Percy vs Chromatic: which visual tester wins?
Both catch UI regressions with screenshots and a review UI, but they aim at different teams: Chromatic is Storybook-native, Percy is framework-agnostic. Here's how they actually differ — and when a pipeline-native check beats both.
Pick by where your UI lives and how you want to pay:
- UI in Storybook → Chromatic — snapshots stories directly, with TurboSnap and published pricing.
- No Storybook, snapshots from E2E tests → Percy — framework-agnostic, mature review workflow.
- Don't want a separate visual-testing SaaS → Buddy — visual regression as an action in your build-and-deploy pipeline.
Side by side
Percy vs Chromatic, at a glance
| Dimension | Percy | Chromatic | Buddy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approach | SDK snapshots from E2E tests | Storybook story snapshots | Diffs deployed site in-pipeline |
| Best for | Framework-agnostic teams | Storybook component libraries | Visual checks inside CI/CD |
| Free tier | 5,000 screenshots/mo | 5,000 snapshots/mo | Free plan (€0) |
| Paid from | not published | $179/mo (35k snaps) | Included in plan |
| Overage | n/a public | $0.008 / snapshot | No per-shot metering |
| Skip unchanged | ✗ | ✓ TurboSnap | Runs on deploy only |
| Public pricing | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Compiled July 2026 from each vendor's official pages. Pricing changes often — verify current terms.
Official pages: Percy · Chromatic · Buddy visual tests
Where Chromatic wins. If your components live in Storybook, Chromatic is the natural fit: it snapshots every story, catches regressions per-component, and TurboSnap only re-tests stories affected by a change — so large libraries stay fast. Pricing is public (free 5,000 snapshots, then $179/mo), which makes budgeting straightforward.
Where Percy wins. Percy doesn't assume Storybook. You add its SDK to an existing Cypress, Playwright or Selenium suite and it snapshots whatever your tests render — full pages, flows, states. For teams without a component library that already have end-to-end tests, that's less to adopt. The trade-off is opaque paid pricing and pixel-diff false positives on dynamic content.
Where a pipeline-native check fits. Both are separate SaaS tools you wire into CI. If the reason you're comparing them is cost and tool sprawl, Buddy runs visual regression as an action in the same pipeline that builds and deploys — it diffs the deployed site against the previous version across configured browsers and pauses for approval, with no per-screenshot bill. It doesn't snapshot individual Storybook stories, so it's a page-level check, not a component-level one.
Common questions
Percy vs Chromatic — common questions
Is Chromatic better than Percy?
It depends on your setup. Chromatic is purpose-built for Storybook and snapshots your component stories with TurboSnap to skip unchanged components, so it wins if your UI already lives in Storybook. Percy is framework-agnostic and captures snapshots from your end-to-end tests, so it fits teams without Storybook. Neither is universally better.
How do Percy and Chromatic pricing compare?
Chromatic publishes its pricing: a free tier of 5,000 snapshots/month, then Starter at $179/month for 35,000 snapshots and Pro at $399/month for 85,000, with overage at $0.008 per snapshot. Percy offers a free tier of 5,000 screenshots/month but doesn't publish paid prices — you contact BrowserStack or see them in-product.
Do I need Storybook to use Chromatic?
Chromatic is designed around Storybook and is at its best there, though it also supports Playwright and Cypress snapshots. If you have no component library and just want to catch regressions on deployed pages, a framework-agnostic tool like Percy or a pipeline-native check like Buddy is usually simpler.