What Is the Difference Between the Use Contrast Figma Plugin and the macOS App?

Updated

Use Contrast ships as two separate tools: a Figma plugin for checking WCAG color contrast ratios while you work inside a Figma file, and a macOS app for checking contrast outside of Figma. The plugin is the one to reach for if your colors live in a design file; the macOS app is the one to reach for if you need to test colors from a browser, a live site, a screenshot, or any other source on your Mac. The site describes the plugin as being "for quick access to WCAG color contrast ratios," and lists the macOS app as a distinct product alongside it.

The two products at a glance

Figma plugin macOS app
Where it runs Inside Figma On your Mac, as a standalone app
Primary use Checking contrast of colors in a design file during design work Checking contrast of colors from sources outside Figma
Access model Installed into Figma, opened from within a file Installed and launched like any Mac application
Listed on the site as "Figma plugin for quick access to WCAG color contrast ratios" "Mac app"

Both are presented on the same site under the Use Contrast name, so they share the same underlying purpose — evaluating color contrast against WCAG ratios — but they differ in where that evaluation happens.

When to use the Figma plugin

Choose the plugin when the colors you need to check are already in a Figma document. That covers the common design-phase tasks:

  • Verifying that text and background color pairs in a component or frame meet a target WCAG ratio.
  • Checking a palette or style before it gets handed off to development.
  • Catching low-contrast combinations while the design is still easy to change.

The plugin's value is proximity: you stay in the file, so the check happens as part of designing rather than as a separate step afterward.

When to use the macOS app

Choose the macOS app when the colors you need to check are not in a Figma file. Typical situations:

  • A color pair you saw on a live website or in a browser.
  • Colors pulled from a screenshot, an image, or a document.
  • A quick check when you are not working in Figma at all.

Because it runs as a Mac application rather than inside a design tool, it is not tied to a Figma file being open or to the colors existing as Figma objects.

How to decide

Ask one question: where do the colors live right now?

  • In a Figma file → use the Figma plugin.
  • Anywhere else on your Mac → use the macOS app.

If you do both kinds of work, the two tools are complementary rather than alternatives — the plugin covers the design-file case, and the app covers everything outside it. Nothing on the site suggests one replaces the other.

What both tools have in common

Both are built around WCAG color contrast ratios, which is the standard that defines minimum contrast between text and its background. If you are unfamiliar with how those ratios are calculated or which thresholds apply to which text sizes, that background is worth understanding first, since it determines what counts as a passing result in either tool.