Best Free Color Pickers

BY TOOLS.FUN · MAY 09, 2026 · 4 min read

Colour selection and conversion is a daily task for designers and frontend developers. From picking brand colours to converting between HEX, RGB, and HSL for CSS, having the right colour tool saves constant context-switching. Here are the best free options.

tools.fun Color Converter

The tools.fun colour converter takes any colour format — HEX, RGB, HSL, or RGBA — and instantly converts it to all other formats. Paste #3498db and get the RGB, HSL, and RGBA equivalents ready to copy into your CSS. The visual preview shows the colour alongside its values, so you can verify it matches what you expect.

This tool is invaluable during design-to-code handoff. Designers often provide colours in HEX, but your CSS variables might use HSL (which is easier to create tints and shades from). The converter eliminates manual calculation.

Coolors — Palette Generation

Coolors generates five-colour palettes with a single keypress (spacebar). Lock colours you like, regenerate the rest, and iterate until you have a cohesive palette. The tool provides contrast ratios between colour pairs, helping you meet WCAG accessibility standards. Export palettes as CSS variables, SCSS variables, SVG, PDF, or image files.

The "Explore" section shows thousands of community-created palettes, which is a great starting point when you need inspiration. The free tier is fully functional; the pro tier adds unlimited palette storage and advanced features.

Adobe Color — Advanced Colour Theory

Adobe Color (formerly Kuler) builds palettes using colour theory rules: complementary, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, and more. Set a base colour and the tool generates harmonious companions using mathematical relationships on the colour wheel.

The accessibility tools check colour combinations against WCAG 2.1 standards and suggest adjustments when contrast is insufficient. The "Extract from Image" feature pulls a palette from a photograph, which is useful for brand work based on photography.

Accessibility tip: Always check that your text and background colour combinations meet WCAG AA standards: 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text, 3:1 for large text. Use the tools.fun Color Converter to get exact colour values, then check contrast ratios with a dedicated contrast checker. Insufficient contrast is the most common accessibility violation on the web.

Browser DevTools — The Always-Available Picker

Every major browser includes a colour picker in its developer tools. In Chrome, click any colour swatch in the Styles panel to open the picker. It shows the colour in all formats (HEX, RGB, HSL), provides an eyedropper to sample any colour on the page, and shows contrast ratios against the background.

The DevTools picker is the fastest option when you are already inspecting a page. However, it only works with colours in the current page's CSS — for standalone colour conversion or palette generation, use a dedicated tool.

HSL — The Developer-Friendly Format

While HEX is the most common colour format in CSS, HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) is far more intuitive for creating colour systems. To make a colour lighter, increase the L value. To desaturate it, decrease the S value. To create a complementary colour, add 180 to the H value. This makes HSL ideal for CSS custom properties and design tokens.

Example: --brand-primary: hsl(207, 71%, 53%), --brand-light: hsl(207, 71%, 80%), --brand-dark: hsl(207, 71%, 30%). Same hue, different lightness — a cohesive palette from one base colour.

Workflow tip: Start with your brand's HEX colour, convert it to HSL using the tools.fun Color Converter, then create your full palette by varying the lightness value. Use 5 lightness levels (10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, 90%) for a complete scale from dark to light that works in both light and dark themes.

← Back