What is vibrant.js?

jariz/vibrant.js — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

★ 4,597CoffeeScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((vibrant.js))
    What it does
      Extracts colors from images
      Dominant color
      Vibrant and muted variants
    Status
      Deprecated
      Successor is node-vibrant
    Use cases
      Dynamic UI theming
      Album art colors
    Tech stack
      JavaScript
      CoffeeScript

mindmap root((vibrant.js)) What it does Extracts colors from images Dominant color Vibrant and muted variants Status Deprecated Successor is node-vibrant Use cases Dynamic UI theming Album art colors Tech stack JavaScript CoffeeScript

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Extract a dominant or vibrant accent color from a user-uploaded photo to auto-theme a web UI

USE CASE 2

Build an interface that dynamically adapts its color palette to match a piece of artwork or album cover

What is it built with?

JavaScriptCoffeeScript

How does it compare?

	jariz/vibrant.js	danielgtaylor/aglio	yakyak/yakyak
Stars	4,597	4,756	3,762
Language	CoffeeScript	CoffeeScript	CoffeeScript
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	easy
Complexity	2/5	2/5	2/5
Audience	developer	developer	general

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

This repo is deprecated, use node-vibrant instead for active support.

No license information is mentioned in the explanation.

So what is it?

Vibrant.js is a JavaScript library that extracts the most prominent colors from an image. Given an image, it analyzes the pixels and returns a small set of representative colors, such as the dominant color, a vibrant accent color, and muted variants. This kind of color extraction is useful for building interfaces that adapt their color scheme to match a piece of artwork or a user-uploaded photo. The library is a port of the Palette class from the Android support library, which Android developers use for the same purpose when building apps that dynamically theme themselves based on images. Importantly, the README marks this repository as deprecated. Active development has moved to a successor project called node-vibrant, which is maintained separately and supports both Node.js and browser environments. The README explicitly recommends using node-vibrant rather than this original version, and directs all new issues there. This repository is kept for historical reference only. If you are looking for a maintained version of this color extraction tool for JavaScript projects, the README points to node-vibrant as the place to go.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using node-vibrant (the maintained successor to vibrant.js), show me how to extract the dominant color from an image URL and apply it as a CSS background

Prompt 2

How do I get a vibrant accent color and a muted variant from a local image file using node-vibrant in a browser?

Prompt 3

Help me build a music player UI that changes its color scheme to match album artwork using node-vibrant, the successor to jariz/vibrant.js

Frequently asked questions