Paper vs sizeless: Features, Pricing & Which Is Better (2026)
A side-by-side comparison of Paper and sizeless — features, pricing, and ideal use cases — to help you decide which AI tool fits your workflow.
Paper
Paper / paper-design (open-source team)
Modern design tool to create, share, and ship designs with exportable web assets, shaders, fonts, and developer-focused integrations.
Key features
- Visual Shader Designer: A GUI for building zero-dependency HTML canvas shaders that can be exported as lightweight JS or React components and used as animated or static backgrounds in web projects.
- Code-First Exports: Direct export of design artifacts to production-ready code and npm-installable packages (e.g., @paper-design/shaders) so assets integrate easily into developer workflows.
- Font and Typography Tooling: Shipable type assets including Paper Mono and a maintained fork of opentype.js to generate and package fonts and typographic resources for projects.
- Framework Integrations: Official or community support for React (shaders-react) and intent for broader framework compatibility, enabling designers to produce components that plug directly into web frameworks.
- Agent & Plugin Extensibility: Agent-plugins and other extension points to connect Paper into automation or agent harnesses, enabling programmatic workflows and custom integrations.
- Open-Source Libraries: Companion repositories (shaders, paper-mono, google-fonts-scripts) and example projects that provide reusable building blocks and encourage reproducible, performant outputs.
- Lightweight Performance Focus: Assets and generated code emphasize minimal runtime cost and wide browser/device support to keep production pages fast.
- Design-to-Production Workflow: Tools and export paths intended to reduce handoff friction—designs become directly usable assets with documented examples and React/vanilla JS usage snippets.
- Zero-dependency HTML canvas shaders usable directly in websites
- Framework bindings: @paper-design/shaders (vanilla), @paper-design/shaders-react (React)
- Exportable, lightweight shader code designed to be embedded in any codebase
- Animated and static shader variants with configurable parameters (colors, distortion, swirl, speed, scale, etc.)
- Interactive documentation and examples for React and vanilla usage
- NPM-distributable packages (pin dependencies recommended; breaking changes under 0.0.x)
- Open-source companion repositories: shaders, shaders-react, paper-mono (assets), google-fonts-scripts, opentype.js (fork)
- Wide browser and device support emphasis and performance-oriented implementations
- Tooling and sample scripts for font and asset generation (google-fonts-scripts)
- Agent integration intent via agent-plugins repository (connect Paper to agent harnesses)
Best for
- Animated Website Backgrounds: Designers build visually-rich, performant shader backgrounds in Paper and export them as lightweight React components or vanilla JS for production sites.
- Branding and Logo Effects: Create dynamic logo treatments (e.g., liquid-metal effects) using Paper Shaders and export code that developers can embed without heavy dependencies.
- Typography Packaging: Design or customize monospace/type assets (Paper Mono) and produce packaged fonts and generated files for use across products and documentation.
- Design-to-Code Handoff: Produce design assets that are directly consumable by engineering teams—npm packages, code snippets, and framework-ready components—reducing manual translation work.
- Rapid Prototyping for Web Interfaces: Prototype interactive visuals and masked textures in Paper, export them, and integrate quickly into React or vanilla JS prototypes.
- Extendable Automation Workflows: Use agent-plugins to connect Paper into CI/CD or automation tooling to programmatically generate assets, run builds, or wire designs into deployment pipelines.
- Open-Source Component Reuse: Leverage Paper’s companion libraries (shaders, scripts, tooling) to assemble consistent visual systems across multiple web projects while keeping assets lightweight.
- Add lightweight animated or static textured backgrounds to websites via canvas shaders
- Design visual assets in Paper and export directly as code to embed in web applications
- Use React components from @paper-design/shaders-react to integrate shader visuals into React UIs
- Generate font/mono assets and SVGs using google-fonts-scripts for web typography workflows
- Use opentype.js fork for tree-shakeable font handling in front-end projects
- Integrate Paper-produced visuals into any front-end stack (Vanilla JS, React, potential Vue support)
sizeless
sizeless
Turns a smartphone video of an open trench into a centimetre-accurate 3D point cloud, CAD as-built plan and GIS-ready digital twin of buried utilities.
Key features
- Smartphone capture: Field crews record an open trench with a standard iPhone Pro — no specialist scanning hardware and no separate surveying appointment
- Centimetre-accurate point clouds: Reconstruction algorithms developed at ETH Zurich build a high-resolution 3D point cloud of the excavation from the video alone
- Standards-compliant CAD output: Generates as-built plans in DWG and DXF, with couplings and pipe runs identified and measurements simplified
- 3D digital twin and GIS export: Produces a model of the pipe route including building entries that drops into existing GIS systems
- Works without GPS: Captures basement sections and building entry points where GNSS-based surveying fails
- Immediate backfilling: Because capture takes minutes, trenches close right after filming instead of waiting on a survey crew
- Documentation in about 72 hours: Complete records arrive weeks earlier than conventional surveying, enabling prompt connection billing
- Third-party utility capture: Records crossing utilities and as-laid geometry as unbroken 3D evidence, replacing hand sketches
Best for
- A utility network operator documenting residential service connections without booking a surveyor for every site
- A contractor closing a trench the same day instead of leaving it open pending a survey appointment
- Capturing a building entry point in a basement where GPS-based surveying cannot get a fix
- A district heating project producing as-built DWG plans for regulatory sign-off
- Spotting a laying error in the 3D point cloud before backfilling, while the fix is still cheap
- Feeding as-built pipe geometry into a GIS system for long-term network maintenance planning