Chromatic vs Percy

Chromatic is a cloud service that scans user-interface states across browsers to find visual and functional bugs and support reviewer sign-off. It provides visual, interaction, and accessibility tests, integrating with Storybook, Vitest, Playwright, and Cypress. Browser testing covers Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. TurboSnap identifies changed tests and can reduce test-run usage costs by up to 80%. Chromatic connects with CI and Git tools, synchronizes status back to CI, and adds a pull-request badge; build notifications can go to a designated Slack channel through a webhook. The service reports SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, annual third-party penetration testing, and 99.9% uptime. It says connections are encrypted in transit, databases use 256-bit AES encryption at rest, and source code is not stored or accessed. All plans retain builds and snapshots for at least 12 months. The Free plan pauses review and testing after 5,000 billed snapshots in a month. Starter costs $179 a month; Pro costs $399 a month.

Percy is a visual testing tool that captures DOM snapshots and assets, renders them, and checks them against earlier snapshots to identify visual changes. It can render pages across browsers and platforms, including desktop and mobile, and compare responsive layouts at configurable widths. Percy groups visual changes while filtering noise and freezes animations and other dynamic elements to reduce false positives. Snapshots from tests running on different processes or machines can be grouped into a single build. Its review workflow includes status updates, notifications, comments, baseline management, branch logic, and approval carryforwards. Percy supports web applications, component libraries, end-to-end testing frameworks, static sites, custom SDK integrations, and native mobile applications. The CLI can capture and upload snapshots without an automation script. A free plan includes 5,000 screenshots per month; paid plans have fixed screenshot allocations, with extra screenshots charged at an overage rate. Desktop costs $199 a month billed annually, and Desktop & Mobile costs $599 a month billed annually.