Khroma

Khroma — Taste-Trained AI Color Palette Generator (Gal Shir / George Hastings side project, 2018, Active, Not Shut Down)

Khroma (khroma.co, launched 2018 by designer Gal Shir / George Hastings, web-only side project) active 2026-08, no discontinuation, no paid tier ever introduced. It is not a full brand-system builder​ — it is the “learn your eye, then flood you with palettes only you would pick” tool: pick 50 colors you like on onboarding → a neural net pretrained on thousands of designer-curated palettes fine-tunes to your taste → infinite feed of pairs/gradients/type-pairings/images with hex/RGB/WCAG contrast shown. Category ai-productivity-data; pipeline_stage none. Killer differentiator = preference-conditioned generation​ (every palette filtered through your 50-pick model, not random or wheel-harmony) + permanently free, no account, no usage cap; not Coolors (spacebar random + lock, speed-first, freemium $3–5/mo), not Adobe Color (wheel rules + CC export, no taste learning), not Huemint (palette shown on real mockups, no personalization), not Colormind (image/film-style transfer, no taste model), not Paletton (pure theory). 2026 traps: browser-local only​ (clear cache = lose trained model + saved favorites, no cloud sync/account), pairs not systems​ (you assemble 5–6 color brand scales yourself), no Figma/Adobe/API export​ (copy hex/CSS by hand), 50-color onboarding friction, WCAG readout present but not a full a11y audit, sparse update cadence (side-project risk, not shutdown).

1. One-line positioning

Khroma = the personalized color-discovery bench, not the production token manager: open khroma.co → rapid-pick 50 colors you’re drawn to (≈2 min, re-trainable anytime) → neural net emits an endless scroll of combinations rendered as swatch / gradient / typography pairing / image overlay​ views → each combo shows hex + RGB + WCAG AA/AAA contrast for text-on-bg → search/filter by hue/saturation/value/hex → like-block to steer further → copy hex/CSS into Figma/code by hand. Fits ai-productivity-data; pipeline_stage none (pick 50 → train → scroll → filter → copy hex). For solo designers/brand strategists/UI devs escaping “same 3 colors” at blank-canvas stage, it’s the cheapest taste-calibration step; for team token systems + ASE export + contrast simulation, Coolors Pro / Adobe Color / Tokens Studio.

2. Core features

3. Pricing (2026-08)

pricing_type = free-forever-no-paid-tier; starting_price = $0; free_tier = "the only tier; unlimited personalized generation, 50-color training, 4 view modes, hex/rgb/css copy, wcag contrast per pairing, browser-local favorites; caveats: no cloud sync (clear cache wipes model+favorites), no export beyond copy-paste, no figma/adobe/api"; pricing_note = "khroma-2018-gal-shir-george-hastings-side-project-active-2026-no-shutdown-no-paid-tier-ever; supported-as-free-resource-for-design-community; no-seat-no-credit-no-trial"

4., Access Type

access_type: web-only-no-account-no-offline

access_display: 🌐 khroma.co (browser-only, localStorage model+favorites, no iOS/Android/desktop, no offline, no API)

5. Reviews (2026)

Praise: permanently free, no account wall, no usage cap​ (unique in 2026 AI tools), taste-conditioned feed​ surfaces combos you’d actually ship, not slot-machine random; type-pairing + gradient + image-overlay views answer “does this read on real text/bg”; WCAG contrast per pairing baked in; 2-min onboarding then infinite scroll; great for boutique/personal brands and escaping generic startup palettes.

Gripes: browser-local only​ (clear cache = lose model + favorites, no cross-device), pairs not systems​ (assemble 5–6 color scale yourself), no Figma/Adobe/ASE/API​ (hand-copy hex into code), 50-color onboarding friction for twice-a-month users, WCAG is readout not full a11y audit (no color-blind sim), side-project cadence = sparse updates, no team/comment/share, no dark/light token semantics, infrequent model refresh.

6. Best for / Not for

7. Competitors