50 systems
50 design token files, compared
Token counts by category, formats, and the meaning layer (descriptions, deprecation fields, usage rules), counted programmatically from the raw public token files of50 design systems.
23
formats in active use
13/50
have per-token descriptions
11/50
have a machine-readable deprecation field
1/50
ship explicit usage / do-not rules
| System | Owner | Format | Color | Typography | Spacing | Descriptions | Deprecation | Usage rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SLDS | Salesforce | Theo YAML | 320 (256p/64a) | 16 | 9 | No | No | No |
| Spectrum | Adobe | JSON (DTCG-ish) | 636 (372p/264s) | 312 | 15 | No | Yes | No |
| Primer | GitHub | DTCG JSON5 | 290 prim | 15 base | 33 (merged) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Carbon | IBM | TS/JS | 244 prim | 32 (+36 styles) | 13 | No | Partial | No |
| Polaris | Shopify | TS | 466 (240p/226s) | 31 (+55 styles) | 22 | Yes | No | Partial |
| Fluent | Microsoft | TS | 688 prim | 27 | 11 (22 directional) | No | No | No |
| Paste | Twilio | YAML (Style Dict) | 338 (143p/195s) | 44 | 52 | Yes | No | Partial |
| Gestalt | JSON (Style Dict) | 175 (109p/66s) | 12 base | 33 | No | No | No | |
| Nord | Nordhealth | JSON (Theo) | 64 (7p/57s) | 20 | 6 | Yes | No | Partial |
| Canvas | Workday | JSON (Style Dict) | 361 (256p/105s) | 55 | 25 (merged) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Atlassian | – | JS (Style Dict raw) | 541 (150p/391s) | 23 | 23 | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Telekom Scale | Deutsche Telekom | JS | 158 (135p/23s) | 34 | 12 | No | No | No |
| USWDS | GSA | JSON + SCSS | 461 prim | 44 | 44 | No | No | No |
| PatternFly | Red Hat | JSON (Style Dict) | 516 (78/96/342) | 17 base | 8 base | Yes | No | Partial |
| Helsinki HDS | City of Helsinki | JSON (Style Dict) | 73 prim | 17 | 12 | No | No | No |
| Backpack | Skyscanner | JSON (DTCG/Figma) | 212 (75p/137s) | 10 (no sizes) | 11 | No | No | No |
| Cloudscape | AWS | TS (Style Dict) | 380 | 68 | 119 | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Pajamas | GitLab | JSON (DTCG) | 332 (154p/178s) | 72 | 32 | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Material Design 3 | SCSS | 142 (91p/51s) | 67 | none in code (spec: 18) | Partial | Partial | No | |
| Ant Design | – | TS | ~222 (130+79+seeds) | 20 | 9 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Chakra UI | Chakra | TS | 136 prim | 36 | 34 | No | No | No |
| Base Web | Uber | TS | 170s (267p/59f) | 39 | 22 (merged) | No | Yes | No |
| Radix Themes | Radix UI | CSS vars | 930 file (~79/theme) | 83 | 9 | No | No | No |
| Open Props | argyleink | CSS vars | 247 (19x13) | 56 | 74 (merged) | No | No | No |
| Mantine | – | TS | 140 prim | 21 | 5 | No | No | No |
| EUI | Elastic | TS | 366 (159p/207s) | 16 | 10 (merged) | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Garden | Zendesk | TS | 213 prim | 24 | 8 | No | No | No |
| Orbit | Kiwi.com | JSON (Style Dict) | 76 prim | 12 | 14 | No | No | No |
| Clay / Lexicon | Liferay | SCSS | ~155 | 27 | 9 | Partial | Yes | No |
| Vibe | monday.com | CSS vars | 220s | 73 | 10 | No | Partial | No |
| The Guardian | Guardian News | TS (from tokens.json) | 94 (pillar-organized) | 100 (presets) | 15 | Partial | Partial | No |
| Bootstrap | – | SCSS | 31 (14/9 prim + 8 sem) | 22 | 6 | Partial | Partial | No |
| Braid | SEEK | TS | 62 (semantic only) | 11 | 9 | No | No | No |
| Grommet | HPE | TS | 52 | 11 (+24 heading) | 8 | No | Partial | No |
| Vitamin | Decathlon | CSS vars | 133 (68p/65s) | 27 | 11 | No | Partial | No |
| Stacks | Stack Overflow | LESS | 148 | 24 | 26 | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Shoelace / Web Awesome | Font Awesome | CSS vars | 255 (198p/57s) | 26 | 10 | No | No | No |
| Vanilla | Canonical | SCSS | 52 (35p/17s) | 25 | 22 | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Foundation | Zurb | SCSS | 10 | 22 | 5 | Partial | No | No |
| Bulma | – | SCSS | 45 (20p/25s) | 19 | 7 | No | No | No |
| NL Design System | NL DS (Dutch gov) | DTCG | 372 (semantic only) | 113 | 53 | Yes | Yes | No |
| GOV.UK | GDS (UK gov) | SCSS | 88 (68p/20s) | 12 | 10 | Yes | No | Partial |
| TDesign | Tencent | LESS / CSS vars | 125 (62p/63s) | 53 | 55 | Partial | No | No |
| Arco | ByteDance | LESS / CSS vars | 272 (140 prim) | 19 | 23 | No | No | No |
| Semi Design | ByteDance | SCSS / CSS vars | 333 (222p/111s) | 12 | 10 | Partial | No | No |
| Suomi.fi | Finnish gov | JSON | 34 (semantic) | 22 | 16 | Partial | No | No |
| Australian GOLD | Australian gov | TS | 23 (semantic) | 14 | 11 | Partial | No | No |
| Forma 36 | Contentful | TS | 120 (63p/57s) | 32 | 9 | No | No | No |
| Theme UI | system-ui | TS | 5 (semantic) | 17 | 9 | No | No | No |
| Pharos | JSTOR | Style Dict JSON | 59 | 31 | 13 | Partial | No | No |
Method: Counts produced programmatically (jq/python/grep) on raw token files at pinned commits where possible. Canonical/default theme only. No scoring; like-for-like comparison.
Color totals are not apples-to-apples in intent: systems exposing full primitive ramps count every shade. Where separable, the split is shown as (primitives p / semantic s). "Partial" in the meaning columns means comment-only, or carried in a sibling metadata file rather than the token source itself.
