Terminal and console string styling with ANSI colors, supporting Node.js, browsers, and multiple runtimes.

@visulima/colorize

Terminal and console string styling done right. A high-performance, feature-rich library for colorizing terminal and browser console output with ANSI escape codes.

Why Colorize?

@visulima/colorize is a modern, performant alternative to Chalk and other color libraries, offering the best of both worlds: Chalk-compatible API with superior performance (up to 3x faster).

Key Features

Compatibility & Performance

Chalk-compatible API - Drop-in replacement with the same syntax
Up to 3x faster than Chalk in benchmarks
Named imports - import { red, green } from '@visulima/colorize'
Zero dependencies (except for color detection)

Multiple Runtimes

Node.js 22.13+ support (ESM and CommonJS)
Browser support - Works in Chrome, Safari, Edge, and more
Deno and Next.js runtime compatibility

Rich Color Support

Base ANSI 16 colors - Standard terminal colors (red, green, blue, etc.)
ANSI 256 colors - Extended color palette with ansi256() or fg()/bg()
TrueColor (16M colors) - RGB and HEX colors with rgb() and hex()
Automatic fallback - TrueColor → 256 → 16 → no colors

Developer Experience

Chained syntax - red.bold.underline`text`
Template literals - red`Hello ${green`World`}`
Nested templates - Deep nesting support (unique among color libraries)
TypeScript - Full type definitions with IDE autocomplete

Advanced Features

Color gradients - Single and multi-line gradient support
Tagged templates - String interpolation with @visulima/colorize/template
Strip ANSI codes - Remove colors with strip() method
Environment awareness - Respects NO_COLOR, FORCE_COLOR, --no-color, --color

Quick Start

Installation

npm install @visulima/colorize

Basic Usage

import colorize, { red, green, blue } from "@visulima/colorize";

// Default import
console.log(colorize.green("Success!"));

// Named import
console.log(red("Error!"));

// Template literals
console.log(blue`Information`);

// Chained syntax
console.log(green.bold`Success!`);

// Nested templates
console.log(red`The ${blue.underline`file.js`} not found!`);

Use Cases

CLI Tool Output

Enhance command-line tool output with clear, colorful messages:

import { green, red, yellow, bold } from "@visulima/colorize";

console.log(green.bold("✓ Build completed successfully!"));
console.log(yellow("⚠ Warning: Deprecated API usage detected"));
console.log(red("✗ Error: File not found"));
console.log(bold("=== Test Results ==="));

Structured Logging

Create readable, color-coded logs for better debugging:

import { gray, cyan, yellow, red, bold } from "@visulima/colorize";

const logger = {
    debug: (msg: string) => console.log(gray(`[DEBUG] ${msg}`)),
    info: (msg: string) => console.log(cyan(`[INFO] ${msg}`)),
    warn: (msg: string) => console.log(yellow(`[WARN] ${msg}`)),
    error: (msg: string) => console.log(red.bold(`[ERROR] ${msg}`)),
};

logger.info("Server started on port 3000");
logger.warn("High memory usage detected");
logger.error("Database connection failed");

Terminal Dashboards

Build rich terminal UI with gradients and complex styling:

import { green, red, hex, inverse } from "@visulima/colorize";

const cpu = { totalPercent: 45 };
const ram = { used: 8, total: 16 };
const disk = { used: 120, total: 256 };

const orange = hex("#FFAB40");

console.log(inverse`
CPU:  ${red`${cpu.totalPercent}%`}
RAM:  ${green`${((ram.used / ram.total) * 100).toFixed(1)}%`}
DISK: ${orange`${((disk.used / disk.total) * 100).toFixed(1)}%`}
`);