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mercury.com vs perplexity.ai

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

mercury.com
mercury.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.

mercury.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.

mercury.com

No named roles measured.

12 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.

mercury.com

h1

49px · 480 · shown smaller

h2

42px · 480 · shown smaller

body

21px · 480

h3

16px · 400

button

16px · 420

small

12px · 480

perplexity.ai

body

16px · 400

Corners

Drawn at the measured radii.

mercury.com

4px

pill

40px

32px

32px

perplexity.ai

pill

6px

11px

8px

12px

4px

Spacing

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

mercury.com

4
8
12
16
24
32
40
72

perplexity.ai

4
8
12
16
32
92

Depth

Shadows cast on each side's own ground.

mercury.com

sm

md

lg

perplexity.ai

sm

md

lg

Buttons

Rendered from the measured computed styles.

mercury.com

default

perplexity.ai

default

The measured values behind the panels above.

mercury.comperplexity.ai

At a glance

CornersPillPill
Display size — these differ49px16px
Spacing base4px4px
Accent colours — these differ47
Type families — these differ21
Components — these differ54

Full palette

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

All colours — these differ#AFB2CE#9CB4E8#171721#272735#5266EB#0000#000000#EDEDF3#C3C3CC#FFFFFF#EBEBEB#F5F5F5#271A00#0000#27251E#FFF0#016A71#A23544#DC6973#97431A#000000#D6D5D4#FDFBFA#FFFFFF#539E55#E10600
Semantic — these differ—Success #539E55Error/Danger #E10600

Typography

Families — these differarcadiaDisplayarcadiapplxSans
h149.3472px · 480 · 54.2819px · arcadiaDisplay—
h242px · 480 · 48.3px · arcadiaDisplay—
body — these differ21.008px · 480 · 25.2096px · arcadiaDisplay16px · 400 · 24px · pplxSans
h316px · 400 · 24px · arcadia—
button16px · 420 · 16px · arcadia—
small12px · 480 · 16.8px · arcadia—

Shape and rhythm

Radius — these differ4px32px32px 0px 0px 32px40px9999px4px6px8px11px12px9999px
Spacing — these differ4px8px12px16px24px32px40px72px4px8px12px16px32px92px
Border widths1px1px

Depth

Strategy——
Shadows — these differrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(86, 86, 118, 0.1) 0px 0px 6px 0pxrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(28, 28, 35, 0.02) 0px 10px 16px 0px, rgba(28, 28, 35, 0.04) 0px 6px 10px 0px, rgba(28, 28, 35, 0.09) 0px 0px 3px 0pxrgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 0px 0px 0px 0px, rgba(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 3px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 8px 12px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 12px 20px 0pxrgba(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 differ0.240.700.700.20
Z-index — these differbase 1base 2base 3base 5dropdown 10dropdown 20dropdown 99base 1dropdown 10dropdown 20dropdown 30sticky 500

Components

Sharedbuttoncardnavigationlinkbuttoncardnavigationlink
Only here — these differinput—
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.