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[Replacement]: @img/colour #786
Description
Package to replace
@img/colour
Suggested replacement(s)
another package: color
Manifest type
preferred (lighter or more modern alternative package)
Rationale
@img/colour is just a port of the color package to CommonJS. It is just better to switch back to color and use ESM, which allows for better tree-shaking.
This package converts the color package and its dependencies, all of which are MIT-licensed, to CommonJS.
Availability
No response
Code example (optional)
Before:
const Color = require('@img/colour')
const red = Color('red').hex()After:
import Color from 'color'
const red = Color('red').hex()Reacted by Roman
Activity
43081j commentedon Jul 7, 2026
hmm we should dig into this a bit...
@img/colourwas updated more recently, has fewer deps, and is smaller.i wonder if the right move here is to ask them to go ESM-only and rework their README to no longer be just a CJS port - but rather just be the more modern alternative.
Norbiros commentedon Jul 7, 2026
@img/colouris solely used bysharpand sharp-related projects, meaning there is a bigger chance it might get abandoned.@img/colouris not its own library, it is built by generatingcjscompatible code fromcolorand its sub-dependencies likecolor-convertinto a single file. It reduces portability, but at the same time reduces the final size (less readmes, less files), giving that 20kB size difference.colorlibrary has some problems like missingoklchsupport, but given that@img/colouris not a fork, it is just a library that rebuilds it for CommonJS, I think the migration tocoloris the right choice and we should continue improving that library.Norbiros commentedon Jul 7, 2026
There might be other alternatives like
colorjs.iowhich is more modern (supportsCSS Color 4), but it weights13.2 MBinstead of91.5 kB, has different API and probably it's own caveats.43081j commentedon Jul 7, 2026
you are right 👍
ill wait for a 2nd opinion from core but i think
colorshould be used here even though it is slightly bigger (because it isn't minified). it'll de-dupe betterdreyfus92 commentedon Jul 8, 2026
+1 for
colorhere, agree with the direction, it is worth being clear about what@img/colouractually is, not a fork or an alternative, just an esbuild bundle ofcolorregenerated for cjs. the size argument also cuts the other way in practice, the 20kb is mostly install size (readmes, unbundled files), andcolor/color-conver/color-stringare already in half ecosystem's trees, so depending oncolordedupes while@img/colourships the same code again as an opaque build.one thing the migration notes should call out:
color@5is esm-only, and the whole audience for@img/colouris cjs consumers, without it the before/after swap can be a bit misleading.preferredtype sounds right to me