Abstract We resolve a number of long-standing open problems in online graph coloring. More specifically, we develop tight lower bounds on the performance of online algorithms for fundamental graph classes. An important contribution is that our bounds also hold for randomized online algorithms, for which hardly any results were known. Technically, we construct lower bounds for chordal graphs. The constructions then allow us to derive results on the performance of randomized online algorithms for the following further graph classes: trees, planar, bipartite, inductive, bounded-treewidth and disk graphs. It shows that the best competitive ratio of both deterministic and randomized online algorithms is $$\Theta (\log n)$$ Θ ( log n ) , where n is the number of vertices of a graph. Furthermore, we prove that this guarantee cannot be improved if an online algorithm has a lookahead of size $$O(n/\log n)$$ O ( n / log n ) or access to a reordering buffer of size $$n^{1-\epsilon }$$ n 1 - ϵ , for any $$0<\epsilon \le 1$$ 0 < ϵ ≤ 1 . A consequence of our results is that, for all of the above mentioned graph classes except bipartite graphs, the natural First Fit coloring algorithm achieves an optimal performance, up to constant factors, among deterministic and randomized online algorithms.