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Comparison

cli-color vs chalk

CLI tools and terminal utilitiesPackage data 25 Sept 2026
cli-colorv2.0.4, 29 Feb 2024

Colors, formatting and other tools for the console

$ npm install cli-color
chalkv6.0.0, 26 Jul 2026

Terminal string styling done right

$ npm install chalk
Metriccli-colorchalkDifference
Weekly downloads2,457,810411,482,632chalk 167.4x higher
12-month download growth+1%+34%chalk +33 pts
Gzip size---
Minified size---
Dependencies50cli-color 5 more
Unpacked size39 kB55 kBcli-color 41% smaller
Latest release2.0.4, 29 Feb 20246.0.0, 26 Jul 2026chalk 2.4 years more recent
Releases, last 12 months01chalk 1 more
First published11 Jul 20113 Aug 2013cli-color 2.1 years earlier
GitHub stars67323,319chalk 34.6x higher
Open issues30cli-color 3 more
Open pull requests00Same
Contributors-67-
Commits, last 52 weeks010chalk higher
TypeScript typesNoneBundledDiffers
Module format-ESM onlyDiffers
Runtimes-Node.js-
LicenseISCMITDiffers

Green marks the smaller size or the more recent release. Bold marks the higher count, with no judgement implied. Sizes are for the whole package per Bundlephobia. Growth compares the average of the last 4 weeks with the first 4 weeks of the 52-week series.

cli-color2.5m latest weekchalk415.6m latest week
Week of 23 Sept 2025Week of 15 Sept 2026
Weekly npm downloads, 52 weeks. Y axis starts at zero. Values are not smoothed.

cli-color

Major versions
  1. 0.1.011 Jul 2011
  2. 1.0.022 Apr 2015
  3. 2.0.09 Oct 2019
Last 5 releases
  1. 2.0.429 Feb 2024
  2. 2.0.34 Jul 2022
  3. 2.0.231 Mar 2022
  4. 2.0.115 Oct 2021
  5. 2.0.09 Oct 2019
26 releases in total, 0 in the last 12 months

chalk

Major versions
  1. 0.1.03 Aug 2013
  2. 1.0.023 Feb 2015
  3. 2.0.029 Jun 2017
  4. 3.0.09 Nov 2019
  5. 4.0.02 Apr 2020
  6. 5.0.026 Nov 2021
  7. 6.0.026 Jul 2026
Last 5 releases
  1. 6.0.026 Jul 2026
  2. 5.6.28 Sept 2025
  3. 5.6.017 Aug 2025
  4. 5.5.03 Aug 2025
  5. 5.4.121 Dec 2024
42 releases in total, 1 in the last 12 months
cli-color

-

chalk

Chainable style methods for terminal output

cli-color

-

chalk
  • Chalk 5 is ESM; Chalk 4 is recommended for TypeScript or build tools.
  • Chalk is used by ~115,000 packages as of July 4, 2024.
  • Supports 256 colors and Truecolor (16 million colors).
  • No dependencies.
  • Need no runtime dependencieschalk (cli-color has 5, chalk has 0)
  • Need both ESM and CommonJS entry pointsNeither (cli-color: -; chalk: ESM only)
  • Need to load it with require()Neither
  • Need TypeScript types in the package itselfchalk (cli-color: None; chalk: Bundled)
  • Node.js version requirementcli-color: >=0.10; chalk: >=22 (engines field in package.json)
  • Need the more recent releasechalk (6.0.0 on 26 Jul 2026 vs 2.0.4 on 29 Feb 2024)
  • Higher weekly npm downloadschalk (411.5m vs 2.5m)
  • Licensecli-color: ISC; chalk: MIT

Each line is generated from the data above.

cli-color: cli-color npm registry, cli-color npm downloads, cli-color GitHub. Data fetched 25 Sept 2026.

Indexability: Indexed: 0 US searches/month across both orderings ("cli-color vs chalk", "chalk vs cli-color").