GOV.UK Design System vs Lightning Design System
GOV.UK Design System
design-system.service.gov.uk
Lightning Design System
lightningdesignsystem.comSide by side
| Figure | GOV.UK Design System | Lightning Design System |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · UI Kit Libraries | 7.9 (#9) | 6.8 (#26) |
| Accessibility | The team describes accessibility work as continuous and iterative, and says using the system alone does not make a service accessible. | The accessibility guidance recommends reviewing applications before release for WCAG 2.1 AA conformance. |
| Components | It provides reusable interface components with usage guidance and coded examples. | The development guide recommends Lightning base components first, then component blueprints, then custom components when needed. |
| Installation | For production projects, GOV.UK Frontend can be installed with npm or used by including compiled stylesheets, JavaScript and asset files. | The site gives npm and Yarn commands for installing the SLDS 2 package. |
| Purpose | The system helps teams make government services consistent with GOV.UK and learn from research and experience across service teams. | SLDS 2 provides reusable design tools and development guidance for building consistent Salesforce interfaces. |
Plans
In their own words
GOV.UK Design System
The GOV.UK Design System helps government teams build services with shared styles, reusable components and patterns for user-focused tasks. Its guidance covers page structure, typography, colour and images; components include coded examples, and patterns address particular tasks and page types. Published guidance includes details about user-research testing. Teams can add GOV.UK Frontend through npm or include compiled files. In production projects, components can be used as HTML or as Nunjucks macros when Frontend is installed with npm and the application uses Node.js. Prototyping requires GOV.UK Prototype Kit version 7 or later. The code is public under the MIT License, and the listed plan is free. The system aims for WCAG level AA compliance, but its use alone does not make a service accessible; component accessibility checks combine tools, automated deployment tests and manual testing. The Government Digital Service maintains the system, with a focus on central UK government digital services. Support may be limited for other contexts. Compiled files include all Frontend CSS and JavaScript, without selective component assets or a customizable build.
Lightning Design System
Lightning Design System has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.