pixelmatch

The smallest, simplest and fastest JavaScript pixel-level image comparison library, originally created to compare screenshots in tests.

Features accurate anti-aliased pixels detection and perceptual color difference metrics.

Inspired by Resemble.js and Blink-diff. Unlike these libraries, pixelmatch is around 150 lines of code, has no dependencies, and works on raw typed arrays of image data, so it's blazing fast and can be used in any environment (Node or browsers).

constnumDiffPixels=pixelmatch(img1,img2,diff,800,600,{threshold: 0.1});

Implements ideas from the following papers:

• Measuring perceived color difference using YIQ NTSC transmission color space in mobile applications (2010, Yuriy Kotsarenko, Fernando Ramos)
• Anti-aliased pixel and intensity slope detector (2009, Vytautas Vyšniauskas)

Demo

Example output

expected	actual	diff

API

pixelmatch(img1, img2, output, width, height[, options])

• img1, img2 — Image data of the images to compare (Buffer, Uint8Array or Uint8ClampedArray). Note: image dimensions must be equal.
• output — Image data to write the diff to, or null if don't need a diff image.
• width, height — Width and height of the images. Note that all three images need to have the same dimensions.

options is an object literal with the following properties:

• threshold — Matching threshold, ranges from 0 to 1. Smaller values make the comparison more sensitive. 0.1 by default.
• includeAA — If true, disables detecting and ignoring anti-aliased pixels. false by default.
• alpha — Blending factor of unchanged pixels in the diff output. Ranges from 0 for pure white to 1 for original brightness. 0.1 by default.
• aaColor — The color of anti-aliased pixels in the diff output in [R, G, B] format. [255, 255, 0] by default.
• diffColor — The color of differing pixels in the diff output in [R, G, B] format. [255, 0, 0] by default.
• diffColorAlt — An alternative color to use for dark on light differences to differentiate between "added" and "removed" parts. If not provided, all differing pixels use the color specified by diffColor. null by default.
• diffMask — Draw the diff over a transparent background (a mask), rather than over the original image. Will not draw anti-aliased pixels (if detected).

Compares two images, writes the output diff and returns the number of mismatched pixels.

Command line

Pixelmatch comes with a binary that works with PNG | JPEG images:

PNG image

pixelmatch image1.png image2.png output.png 0.1

JPEG image

pixelmatch image1.jpg image2.jpg output.jpg 0.1

Example usage

Node.js

For PNG file

importfsfrom'fs';import{PNG}from'pngjs';importpixelmatchfrom'pixelmatch';constimg1=PNG.sync.read(fs.readFileSync('img1.png'));constimg2=PNG.sync.read(fs.readFileSync('img2.png'));const{width, height}=img1;constdiff=newPNG({width, height});pixelmatch(img1.data,img2.data,diff.data,width,height,{threshold: 0.1});fs.writeFileSync('diff.png',PNG.sync.write(diff));

For JPEG file

importfsfrom'fs';import{decodeasdecodeJpeg,encodeasencodeJpeg}from'jpeg-js';importpixelmatchfrom'pixelmatch';constimg1=decodeJpeg(fs.readFileSync('img1.jpg'));constimg2=decodeJpeg(fs.readFileSync('img2.jpg'));const{width, height}=img1;constdiff=newPNG({width, height});pixelmatch(img1.data,img2.data,diff.data,width,height,{threshold: 0.1});fs.writeFileSync('diff.jpg',encodeJpeg(diff).data);

Browsers

constimg1=img1Context.getImageData(0,0,width,height);constimg2=img2Context.getImageData(0,0,width,height);constdiff=diffContext.createImageData(width,height);pixelmatch(img1.data,img2.data,diff.data,width,height,{threshold: 0.1});diffContext.putImageData(diff,0,0);

Install

Install with NPM:

npm install pixelmatch

Or use in the browser from a CDN:

<scripttype="module">
import pixelmatch from 'https://esm.run/pixelmatch';

Changelog