Five Handy Gradient Resources for Frontend Developers

CSS gradients should be simple. You pick two colors, set a direction, and move on. But if you’ve ever watched a vibrant blue-to-green gradient turn into muddy gray in the middle, you know the reality is messier. The problem isn’t your color choices—it’s how browsers interpolate between them.

Modern CSS gives you control over this through color spaces like OKLCH, but finding tools that actually support these features takes some digging. Many popular gradient generators still output RGB-only code, leaving you with the same washed-out results.

Here are five CSS gradient resources that go beyond basic galleries—tools and references that help you build better gradients with modern techniques.

Gradient Generators That Support Modern Color Spaces

CSS HD Gradients

Adam Argyle’s gradient generator is one of the few frontend color tools that lets you work directly in OKLCH. You can switch interpolation color spaces and see the difference immediately—OKLCH gradients maintain perceptual brightness across the transition, avoiding the muddy midpoints you get with sRGB.

The tool exports clean CSS with explicit color space declarations, aligned with the CSS Color Level 4 specification.

background: linear-gradient(in oklch, oklch(70% 0.15 200), oklch(70% 0.15 330));

This syntax tells the browser how to interpolate colors, rather than relying on default behavior. Support for this syntax is available in current versions of Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

OKLCH.fyi Gradients

This tool focuses on working directly with OKLCH, making it useful for building perceptually uniform gradients without falling back to legacy RGB assumptions. It helps illustrate how changes in lightness, chroma, and hue affect color transitions, which explains why sRGB gradients often produce unexpected results.

For gradient work, it’s particularly helpful when you want to keep lightness consistent across color stops—a common requirement for UI backgrounds, hero sections, and subtle overlays.

OKLCH Color Picker

While not strictly a gradient generator, this tool from Evil Martians is useful for understanding OKLCH values. You can explore how lightness, chroma, and hue interact, and the gamut warnings show when colors fall outside sRGB.

For gradient work, it helps you pick color stops that share the same lightness value—a reliable way to avoid the brightness dip that plagues many gradients.

Reference Documentation Worth Bookmarking

MDN: Using CSS Gradients

MDN’s gradient documentation covers the full syntax for linear, radial, and conic gradients, including modern color interpolation options. The section on interpolation explains how in oklch and in oklab modifiers work in gradient functions and links directly to browser compatibility data.

This is the reference to check when you need accurate syntax or want to confirm what’s supported today: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/gradient

CSS Color Module Level 4 Specification

The CSS Color Level 4 specification defines modern color spaces such as OKLab and OKLCH, along with color interpolation rules used by gradients. While it’s not light reading, it’s the authoritative source behind the in oklch syntax and related features.

This is the reference to consult when you want to understand why gradients behave the way they do, or when tracking standards-level changes.

Debugging and Validation

Chrome DevTools Color Space Inspection

Chrome DevTools can display colors in different color spaces and help you inspect how gradients are rendered. While it doesn’t always expose the interpolation path explicitly, it’s still useful for verifying color values, representations, and whether modern syntax is being applied as expected.

This can help narrow down why gradients look different across browsers or devices.

Why Color Space Matters for Gradients

The shift from RGB and HSL to OKLCH isn’t just about having more options. Gradients interpolated in sRGB often lose saturation in the middle because the color space isn’t perceptually uniform. A gradient from blue to yellow can pass through desaturated gray tones that weren’t part of the original design.

OKLCH gradients follow a perceptual path that maintains more consistent brightness and saturation:

/* sRGB interpolation (default, often muddy) */
background: linear-gradient(blue, yellow);

/* OKLCH interpolation (maintains saturation) */
background: linear-gradient(in oklch, blue, yellow);

Support for color space interpolation in gradients is available in modern versions of all major browsers. In browsers that don’t support this syntax, the gradient will fall back to default interpolation behavior.

Conclusion

Better gradients don’t require deep color science knowledge—just tools that give you control over interpolation. The resources above help you generate OKLCH gradients, understand the syntax, and debug issues when colors don’t blend as expected.

Bookmark the MDN reference for syntax questions, use a modern gradient generator for new work, and lean on browser tools when something looks off. That covers most gradient-related issues you’ll encounter in frontend work.

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