Head to head
Refero Styles vs 21st.dev
Refero Styles and 21st.dev solve the same job (Core design stack), so this is a pick-one decision. If cost is the constraint, Refero Styles clears it without a card.
Quick read
- Free with no card: Refero Styles.
| Field | Refero Stylesstyles.refero.design Not yet swept | 21st.dev21st.dev Not yet swept |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | 2,000+ design systems reverse-extracted from real production sites and packaged as structured DESIGN.md files documenting colors, typography, spacing and motion. Filter by brand, mood (minimal, editorial, playful), palette or typeface. | 12,000+ React/Tailwind components in native shadcn registry format, plus ~50 community themes, 29,000 searchable icons, shaders and gradients. Every item exposes an AI-ready prompt written specifically for Lovable, Cursor and Claude Code. |
| Category | Core design stack | Core design stack |
| Cost tier | free | mixed |
| Pricing | Free (beta) · parent site $12/mo | Free (2 copies/day) · $6/mo · $15/mo +AI |
| Why builders pick it | The single highest-leverage free thing on this list. Instead of telling Claude 'make it feel editorial', hand it exact tokens from a site whose type you admire. Filter by the editorial mood, paste the DESIGN.md as project context, then have Lovable generate to those tokens. An official Refero MCP and two community MCP servers exist. | The themes page is the fastest visual win you have. A theme here is a shadcn token set — colors, type, radius. Copy the :root/.dark blocks into index.css and the whole app re-skins with zero component edits. Browse the themes page and pick one that matches the look you are already going for. |
| Watch out for | not logged | not logged |
| How to wire it up | paste DESIGN.md into project context | npx @21st-dev/magic@latest |
| Editor's pick | Yes | Yes |
Other matchups worth running
Agent endpoint: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=21st-dev,refero-styles