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canva.com vs perplexity.ai

Two design systems side by side, measured from the live sites — colour, type, shape, depth, components, states and responsive behaviour.

canva.com
canva.com· read 2026-08-09
perplexity.ai
perplexity.ai· read 2026-08-09

Worth knowing

  • Neither side has named colour roles, so both predate role-based extraction. Re-generating either one fills in the palette comparison.
  • Interaction states are missing on at least one side — that site's stylesheets were cross-origin and could not be read.

Ground and ink

Each side painted in its own measured canvas, ink, muted and primary roles.

canva.com

No colour roles measured on this side, so there is no ground to paint. The palette below is still real; re-extracting the site fills this in.

perplexity.ai

No colour roles measured on this side, so there is no ground to paint. The palette below is still real; re-extracting the site fills this in.

Palette

Named roles first, then every colour measured without one.

canva.com

No named roles measured.

13 more, no measured role

perplexity.ai

No named roles measured.

14 more, no measured role

Type scale

Set at the measured size, weight, tracking and leading. Brand typefaces are not loaded, so the metrics are real and the letterforms are not.

canva.com

h1

24px · 600

h2

15px · 700

body

14px · 400

button

14px · 600

h3

12px · 700

list-item

10px · 400

perplexity.ai

body

16px · 400

Corners

Drawn at the measured radii.

canva.com

12px

48px

10px

20px

perplexity.ai

pill

6px

11px

8px

12px

4px

Spacing

One shared scale across both sides, so the bars are directly comparable.

canva.com

4
8
12
16
24
32
48
64

perplexity.ai

4
8
12
16
32
92

Depth

Shadows cast on each side's own ground.

canva.com

sm

md

perplexity.ai

sm

md

lg

Buttons

Rendered from the measured computed styles.

canva.com

default

perplexity.ai

default

The measured values behind the panels above.

canva.comperplexity.ai

At a glance

Corners — these differRoundedPill
Display size — these differ24px16px
Spacing base4px4px
Accent colours — these differ107
Type families — these differ21
Components44

Full palette

Every colour each extraction kept, including the ones with no measured role.

All colours — these differ#9E9EFF#0F1015#101219#394660#A370FC#404F6D#151E82#8B3DFF#000000#FFFFFF#F3F4F7#DB142C#B61629#271A00#0000#27251E#FFF0#016A71#A23544#DC6973#97431A#000000#D6D5D4#FDFBFA#FFFFFF#539E55#E10600
Semantic — these differError/Danger #DB142CError/Danger #B61629Success #539E55Error/Danger #E10600

Typography

Families — these differCanva SansTimes New RomanpplxSans
h124px · 600 · 32px · Canva Sans—
h215px · 700 · normal · Times New Roman—
body — these differ14px · 400 · 22px · Canva Sans16px · 400 · 24px · pplxSans
button14px · 600 · 22px · Canva Sans—
h311.7px · 700 · normal · Times New Roman—
list-item10px · 400 · normal · Times New Roman—

Shape and rhythm

Radius — these differ10px12px20px48px4px6px8px11px12px9999px
Spacing — these differ4px8px12px16px24px32px48px64px168px4px8px12px16px32px92px
Border widths — these differ—1px

Depth

Strategy——
Shadows — these differrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px insetrgba(255, 255, 255, 0.08) 0px 24px 24px -18px inset, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25) 0px 1px 0.5px 0px inset, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25) 0px -1px 0.5px 0px inset, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.14) 0px 1px 2px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.07) 0px 3px 4px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px insetrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08) 0px 1px 2px 0pxrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 0px 0px 1pxoklch(0.5525 0.085 207.66 / 0) 0px 0px 36px 4px
Gradients——
Opacity — these differ0.070.040.030.700.20
Z-index — these differbase 1base 2base 5sticky 100base 1dropdown 10dropdown 20dropdown 30sticky 500

Components

Sharedbuttonnavigationlinkbuttonnavigationlink
Only here — these differinputcard
Signature——

How this was measured

Differences here are ours, not the brands'.

Pages read——
Extracted2026-08-092026-08-09
Stylesheets——
Roles unassigned——

Measured by DesignMD from the live sites. Compare two others. Generate a DESIGN.md for your own site.