catppuccin.com

What is Catppuccin?

Catppuccin is a community-driven pastel color scheme — a set of soft, low-contrast color palettes intended for coding, designing, and general screen use. Rather than a single product, it is a palette plus a large collection of "ports": adaptations that apply the same colors to specific apps, terminals, editors, and tools.

Its main draw is a muted, pastel look that is easier on the eyes than high-contrast themes, while staying consistent across everything you use. The project also publishes the palette itself so you can apply the colors to software that has no official port yet.

What you'll typically find on the site

• Several palette variants, usually distinguished by light/dark and by how saturated or subdued the colors are.
• A ports directory listing supported applications.
• Community links (chat, social, and sponsorship pages) and a blog.

Who it suits

• Developers who want one visual identity across editor, terminal, and shell prompts.
• Designers and hobbyists who want a ready-made pastel palette instead of building one.
• Anyone who finds stark black-on-white themes fatiguing.

Trade-offs to weigh

• Pastels reduce contrast, which some people find harder to read, especially for long text or in bright rooms; a darker, more saturated variant may work better for you.
• Ports vary in completeness. A port maintained by a volunteer may lag behind the host app's updates, so check that the port you need is actively maintained.
• Because it is community-run, the range of supported apps is broad but uneven.

A practical next step: open the palette page, pick the variant that matches your lighting and screen, then search the ports list for your editor and terminal. If both exist, apply them together so your workspace looks consistent — and if your editor isn't listed, you can still hand-build a theme from the published colors.

How do I install Catppuccin for my code editor or terminal?

Catppuccin is a community color scheme rather than a single downloadable app, so "installing" it means picking the port (integration) for your specific editor or terminal and following that port's own setup steps. The main site is the hub: Catppuccin.

The general path

1. Go to the Catppuccin site and open the Ports section.
2. Search or filter for your tool — VS Code, Neovim, Vim, JetBrains IDEs, Sublime Text, Zed, Emacs, tmux, Alacritty, Kitty, WezTerm, Windows Terminal, iTerm2 and many others have ports.
3. Open the port's page or its linked repository and follow the install instructions there. Methods vary: some are plugins or extensions installed from a marketplace, others are configuration files you copy into a dotfiles directory.
4. Choose a flavor — Latte (light), Frappe, Macchiato or Mocha (dark) — and, if the port supports it, an accent color.
5. Restart or reload the editor/terminal and confirm the theme is applied.

What to check before you start

• Match the port to your exact tool and version. A Neovim port won't help a VS Code user, and some ports assume a plugin manager (lazy.nvim, packer, vim-plug) is already set up.
• Terminal themes usually need two parts: the color scheme itself and, for some terminals, a matching shell prompt or a font with proper glyph support. Catppuccin's own guidance is the place to confirm which parts your terminal needs.
• Editor themes may also want a companion port for the terminal panel, syntax highlighting or UI chrome, so colors stay consistent.
• Syncing across tools is the common reason people adopt Catppuccin in the first place: using the same flavor in your editor, terminal and multiplexer gives one coherent look.

A quick decision guide

A concrete example

If you use VS Code, install the Catppuccin extension from the marketplace, then set the theme via the command palette ("Preferences: Color Theme") and pick your flavor. If you also use Kitty, add the Catppuccin Kitty config to your Kitty config file so both match. Then verify by opening a file with mixed syntax — comments, strings and keywords should all read clearly against the background.

Next step: open the Ports page on Catppuccin, find your tool, and follow that port's instructions rather than trying to apply a theme generically — ports differ enough that the specific guide saves time.

Which Catppuccin color palette should I choose for my setup?

Start with how much visual contrast you want, not with which palette name sounds nicest. Catppuccin is a community-driven pastel color scheme meant for coding and designing, and it ships as several palettes you can apply across many apps through its ports. The practical difference between them is light versus dark and how soft versus saturated the colors feel.

The main choice

Catppuccin's palettes split into light and dark families, and picking the family matters more than picking within it:

Within a family, the variants differ mainly in background depth and how muted the accents are. A softer, lower-contrast option looks calmer but makes subtle syntax colors harder to tell apart; a punchier option is easier to parse but less restful over hours.

How to decide in ten minutes

1. Open the palette page at Catppuccin and view the colors full-screen in your actual editor font size.
2. Apply one dark and one light palette to your editor only — not your whole desktop — and work for a day in each.
3. Keep the one where you stop noticing the theme. If you keep fiddling with it, it is too loud or too flat.

