CSS Generators
Design CSS visually and copy the code — build gradients and box-shadows with a live preview, no guesswork.
About CSS Generators
Some CSS properties are almost impossible to write blind. Gradients and box-shadows are the two worst offenders: the syntax packs several values into one line, and a small change to any of them can transform the result. This category has two visual builders for exactly those — the CSS gradient generator and the CSS box shadow generator. You adjust controls, watch a live preview update, and copy the finished rule when it looks right. It is for front-end developers, designers and anyone tweaking a theme who would rather see the outcome than guess at numbers.
Reach for the gradient generator whenever you need a background that is more than a flat colour — a hero section, a button, a card header, an overlay that lets text sit readably on top of an image. The parts that repay experimenting are the angle and the position of each colour stop, since moving a stop is what turns a muddy blend into a clean one. Use the box shadow generator for depth: cards, dropdowns, modals and buttons that need to feel raised. Its useful lesson is that offset, blur and spread do quite different things, and the shadows that look convincing are usually softer and more transparent than instinct suggests — a large blur with low opacity reads as light, while a hard dark shadow reads as a sticker. Both tools produce standard CSS you paste straight into a stylesheet.
Both are free, need no sign-up, and run entirely in your browser, so nothing you design is uploaded and the preview is instant rather than a round trip. What you get is a plain background or box-shadow declaration to copy — no framework, no dependency, no attribution comment. Two things worth knowing: the preview shows how your own browser renders the rule, so check other browsers for anything critical, and heavy shadows or large gradients on many elements can cost paint performance on lower-end devices. For picking the colours you feed into a gradient, the color tools category has a converter, a shades generator and a contrast checker.
Frequently asked questions
Does the generated CSS work in all browsers?
Linear and radial gradients and box-shadow are supported in every current browser without vendor prefixes. You only need prefixed versions for genuinely old browsers, which almost no project targets today. If yours does, check the specific requirement rather than assuming.
Can I use these gradients and shadows in a commercial project?
Yes. The output is ordinary CSS you wrote using a visual editor. There is nothing to license, credit or attribute.
Why does my shadow look different on my site than in the preview?
Usually because of the context around it. A shadow reads differently against a coloured background than a white one, and it can be clipped by a parent with overflow hidden or hidden behind a sibling with a higher stacking order. The rule itself is the same.
Can I add multiple shadows or more than two gradient colours?
CSS supports both: box-shadow accepts a comma-separated list, and gradients accept as many colour stops as you like. Layering two or three shadows with different blurs is how the most realistic depth is achieved.