Carbon vs Ray.so
Carbon and Ray.so both turn code into beautiful images for tweets, slides and docs. Carbon is the long-standing original with deep customization, Ray.so is the polished newcomer from Raycast.
Ray.so gets you a great-looking image in seconds with almost no tweaking. Carbon is better when you want to match an exact editor theme or control every detail.
Side by side
| Carbon | Ray.so | |
|---|---|---|
| Themes | Dozens of editor themes | A curated set of modern themes |
| Customization | Fonts, padding, shadows, window style and more | Fewer options, great defaults |
| Languages | Auto-detect, 100+ languages | Auto-detect, many languages |
| Export | PNG and SVG | PNG, SVG and link sharing |
| Look | Classic editor window | Modern gradients and backgrounds |
| Category | Developer | Developer |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Account | Not required | Not required |
| Works locally | No | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile friendly | No | No |
Choose Carbon if
You want full control over themes and styling.
Choose Ray.so if
You want a beautiful image with no tweaking.
Carbon pros and cons
- Gorgeous results in seconds
- Lots of customization
- Open source
- Images are not accessible as text
- Long code snippets get hard to read
Ray.so pros and cons
- Very polished look
- Fast and simple
- Copy image straight to clipboard
- Fewer options than Carbon
- Limited font choices
Carbon vs Ray.so FAQ
Is Carbon better than Ray.so?
Ray.so gets you a great-looking image in seconds with almost no tweaking. Carbon is better when you want to match an exact editor theme or control every detail.
Are Carbon and Ray.so free?
Carbon is free and open source with no account. Ray.so is free with no account.
Do Carbon and Ray.so need an account?
No. Carbon works without signing up, so you can open carbon.now.sh and start using it right away. No. Ray.so works without signing up, so you can open ray.so and start using it right away.