Written by Jane Smith · Reviewed by Sarah Mitchell · July 17, 2026
Create beautiful CSS gradients with a visual editor. Choose gradient type, direction, and up to 3 color stops. Copy the generated CSS instantly.
The CSS Gradient Generator composes linear-gradient() and radial-gradient() declarations from a direction and a row of color stops. Pick linear for colors that flow along a straight line, or radial for colors that expand outward from a center point. Each stop carries a color and an optional position, the tool previews the result on a canvas beside the controls, and the finished declaration is one copy away from your stylesheet.
Select Linear, set the direction to 45deg, and leave the two default stops as they are. The tool emits linear-gradient(45deg, #ff7e5f 0%, #feb47b 100%), a warm fade from coral to peach running from the bottom-left to the top-right of the element. The angle names the direction of the gradient line: 0deg points up, 90deg points right, and 45deg splits the difference diagonally. The keywords in the selector, like to right and to bottom, are shorthand for the same angles, and the tool lets you switch between the two styles freely.
A color stop marks the point along the gradient line where a color sits at full strength. Between stops the browser interpolates, so a two-stop gradient blends across the whole span while a three-stop gradient shifts through a middle color on the way. Positions are percentages of the gradient line: 0% is the start, 100% is the end, and a stop at 50% sits in the middle. The tool reads each position from its number input, so a stop entered as 0 still prints as 0% in the output rather than disappearing. Radial gradients drop the direction and draw a circular blend, which the tool writes as radial-gradient(circle, ...).
Two stops at the same position create a hard seam instead of a blend, which is a deliberate technique for striped backgrounds and progress bars. Stops typed out of order do not reorder themselves; the browser treats them as written, so check that positions increase left to right. A gradient with one stop renders as a solid color, because there is nothing to blend toward. Gradients are treated as background images, which means they sit behind the element's content and can be layered with other backgrounds in the same declaration. Very long gradients with many stops are fine, but the tool keeps the stop controls few on purpose, and you can paste more stops into the code afterward if a design needs them.
Use radial when the light source feels central, such as a glow behind a headline or a vignette around a card. Use linear for directional fades that follow a surface, like the sky in a page header.
No, and that is the main argument for them. A gradient is a few dozen bytes of CSS that the browser draws at any resolution, while an image file costs bandwidth and needs separate versions for high-density screens.
Banding appears when adjacent colors are so close that the eye sees steps in the blend, most often on large surfaces. Choosing stops with more contrast between them reduces the effect, and a subtle texture over the gradient hides what remains.
Yes, by painting the background with the gradient and clipping it to the text with background-clip: text and a transparent color. The generator produces the gradient itself; those two extra declarations complete the effect.
The modern syntax works everywhere current. Old browsers that needed vendor prefixes are long retired, so the plain declaration the tool produces is safe to ship as-is.
Reach for a gradient when a surface needs depth without an image: button fills, page backgrounds, placeholder art, and subtle separations all benefit from a two-color blend, and the page stays fast because there is nothing to download. A gradient is the wrong tool when the texture is photographic or needs fine detail, when a flat color reads cleaner, or when text sits on top of a busy blend and contrast suffers. If the background carries important content, keep the gradient muted and check the text against both ends of the blend. The tool builds the declaration entirely in your browser, and no color value is sent to any server.
The direction selector lists eight compass keywords and three common angles, and each keyword maps to a specific number: to right equals 90deg, to bottom equals 180deg, and to bottom right equals 135deg. Angles above 360 wrap around, so 405deg behaves like 45deg, although the tool keeps its options within a single turn. The canvas preview paints the gradient on a small rounded panel using the browser's own renderer, which means the colors and the blend you see are exactly what the copied declaration will produce in production.
The stop positions deserve the same attention as the direction. A gradient with stops at 0 percent and 100 percent stretches the blend across the whole element, while pulling the endpoints inward, such as 20 percent to 80 percent, concentrates the transition into the middle and leaves the outer edges solid. Every stop row in the tool includes a position field, so the copied code always carries explicit positions. In hand-written CSS a stop without a position gets placed automatically, generally halfway between its neighbors, which is worth knowing when you edit the output by hand. Adjusting the positions is the fastest way to change a gradient's character without touching the colors.