#00FF00: CSS lime color codes, contrast and shades

The naming trips people up. CSS took sixteen of its color names from the old VGA palette, and in that set green is #008000, a much darker green at an OKLCH lightness of 51.98% against 86.64%. The X11 color list, where most other CSS names come from, used green for #00FF00. CSS kept the VGA meaning and calls #00FF00 lime instead.

Text contrast is lopsided. Black text on #00FF00 scores 15.30:1, past AAA, while white text gets 1.37:1 and fails at every size. The CSS green, #008000, flips that: white text on it scores 5.14:1 and passes AA.

On a wide gamut screen, sRGB's green isn't the limit. In CSS, color(display-p3 0 1 0) asks for the screen's own full green. On displays that cover Display P3, that green goes past anything a hex code can show.

Use #00FF00 for small, bright accents on dark backgrounds, like status lights, terminal text or chart lines on black. It doesn't work as text on white, where it scores 1.37:1. For a green that holds up on white, darken it a lot.

The first two darker steps still fail AA with white text. The third, #006800, passes at 7.05:1. No Tailwind color matches it. The nearest in Tailwind 4, lime-400, is 0.089 away in OKLab and looks clearly different. Click a shade to open it in the Color Picker.