and alternatives

About Chromatic

Chromatic is a frontend UI testing and review platform from the team behind Storybook. It runs against the component stories and tests a team already has, captures snapshots in real browsers, and compares them over time so that visual regressions are caught before a change ships.

The service checks three kinds of issues: visual differences in appearance, layout, fonts and colors, accessibility problems such as WCAG violations, and interactions like clicking, typing, hovering and dragging. It builds on existing Storybook, Vitest, Playwright and Cypress tests, offers visual testing for Vitest, and lets teams assign reviewers to speed up sign-off, including for UI changes written by AI agents.

Chromatic is a hosted commercial service and is not self-hosted. Teams can start for free and see plans on the pricing page, and it suits front-end teams that maintain component libraries or design systems.

Key features

Visual regression snapshots in real browsers
Accessibility checks for WCAG violations
Interaction testing for click, type, hover and drag
Builds on Storybook, Vitest, Playwright and Cypress
Reviewer assignment for UI sign-off
Flake reduction in visual comparisons

Good fit for

→Testing a design system component library
→Reviewing UI changes before merge
→Catching accessibility regressions in CI

Tags: visual-testing; storybook; ui-testing; accessibility; frontend; regression-testing

Chromatic: questions and answers

What is Chromatic used for?: Chromatic is a visual, interaction and accessibility testing and review service for UI components, made by the Storybook team. It is a good fit for testing a design system component library, reviewing UI changes before merge and catching accessibility regressions in CI.
Is Chromatic free?: Yes. Chromatic has a free plan, and paid plans start at $179 per month.
Is Chromatic open source?: No. Chromatic is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the Testing & QA category, open-source options include Karate, Airtest and Pa11y CI.
What are some alternatives to Chromatic?: Chromatic competes with Applitools and BrowserStack.