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Comparison

Fidel + Chromatic

Chromatic guards your components against regressions. Fidel guards your pages against the Figma spec. The spec is the contract — together, they cover the full stack.

TL;DR

Chromatic snapshots your Storybook components in isolation and compares them against a previous baseline to catch visual regressions. Fidel compares your full deployed page against your Figma design file — the spec that defines what correct looks like. Chromatic asks "did this component change?" Fidel asks "does the implementation match the contract?" They work at different levels, and the gap between them is where design drift lives.

At a Glance

Feature Comparison

Fidel Chromatic
Compares against Figma design spec (source of truth) Previous Storybook snapshot baseline
Scope Full deployed pages (assembled UI) Individual Storybook components (isolated)
What it catches Design spec violations — spacing, color, typography drift from Figma Component visual regressions between builds
Output Expected vs actual values per CSS property Screenshot diff with pixel-level highlighting
Requires Two inputs — Figma URL + deploy URL Storybook setup with stories per component
CI integration GitHub Action — add to workflow YAML GitHub Action via Storybook build
Review workflow Severity-ranked issues on the PR Visual review dashboard with approve/deny per story
Test maintenance None — no selectors, no baselines Stories must be written and maintained; baselines updated for intentional changes
Interaction testing Validates default + variant states from Figma Play functions test click, type, hover flows
Scoring 0–100 match score per page No score — pass/fail per story
Pricing Free during beta (pricing TBD) Free tier (5,000 snapshots/mo), paid from $149/mo

Ready to try it? Sign up for the beta — zero setup, runs in CI in under 2 minutes.

What Chromatic does well

Chromatic is purpose-built for Storybook-based design systems. If your team has invested in a component library with stories for each component variant, Chromatic gives you reliable detection of unintended visual changes at the component level.

Its integration with Storybook is seamless — it captures every story as a snapshot and diffs against the approved baseline. The review UI shows side-by-side diffs with approve/deny controls per story, and the ability to test interactions via Storybook play functions adds functional testing on top of visual testing.

Chromatic is the right choice if you need to catch visual regressions in a large, well-maintained Storybook component library, and you want those checks tightly integrated into your component development workflow.

Chromatic — Component Visual Testing
Scope Individual components
Baseline Approved Storybook snapshot
Requires Storybook + stories
Interaction tests Play functions
Maintenance Stories + baselines
Fidel — Full-Page Design Validation
Scope Full deployed pages
Baseline Figma design file
Requires Figma URL + deploy URL
Setup Zero config
Maintenance None

What Fidel adds

Fidel operates at a different level. Instead of testing components in isolation, it validates the full assembled page against the Figma file — the spec that defines what correct looks like.

This catches problems that component-level testing can't reach: composition issues where individual components are correct but the assembled page has wrong spacing between sections, incorrect layout ordering, or missing elements from the Figma frame that were never implemented.

The Figma file is the contract between design and engineering. When the implementation deviates from that contract, the gap compounds silently across every release. Chromatic protects individual components from changing. Fidel validates that the assembled result still matches what was specified.

Why you need both levels

A button can look perfect in Storybook and still be wrong on the page. Maybe it's the right component at the wrong size. Maybe the container around it has incorrect padding. Maybe the section it sits in has the wrong background color. Component correctness doesn't guarantee page correctness.

Chromatic ensures your components don't change unexpectedly. Fidel ensures the final assembled page matches the Figma spec — the contract that defines what correct looks like. The gap between these two — composition, layout, and cross-component spacing — is where design drift lives.

There's also a practical coverage gap: most teams don't have 100% story coverage. New components get built without stories, existing stories fall out of date, page-level compositions are rarely represented. Fidel doesn't depend on story coverage. It validates the deployed page directly against the spec.

Coverage

What each tool covers

What Chromatic covers

  • Component-level visual regression testing in Storybook
  • Interaction testing via play functions (clicks, typing, hover)
  • Visual review and approval workflow per component
  • Cross-browser rendering for isolated components
  • UI Tests and TurboSnap for targeted snapshot diffing

What Fidel adds

  • Full-page validation against the Figma spec — the design contract
  • Catches composition, layout, and cross-component spacing issues
  • Severity-ranked issues with expected vs actual values on the PR
  • No Storybook dependency — validates any deployed URL
  • Covers components that don't have stories written for them

Chromatic guards your component library from regressions. Fidel guards your deployed pages against the Figma spec. Together, they cover the full stack — from isolated components to the final assembled page.

Questions

Frequently Asked

They're complementary — each covers a different level. Chromatic catches component-level regressions against a previous baseline in Storybook. Fidel catches spec violations on the full assembled page against your Figma file — the design contract. If your team uses Storybook and Figma, running both gives you coverage from isolated components all the way to the deployed page.
No. Fidel works with any deployed URL — it doesn't depend on Storybook, a component library, or any test framework. You just need a Figma URL and a deploy URL. Chromatic requires a Storybook setup with stories written for each component you want to test.
Yes, and they're complementary. Chromatic protects individual components from visual regressions in isolation. Fidel validates the full assembled page against the Figma design. Together, you get component-level stability plus page-level design accuracy.
Fidel validates at the page level — composition, layout ordering, cross-component spacing, and whether the assembled page matches the Figma spec. Chromatic operates at the component level in Storybook, so page-level concerns like section spacing, overall layout, and components without stories fall outside its scope. They're different layers of the same quality stack.
Yes. Chromatic supports Storybook play functions that can simulate clicks, typing, hovering, and other user interactions, then snapshot the result. Fidel validates visual states (default, hover, focus, disabled) based on Figma component variants, but doesn't simulate multi-step user flows.
Chromatic has a free tier with 5,000 snapshots per month. Paid plans start at $149/month and scale with snapshot usage. Fidel is free during beta. Fidel doesn't use screenshot-based comparison, so there's no per-snapshot billing model.

Add spec validation to your Chromatic workflow

Chromatic guards your components. Fidel guards the page against the Figma contract. Free during beta — zero setup, runs in CI in under 2 minutes.

Sign Up for Beta