Best Color Palette Generators (Free, for Design)

The best free color palette generator overall is Coolors — press the spacebar to spin up a new five-colour palette, then click the lock icon on any swatch you want to keep. For palettes pulled from a photo, use Canva’s Color Palette Generator or Adobe Color; for background-aware AI palettes, try Huemint. Every tool below has a usable free tier.

The best free palette generators at a glance

Coolors — fastest

1. Go to coolors.co.
2. Press the spacebar to generate a new palette.
3. Click the lock icon on a swatch to keep that colour while the rest regenerate — clicking the colour itself only opens the picker.
4. Copy a HEX code by clicking it, or open Export to grab PNG, PDF, SCSS or ASE.

No account is needed to generate; you sign in only to save. The free tier generates up to five colours and saves up to 10 palettes. Coolors Pro raises that to 10 colours, unlimited saves, the image picker, the contrast checker and advanced export options (check current pricing).

Adobe Color — best for colour theory

1. Go to color.adobe.com and open Create.
2. Pick a harmony rule — Complementary, Triadic, Analogous, Split Complementary and more.
3. Drag the handles on the wheel; the other swatches follow the rule.
4. For a photo, choose Extract from image, upload it and drag the markers to refine the result.
5. Save the theme to a Creative Cloud Library, or download it as ASE, CSS, LESS, SASS or XML.

A free Adobe ID is required to save. Themes hold up to 10 colours and convert to RGB, LAB, CMYK, HSV and Pantone, so a saved theme shows up directly in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Canva Color Palette Generator — best from a photo

1. Go to canva.com/colors/color-palette-generator.
2. Upload an image, or click one of the sample photos.
3. Canva returns a four-colour palette with HEX codes.
4. Click Use palette to drop it straight into a new design — see how to use Canva for the rest of the workflow.

Extracting is free and needs no account; a free Canva account lets you save and design with it. The generator only gives you HEX, so pair it with Coolors if you need an ASE file.

Colormind — AI with locked colours

colormind.io generates palettes with a deep-learning model. Lock the swatches you like, click Generate to fill the rest, or start from a base colour or an uploaded image. Free, no login, copy HEX/RGB — and there’s a public API for non-commercial projects.

Khroma — learns your taste

1. Go to khroma.co and click Get started.
2. Pick about 50 colours you like to train the model (it runs in your browser).
3. Generate unlimited colour pairs and combinations; filter by light, dark, pastel, neon or a specific hue.
4. Preview each result as type, a gradient or an image, then copy HEX, RGB or CSS with its WCAG contrast rating.

There’s no account — your model is stored locally and can be downloaded to move it between devices. Completely free.

Realtime Colors — test a palette on a real website

1. Go to realtimecolors.com.
2. Set your text, background, primary, secondary and accent colours.
3. Toggle light/dark with Alt+T and press the spacebar to randomise.
4. Export as CSS, Tailwind, SCSS, CSV, shades, or a ZIP containing a PNG and the codes; a Figma plugin is also available.

It’s free and needs no login, and it checks contrast as you go — the quickest way to see whether a palette survives real UI use.

Happy Hues — see a palette in context

happyhues.co is a curated set of palettes rendered onto a real UI mockup, so you can judge how each colour behaves as a background, heading, button and body text. Free, no login, one-click HEX copy. Best when you want a proven starting point rather than a random spin.

Huemint — AI that knows colour roles

huemint.com uses machine learning to assign colours by role — background, foreground and accent — for brand, website and graphic templates. Lock any swatch and regenerate the rest. Free in the browser, with a public API for non-commercial use.

Paletton — the classic colour wheel

paletton.com is a manual colour-wheel playground built on traditional theory: monochromatic, adjacent, triad and tetrad relationships. Preview the result on a mock page. Free, no login, copy HEX — ideal when you already know the relationship you want and just need to tune it.

Color Hunt — ready-made palettes

colorhunt.co is a curated gallery of four-colour palettes rather than a generator. Filter by mood or tag and copy a HEX in one click. Free, no login. Useful for inspiration before you refine the palette in Coolors.

Chromora — best export formats

chromora.com is a generator with an unusually wide set of file exports: ASE and ACO for Adobe apps, plus CSS, CSV, JSON, GPL and PNG. Free in the browser, no login required. Handy when a developer or print designer needs the palette as a file, not a screenshot.

How to choose

• Fast brainstorm → Coolors.
• From a photo → Canva or Adobe Color.
• Colour theory → Adobe Color or Paletton.
• AI or personalised → Khroma or Huemint.
• Web and UI work → Realtime Colors (it exports real code).
• Adobe or print workflow → Adobe Color or Chromora (ASE).

How to use a palette well

• Stick to 3–5 colours — a base, an accent, and one or two neutrals.
• Give one accent the “click me” job — buttons, links and highlights — and use it sparingly.
• Check contrast so body text stays readable on its background; Realtime Colors and Khroma flag WCAG ratios for you.
• Test in context, and if the design will be printed, remember bright RGB colours look duller once converted to CMYK.

Choosing colours is part of any brand project — see how to make a logo for applying a palette to a full identity, and how to make a YouTube thumbnail for using one in a small, busy format.

FAQ

What’s the best free color palette generator?

Coolors is the fastest and most popular starting point. Adobe Color is best when you want colour theory or an image extract, and Canva’s generator is the simplest way to pull colours from a photo.

How do I create a colour palette from a photo?

Upload the image to Canva’s Color Palette Generator, Adobe Color’s Extract from image, or Colormind’s image option — each returns a matching palette with HEX codes.

How many colours should a palette have?

Three to five. One base colour, one or two accents, and a neutral for text and backgrounds. More than five is hard to apply consistently.

Do I need an account to save a palette?

Not to generate one — Coolors, Colormind, Khroma and Realtime Colors all work without logging in. You need a free account only to save (Coolors, Adobe Color) or to keep a personal library.

Can I export a palette for Photoshop or Illustrator?

Yes. Adobe Color and Chromora export an ASE (Adobe Swatch Exchange) file you can load through the Swatches panel, and Coolors lists ASE among its export formats (some export options sit behind Pro). For the web, Realtime Colors exports CSS, Tailwind and SCSS.