A collection of 70 hand-picked, web-based tools which are actually useful.
Each will generate pure CSS without the need for JS or any external libraries.Full credit goes to the authors behind each of these apps (where possible I've linked to their GH/ socials)
Contents
Property Generators
1. Neumorphism
Generate Soft-UI CSS styles using inset shadows, by @adamgiebl
2. Shaddows Brumm
Make and preview beautifully smooth shadows, by @brumm
3. Fancy Border Radius
Generate cool shaped objects with border-radius, by @9Elements. Similar to BlobMaker
4. Glow Generator
Generate pure CSS, cross-browser glow effects
5. Clothoid Corners
Generates clothoid rounded corners by CSS clip-path, by Takehiko Ono
6. Glassmorphism
Build semi-transparent, blurred glass-like backgrounds. Similar to ui.glass/generator
7. Clipy
Generate complex shaped objects using clip-path, by @bennettfeely
8. CSS Filters
Generate and preview pure CSS Instagram-style photo filters, by @ghosh
9. Base64 Image
Encode an image directly in your CSS in Base64
10. Quantity Queries
Generate quantity-based CSS queries, by @drewminns
Animations
11. Animista
CSS animation playground and generator, by Ana T
12. Cubic-Bezier
Preview and generate advanced cubic bezier animations, by @LeaVerou
13. Keyframes
Advanced keyframe animation maker, by @mitchas
14. Wait Animate
Use animation-delay to simulate delays, by @will-stone
15. Transition.Style
Copy-paste transition animations, by @argyleink
Backgrounds
16. Hero Patterns
Find and customize simple pure-CSS patterned backgrounds, by @steveschoger
17. Haikei
Generate unique organic SVG banners and backgrounds (similar to Shape Divider)
18. Pattern Generator
Advanced pattern generator
19. CSS Pattern
Collection of pre-made pure CSS patterned backgrounds, by @Afif13
20. Patternizer
Build striped backgrounds, by @matthewlein
21. Patternify
Build your own old-school pattern, by @SachaGreif
22. Animated BG
Generate blurred animated pure CSS backgrounds, by @Vincenius
23. Trianglify
Geometric background designer (note: only semmi-free), by @qrohlf
24. Animated Backgrounds
Collection of pure CSS background animations
25. Magic Pattern CSS Backgrounds
Collection of reusable SVG-based / pure CSS background patterns, with a visual explorer
Colors
26. CSS Gradient
Advanced CSS gradient builder
27. Parametric Mixer
Equaliser-based CSS color composer. by @dawidwoldu
28. Palettte.
Develop and tweak color schemes
29. Paletton
Palette builder using opposing or attracting colors
30. Grabient
Sample gradients.
Similar to CoolHue, WebGradients.com, GradientHunt, GradientButtons and UI gradients
31. Color Hunt
Yet another color palette designer
32. Easing Gradients
Cubic-bezier style pure CSS gradients, by @larsenwork
33. Flat UI Colors
Flat-style handpicked color palettes, by @ahmetsulek
34. Color Tools
Mix, extract, convert and generate colors
35. ColorPalettes.Earth
Natural color pallets from nature
Typography
36. Font Joy
Discover and preview various font pairings, by @Jack000
37. Type set With Me
Typography & legibility sandbox, by @tsmith512
38. Type Scale
Generate heading/ body font sizes, by @jeremychurch
39. Glyphter
Create icon fonts from SVG graphics
40. Font-Library
Tagged library of Google Fonts, by @katydecorah
41. Glitter
Export 90s-style Glitter text
Loaders
42. Spin Kit
Selection of clean CSS loading animations
43. Whirl
100+ CSS loading animations, for copy-paste
44. Loader Generator
Pre-built and custom pure CSS loaders
45. lukehaas - CSS-Loaders
Simple pure CSS loading animations
46. CSSLoaders
Complex pure CSS loaders
47. loading.io/css
CSS implementations of common loaders
Layouts
48. CSS Grid Garden
Interactive game for learning CSS grid, by @thomaspark
49. FlexboxFroggy
Interactive game for learning flexbox, by @thomaspark
50. Flexplorer
Visual flexbox demo, by @bennettfeely
51. Flexulator
An interactive CSS Flexbox space distribution calculator, by @telagraphic
52. Grid Generator
Make grids using the CSS grid-template properties, by @sdras (similar to grid.layoutit.com)
53. Layout Generator
A modern CSS layout maker
54. Box Model Diagram
Just a visual box model demo
Informative
55. CSS Timeline
A history of CSS
56. Screen Size Map
View popular screen sizes for responsive design
57. CSS Ruler
Preview various CSS units relative to each other
58. bada55
List of very funny CSS hex color codes
See also, colors.lol for some overly-descriptive color pallets
59. Who can use?
Checks accessibility grade of a given color combinations, similar to Colorable
60. Can I use?
Browser compatibility check of various, CSS, JS, HTML and web features
61. Can I email?
Similar to Can I use?, but checks if a given CSS property (or HTML elem) is compatible with email clients
62. CSS Processing Tools
Convert to and from any other CSS language
63. Unused CSS
Searches your site for unused CSS, and displays stats
64. Component.Gallery
Global component search
65. Design System Gallery
A collection of open design systems, for inspiration
66. Checklist.design
A collection of design best practices organised as checklists
67. Glyphs
A list of CSS glyph character codes (see also GlyphSearch for library icons)
68. CSS-Tricks.com
The best CSS blog out there
69. Curated Design Tools
A curated list of awesome design tools
70. Awesome-CSS-Frameworks
A list of open source CSS frameworks
71. CSS Reference
A visual guide to CSS properties (similar to htmlreference.io)
72. MDN CSS Docs
Excellent documentation of all available CSS properties
Top comments (124)
Holy crap I'm starting to think you're magic. Between this and the dev tools article I've got some good references!
Thanks Steve :) 💖
This is an amazing list, and I'm sure it will make life easier for many front-end developers.
Which of these resources do you use the most?
Looking forward to similar posts for other IT areas 🥰
Ohhh... Thanks Alicia for this... its very usseful! :)
Thanks for sharing Alicia
This is a treasure trove! Thank you so much!
Top list, super easy to pick the right tool browsing the demo animations! Cheers!
Fantastic List you have compiled Alicia. Thanks so much for sharing
Thanks for this useful resource and you saved a lot of time with this.. I am really love this page ❤
Thank you very much for this contribution, it is very complete.
Great collection Alicia! Thanks for including my animated BG generator (#22)
It's cool tool you've built :)
I've updated the post to also include a link to your GitHub - sorry, not sure why I missed that before