ColorsMine vs Leonardo
If you are comparing these two, you want to define a scale by the contrast each step must hit.
The short version. Leonardo is a tool for generating colour scales from contrast targets. ColorsMine starts where a palette ends: it turns colour into a token system and then measures whether that system is usable. They overlap less than the search suggests.
Use Leonardo when
contrast-first scale construction is exactly your model and you want fine control over it. That is a real job and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
What ColorsMine adds
The whole system around the scale, plus the same engine as a CLI so the contrast targets can be enforced in CI rather than checked by hand.
What ColorsMine actually produces
| From | You get |
|---|---|
| One brand hex | 8 primitive ramps and 57 semantic variables — surface, text, border, primary, secondary, accent, and success / info / warning / danger — in light and dark |
| An image | Ten semantic roles with an 11-step OKLCH scale each, deterministically: the same image always gives the same palette |
| An existing palette | A grade out of 100 across contrast, colour-blind safety, harmony, distinctness and tonal range, plus the single change that moves it most |
| A Figma collection | Every mode graded, every canvas layer scanned for real contrast failures, and a proof frame that renders in both themes |
| A repository | npx colorsmine check --min B --wcag — the same engine as a build gate |
What it is checked against
- WCAG 2.2 — 4.5:1 for body text (1.4.3), 3:1 for large text and non-text contrast (1.4.11), 7:1 for AAA.
- APCA Lc, which accounts for polarity and disagrees with the ratio often enough to be worth reading.
- Protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, and greyscale.
Cost and access
ColorsMine is free, needs no account, and makes no network calls — the palette engine, the 10,368,048-palette catalogue and the grading all run locally. Nothing you open leaves your machine.
This page describes Leonardo at the level of what kind of tool it is, not as a feature comparison — tools ship and a feature table written today is wrong by next quarter. Check its own site for what it does now.
Other comparisons
Try it on a colour you already have
Paste a hex and see the whole system it implies, graded, in about a second.
Open ColorsMine