Chromatic vs Percy

From $149 per month (indicative, starter)

From $599 per month (indicative, paid tier)

Snapshot-based billing. TurboSnap, which only re-tests stories affected by a change, is the main cost control.

Billed per screenshot. Multiply pages x widths x browsers x commits before committing — this is where budgets are misjudged.

Free tier with a monthly snapshot allowance.

Free tier with a monthly screenshot allowance suitable for a small project.

Widely used

Chromatic · since 2017

Widely used

BrowserStack · since 2015

• Zero-effort setup if you already have Storybook — stories are the tests.
• The hosted review UI is genuinely usable by designers and product managers.
• TurboSnap dramatically reduces snapshot cost on large libraries.

• Plugs into an existing suite with a few lines rather than requiring new tests.
• Server-side rendering removes machine-to-machine screenshot inconsistency.
• Good PR-based approval workflow that developers actually use.

• Strongly tied to Storybook; without it much of the value disappears.
• Component-level, not full-page — it will not catch a broken page layout.
• Snapshot pricing still adds up on a big design system.

• Screenshot-based billing escalates faster than teams expect.
• Dynamic content requires careful masking or you drown in false diffs.
• Responsive widths are rendered, not truly executed in each browser, which occasionally hides real issues.

Design-system and component-library teams already invested in Storybook.

Teams with an existing E2E or Storybook suite who want visual coverage without new tests.