Last Updated on March 9, 2026
ansi-colors is a fast Node.js library for terminal styling. It’s billed as a more performant drop-in replacement for chalk, with no dependencies.
It’s used by hundreds of projects, including enquirer, vscode, codeql, azure data studio, aws-cdk, redwoodjs, leaflet, mocha, and many others.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Fastest terminal styling library in node.js, 10-20x faster than chalk.
- Drop-in replacement for chalk.
- No dependencies.
- Safe – Does not modify the String.prototype like colors.
- Supports nested colors, and does not have the nested styling bug that is present in colorette, chalk, and kleur.
- Supports chained colors.
- Toggle color support on or off.
Website: github.com/doowb/ansi-colors
Support:
Developer: Brian Woodward
License: MIT License
ansi-colors is written in JavaScript. Learn JavaScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal String Styling Tools | |
|---|---|
| Rich | Python library for rich text and beautiful formatting |
| Chalk | Bills itself as “Terminal string styling done right” |
| picocolors | Tiny and fast library for terminal output formatting |
| yoctocolors | Small and fast command-line coloring package |
| yachalk | Clone of Chalk written in Python |
| kleur | Node.js library for formatting terminal text with ANSI colors |
| colorette | Set your terminal text color and styles |
| sty | String styling for your terminal |
| termcolor | ANSI color formatting for output in the terminal |
| colored | Simple Python library for color and formatting in terminal |
| ansicolors | ANSI colors for Python |
| ansi-colors | Add ANSI colors to terminal text |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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