Chromatic vs Supernova

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.

Supernova brings design system information, code data, documentation, and AI context together as a shared source for teams and agents. It tracks component health, manages design tokens, and supports multiple brands in one workspace. Its documentation editor supports real-time collaboration, page history, and publishing. Through MCP, it provides filtered design system context to AI tools including Cursor, Copilot, and Claude Code.

Code automation can export tokens and open a pull request when design system changes are made. Listed integrations include Figma, Storybook, Tokens Studio, GitHub, Azure, Bitbucket, GitLab, and VS Code; pre-built integrations are included in the Free plan. The Free plan supports up to five seats and limits documentation pages, connected data sources, page history, and analytics periods. Pro costs $35 a month per editor seat. Supernova Portal is available on the web, and its desktop app is currently available only for Mac.