Practical notes

• Consistency across tools matters: the same palette in your terminal, editor and chat client reduces context-switching friction. The project's port list is the place to check whether your specific apps are covered.
• Pastel schemes trade maximum contrast for comfort. If you have low vision or work in very bright glare, test readability carefully before committing, and consider a higher-contrast variant.
• Catppuccin is community-maintained, so availability and quality of individual ports vary; check that your key tools are actively supported rather than assuming uniform coverage.

If you are unsure, choose a dark palette for a first try, live with it for a week, then compare against one light alternative before settling.

How can I contribute a new port or palette to Catppuccin?

Catppuccin accepts contributions through its community repositories rather than through a form on the website. The site itself points to a community, a blog, and a GitHub organization, and notes that the website is maintained by the community — so contribution happens on GitHub, in the open, under the project's licensing.

The main distinction is what you are contributing:

• A port — a theme or integration that applies Catppuccin's existing palette to another app, editor, terminal, or tool. This is usually a separate repository under the Catppuccin organization, following the project's style guide and using the official palette values.
• A palette change — altering the colors themselves. This affects every port at once, so it is a much higher-stakes change and normally needs discussion in the community before any code is written.

A practical route

1. Join the community (Discord is linked from the site) and ask whether your port already exists or is in progress. Duplicates are the most common wasted effort.
2. Read the organization's contribution and style documentation before writing code, so naming, palette references, and repo structure match existing ports.
3. Open your port as a repository with a clear README, screenshots, supported versions, and installation instructions.
4. For palette proposals, start a discussion with visual comparisons rather than a pull request — you need consensus from port maintainers, not just approval from one reviewer.

Reader scenario

Suppose you maintain a niche terminal emulator and want it themed. You would fork the closest existing port as a template, swap in the official palette hex values, test light and dark variants, then submit it for review. If instead you think the mauve tone should be warmer, that is a palette conversation affecting hundreds of ports — expect a slower, more argumentative process.

Decision criterion

Contribute a port if you want a self-contained addition you can own and maintain. Propose a palette change only if you are prepared to defend it across the whole ecosystem and accept that it may be rejected.

Start at Catppuccin to confirm the current palette and existing ports, then move to the linked GitHub organization to find the right repository and its contributing guidelines.

Is Catppuccin free to use and how is it licensed?

Catppuccin is free to use. It is a community-driven color scheme, and the site itself points to a licensing page rather than presenting any paid tiers, subscriptions or purchase options. Nothing on the page suggests you pay to use the palette or the ports.

What "free" covers in practice

The palette — the named pastel colors and their combinations — is the core of the project. The many "ports" adapt that palette to specific apps, editors, terminals and tools. Because it is community-built and community-maintained, the practical answer is that you can use it in personal projects, at work, and in your own themes without paying.

The trade-off to understand

Free and community-driven also means the project's direction, maintenance speed and quality vary by port. A popular editor port may be actively updated; a niche one may lag behind. If you depend on Catppuccin for a work setup, check how recently the specific port you want has been updated before committing to it.

A concrete scenario

Say you want a consistent look across your terminal, code editor and note-taking app. You can pick one flavour — Latte for light, or one of the darker variants — and apply matching ports so the colors line up across tools. That consistency is the main reason people adopt a full palette rather than a single theme.

Next step

Open the licensing page on the site to read the exact terms, since the palette and the individual ports may not all carry identical licenses. If you plan to redistribute a port or bundle it into a product, that distinction matters.

Related projects that take a similar community approach include GitHub, where the ports and website source are hosted, and Open Collective if you want to see how the project is funded.

How does Catppuccin compare to other popular color schemes like Dracula or Nord?

Catppuccin is a community-driven pastel color scheme, while Dracula and Nord are also established palettes with large user bases. The real difference is not “best colors” but palette philosophy and ecosystem shape.

How they tend to differ

The practical decision is usually about reading comfort, not brand loyalty. If you stare at code for hours, a lower-contrast pastel palette may reduce eye strain but can make error and warning colors less immediately obvious. A vivid palette like Dracula makes tokens pop but can feel aggressive on a bright monitor. Nord sits between those extremes with a cool, restrained mood.

A concrete way to choose

Pick the palette that matches your environment and task:

• Daytime or bright office: Catppuccin Latte or a light variant can work better than a dark theme washed out by glare.
• Night coding: Catppuccin Mocha, Dracula, or Nord all work; choose by whether you want soft, vivid, or cool.
• Design work: Catppuccin’s published palette and ports make it easy to keep UI mockups, terminal, and editor consistent. See Catppuccin.
• Terminal-heavy workflow: Check port availability for your exact tools. Catppuccin lists many community ports; Dracula and Nord also have broad coverage.

A useful next step: install two candidates side by side and test them on the same file for 20 minutes, including comments, strings, and error highlighting. The palette that keeps those three distinguishable without fatigue is the right one for you.