Comparison
Rams vs Lighthouse
Lighthouse scores a rendered page after it ships. Rams reviews the design in code before it merges. Different stages, different depth.
Lighthouse (from Google) audits a rendered page and scores it across Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. It runs against a live URL or in CI, and it is the standard for catching performance regressions and surfacing baseline accessibility problems on a finished page.
Rams works earlier and deeper on design. It reviews UI source code at pull-request time — before the page renders — and evaluates design quality Lighthouse does not measure: visual hierarchy, design-system token violations, spacing and typography consistency, interaction states, motion, and AI-slop patterns. Lighthouse answers "does this rendered page score well on performance and a11y basics," Rams answers "is this change good design," and posts inline fixes on the PR.
Rams vs Lighthouse, side by side
| Dimension | Rams | Lighthouse |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Design quality of the UI, from source | Performance, SEO, a11y basics, on a page |
| When it runs | On the pull request, before render | After render — live URL or CI |
| Needs a running page | No — reads source | Yes — audits a rendered page |
| Visual hierarchy & design system | Yes | No |
| Accessibility depth | WCAG 2.2 at source, broad | Automated subset (via axe) |
| Performance / SEO | No — out of scope | Yes — core strength |
| Inline one-click fixes | Yes | No — reports scores |
| AI-generated "slop" patterns | Yes | No |
Use Rams when you want to…
- Catching design and accessibility issues at code-review time
- Design quality Lighthouse doesn’t measure — hierarchy, spacing, tokens
- Reviewing AI-generated UI before it ships
- A design score, separate from a performance score
Use Lighthouse when you want to…
- Performance audits and Core Web Vitals
- SEO and best-practices checks on a rendered page
- Baseline automated accessibility on a live URL
- CI gates on page-level scores
The bottom line
They measure different things at different stages. Lighthouse scores the rendered page for performance, SEO, and a11y basics; Rams reviews the design in source code before it merges. A great product wants both — fast, well-built pages (Lighthouse) that are also well-designed and accessible (Rams).
Common questions
Does Rams replace Lighthouse?
No. Lighthouse audits performance, SEO, and baseline accessibility on a rendered page; Rams reviews design quality from source at PR time. They cover different concerns at different stages and work well together.
Does Rams measure performance?
No. Performance and Core Web Vitals are Lighthouse’s domain. Rams focuses on design quality — hierarchy, spacing, typography, color, components, motion, and accessibility — which Lighthouse does not evaluate.
Is Rams’s accessibility check the same as Lighthouse’s?
They overlap but differ. Lighthouse runs an automated subset (powered by axe) on the rendered page. Rams reviews a broader set of WCAG 2.2 issues at the source level during code review, catching them before they ship.
See what Rams finds on your repo.
Free on public repos. Every pull request reviewed for design quality, with inline fixes.
Review my public repoFree