Skip to main content

Pega Cosmos design system and UX architecture

Pega's digital experience technology

Pega currently offers the following design systems: 

  • The Constellation design system (available in Pega Platform™ version 8.8, previously referred to as Cosmos React in version 8.7) — this is the latest Pega design system, built on Pega’s Constellation architecture.
  • Theme Cosmos (available in Pega 8.7 and prior) — this design system is built on Pega’s traditional section-based UI architecture.

Each is different in how it is authored and in level of prescriptiveness.

The Constellation design system is built on Pega’s new, view-based architecture:

  • Emphasizes configuration over customization of the UI— enables you to configure business logic instead of building UI from scratch
  • Provides prescribed workflows for users and guided authoring for low-code developers— allows you to build applications fast with pre-made UI designed for productive user experiences
  • Allows you to configure views, instead of sections— enables you to configure business logic and then add a presentation layer to the data, instead of adding logic to pieces of UI

Theme Cosmos is built on Pega’s traditional, section-based UI architecture:

  • Allows you to customize skins, sections, and harnesses
  • Available for Pega Platform 8.7 and earlier
  • Provides prescribed workflows for users
  • Authored in a mix of App Studio and Dev Studio
  • Emphasizes customization over configuration— allows you to customize UI, but can lead to inconsistent UX and challenges with upgrades

In Pega Platform™ ’23, applications that use traditional UI architecture with Theme Cosmos or UI Kit can import Constellation cases from existing Constellation applications. 

Check your knowledge with the following interaction:


This Topic is available in the following Module:

If you are having problems with your training, please review the Pega Academy Support FAQs.

Did you find this content helpful?

Want to help us improve this content?

We'd prefer it if you saw us at our best.

Pega Academy has detected you are using a browser which may prevent you from experiencing the site as intended. To improve your experience, please update your browser.

Close Deprecation Notice