Differences from chalk

marker is not a drop-in replacement. It diverges where divergence buys performance or API clarity.

Breaking changes

No multi-argument join

// chalk
chalk('Hello', 'world')  // → 'Hello world'

// marker — use a template literal instead
marker(`Hello world`)
marker(`${'Hello'} ${'world'}`)

Why: Every chalk call checks arguments.length > 1 and joins with spaces. Removing this check eliminates a branch from the styled hot path.

Factory function instead of class

// chalk
import { Chalk } from 'chalk';
const m = new Chalk({ level: 0 });

// marker
import { withLevel } from 'console-marker';
const m = withLevel(0);

Why: withLevel is a plain function — no class prototype chain, no instanceof check, no new keyword. The resulting object is the same Builder type as the default export.

Tagged templates built-in

// chalk — requires npm install chalk-template
import chalkTemplate from 'chalk-template';
chalkTemplate`{red Hello!}`

// marker — built-in, uses the same chaining API
marker.red`Hello!`

Why: One fewer dependency. The tagged template path is the same function as the styled call path — no extra parsing.

What console-marker adds

Browser console support

chalk has no browser support. console-marker adds .log(), .warn(), .error(), .info(), and .debug() to every builder. They emit %c CSS styling in the browser and ANSI in the terminal — no environment checks needed:

// chalk — logs raw ANSI escape codes in the browser (unreadable)
console.log(chalk.red.bold('error'))

// console-marker — styled in both environments
marker.red.bold.log('error')

See Browser console for the full guide.

What maps 1:1

• Chaining: marker.red.bold.underline('text') ↔ chalk.red.bold.underline('text')
• .level property: marker.level ↔ chalk.level
• .rgb(r, g, b), .hex(color), .ansi256(n) — identical signatures
• FORCE_COLOR, NO_COLOR, --color, --no-color env/flag handling
• supportsColor / supportsColorStderr shape
• Named style names — all 50+ style names are identical