Free tool - no signup
Free Dashboard Grid Generator
Dashboards fall apart in the layout, not the colors. Pick an app type and a density, watch a real 12-column grid arrange itself, and shuffle until the shape is right. Then copy the CSS Grid and move on to the decisions the grid does not make for you.
Dashboard Grid Generator
Pick the app type and how much data it carries. The preview lays out a real 12-column grid with 24px gutters, the same one specced above. Hit Space or Shuffle for another arrangement of the same content.
CSS for this layout
The grid is the easy part
How to use it
- Pick the app type. It sets the primary row and how many metrics sit in the strip.
- Set density. This drives gutters, minimum row height and card padding together, because changing one alone never looks right.
- Hit Shuffle layout (or the spacebar) until the arrangement fits the content you actually have.
- Switch viewport to 1024px and watch the sidebar collapse from 256px to 64px.
- Copy the CSS and replace the placeholder class names.
Why shuffle instead of configure
Most layout tools ask you to specify the answer you came to find. That is backwards for dashboards, where the same content genuinely supports several arrangements and the only way to choose is to look at them side by side. A chart beside a table reads differently from a chart above a table, and neither is wrong until you know whether people come to scan or to compare. Shuffling four arrangements takes ten seconds and settles the argument faster than a meeting about it.
Where the numbers come from
The 12-column grid with 24px gutters, the 256px sidebar collapsing to
64px, the minmax(200px, auto) rows and the span pairs are all
taken from our
dashboard design patterns guide,
which works through why each one holds up. This tool is that article made
clickable. If you want the reasoning rather than the output, start there.
What the grid does not decide
A grid is scaffolding. It says nothing about how big the numbers in the metric strip should be, whether your card background passes contrast, how much data belongs in a row before it turns into a spreadsheet, or which chart answers the question being asked. Each of those has its own tool or breakdown, linked from the generator above, and each one will change how the layout feels more than another shuffle will.
Questions
- Is this dashboard grid generator free?
- Yes. No sign-up, no email gate, no watermark. The whole tool runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded anywhere. Shuffle as many layouts as you want.
- What grid does it generate?
- A 12-column CSS Grid with 24px gutters and auto-rows of minmax(200px, auto), beside a sidebar that is 256px expanded and 64px collapsed. Those are the same numbers used in our dashboard design patterns guide, not invented defaults.
- Why do the layouts change when I press Shuffle?
- Because there is rarely one right arrangement. The generator holds your app type and density constant and re-rolls which span combinations fill the rows: 7+5 for a chart beside a table, 4+4+4 for three equal cards, 8+4 when a detail panel is pinned right. Seeing four arrangements of the same content is faster than arguing about one.
- Can I use the CSS directly?
- Yes. The export is plain CSS Grid with no framework and no build step. Paste it in, replace the placeholder class names with yours, and the spans line up. Container queries are worth adding on the cards afterwards so a chart can drop its legend at narrow widths.
- Does the density setting change more than spacing?
- It changes gutters, minimum row height, card padding and how many rows the preview builds. Dense drops gutters to 16px and rows to 160px, which is where data tables start to feel like a spreadsheet. Airy pushes rows to 240px, which suits dashboards with three or four numbers that matter.