20 Best Website Accessibility Testing Tools In 2024
10 Best Website Accessibility Testing Tools Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
There are many website accessibility testing tools available, so figuring out which is best for you is tough. You want to identify and resolve website accessibility barriers but need to figure out which tool is the best fit. I've got you! In this post I make things simple, leveraging my experience using dozens of different website accessibility testing software to bring you this shortlist of the best website accessibility testing tools.
What Are Website Accessibility Testing Tools?
Website accessibility testing tools are software that evaluate the accessibility of websites for individuals with disabilities. These tools assess websites against established accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to identify and report areas where a site may not be fully accessible. They automate the process of checking various aspects of web accessibility, including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive accessibility features.
The benefits of using website accessibility testing tools include ensuring that websites are accessible to a broader range of users, including those with disabilities. This enhances inclusivity and widens the audience reach of the website. These tools help website owners and developers comply with legal and ethical standards for accessibility, reducing the risk of non-compliance issues. By improving website accessibility, these tools contribute to a more inclusive and equitable internet, ensuring that digital content is available to all users, regardless of their abilities.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Website Accessibility Testing Tools
In this section, I’ll take you through a brief description of each website accessibility testing solution. I’ll cover each tool’s best use case, outstanding features, and pros and cons.
QA Wolf is a comprehensive testing platform and service designed to simplify the process of creating and running end-to-end tests for web applications.
Why I picked QA Wolf: One of its key offerings is the ability to generate accessibility reports that highlight potential issues, allowing teams to address them promptly. The platform supports automated checks against various accessibility guidelines, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
QA Wolf is unique in that they have a team that writes and maintains the automated tests for you. This means that you do not need to write your own code to create and run the tests. All accessibility issues are human-verified, flagged as bugs, and stored in the issue tracker so you can prioritize them.
QA Wolf Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a test matrix and an outline for every user flow, providing a comprehensive view of the test coverage. The tool also offers unlimited test runs and generates detailed test reports, providing insights into test results and helping teams identify and address issues quickly.
Integrations include popular CI/CD tools and services such as GitHub, CircleCI, GitLab, Travis CI, Vercel, and Slack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Detailed test reports
- Responsive team that provides timely updates
- Bugs are human-verified
Cons:
- Less flexibility to customize your own testing processes
- Reliance on an external team can lead to coordination issues
As the name implies, A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator helps you test for color contrast. The tool checks your website for color contrast issues and provides reports to help you improve the color combination.
Why I picked A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator: This tool offers testing capabilities for checking color combination issues. It offers free accessibility testing solutions, helping you get things done at no cost. In addition to being a free tool and helping you meet accessibility compliance requirements, it’s very easy to use. All you need to do is enter your domain and click “Check Contrast,” and A11y will quickly scan your site.
A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: A11y comes with color contrast analysis features that scan your website and display the contrast problems of web pages or chosen color-pair based on WCAG 2.1 Guidelines. The result it generates or displays (after analyzing a web page) helps you figure out what your site is missing and what you need to do to get the right contrast ratio.
Integrations: A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator integrates with dev tools for websites or web applications.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Access to trained accessibility experts
- It’s free
- Improve the user experience for people with visual impairments
Cons:
- Better UI required
- Little product information
tota11y uses assistive technologies to help you get a clear view of how your website performs. It provides a set of features that help you visualize how accessible your site is to individuals with disabilities.
Why I picked tota11y: It’s a web accessibility visualization toolkit that utilizes assistive technologies to help developers spot accessibility issues and fix them in fun, interactive ways. It streamlines the accessibility testing process and makes it easy to identify common accessibility violations. The tool doesn’t stop at spotting errors, it takes a step further to suggest remediation steps with the help of plugins.
tota11y Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: tota11y’s toolbar features several plugins, which extend the capabilities of the tool. Each plugin offers its own functionality. It includes plugins that help you detect images with/without alt text, label text with contrast violations, and suggest the right color combinations. Other functionalities of tota11y plugins include suggesting fixes based on context, detecting unclear link text, labeling all ARIA landmarks on the page, and highlighting parts of the webpage to point out errors.
Integrations include plugins, such as Google Chrome Developer Tools and landmarks plugins.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Provides remediation suggestions
- Extensible with plugins
- Enables you to visualize violations
Cons:
- More tutorials needed
- UI needs to be upgraded
Level Access is a unified software platform that empowers you to achieve and maintain digital accessibility. It provides a range of accessibility testing solutions, including automated scans, manual testing, and accessibility auditing.
Why I picked Level Access: I like this tool because it provides a unified software solution and expert support to help you achieve and maintain website accessibility. It’s an Accessibility-as-a-Service platform with various capabilities, including testing, reporting, training, and project management.
In addition to the training program that lets you educate your team, the Level Access Platform also provides expert support, which helps you resolve technical or regulatory challenges and provides code-level guidance. This is one of the best Accessibility-as-a-Service tools for website accessibility and ADA compliance.
Level Access Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include accessibility auditing, project management, and governance and reporting. The tool allows you to run a comprehensive audit, which uncovers results from automated scanning and manual evaluations. With the project management capability, you can organize, prioritize, and streamline accessibility testing work with easy-to-use smart features.
The governance and reporting feature gives you complete visibility into your accessibility work, enabling you to keep track of accessibility status, view detailed test results, and manage a portfolio of assets.
Integrations include Jira, Azure DevOps, Cucumber, Jest, Mocha, Cypress.io, Protractor, and Webdriver.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Complete visibility
- Streamlined testing processes
- On-demand training courses available
Cons:
- Filtering critical defects is a bit difficult
- Hard to navigate for beginners due to the many options
Best for managing tests with next-generation accessibility analytics
This is a leading web accessibility testing platform that provides a suite of features for identifying and managing accessibility problems. ARC Platform offers the tools, knowledge, and support you need to analyze your site’s accessibility level and make it accessible to everyone.
Why I picked ARC Platform: The software comes with advanced accessibility analytics, which enables you to analyze data from several accessibility testing sources. It helps you get the insights you need to make sense of your testing activities, prioritize issues, implement remediation measures, and keep track of progress across your enterprise.
ARC Platform has collaboration capabilities that help remote team members to work effectively towards a common goal without losing track of tasks. With the seamless DevOps integrations, you can fast-track the entire software development process by making accessibility testing part of your SDLC.
ARC Platform Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include advanced monitoring and accessibility resources. The tool allows you to monitor your website’s performance and get insights through the trend-monitoring dashboards. This helps you make data-driven decisions.
It provides resources for carrying out web accessibility evaluation and optimizing your web pages to meet compliance requirements. The resources include a comprehensive library of knowledge and training courses. ARC provides you with important information and techniques for solving problems.
Integrations: It lets you integrate into existing DevOps systems and processes. Zapier integration is also available. Popular integrations include Jira, Azure, GitHub, Email Notifications, Google Sheets, and Slack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- It’s user-friendly
- Get started for free
- Seamless integrations
Cons:
- More customizable workflows needed
- New users have many features to learn
accessScan, powered by accessiBe, is a free website accessibility checker. The software comes with standard features that enable you to assess your website to learn how accessible it is for people with disabilities and whether or not it’s compliant with accessibility guidelines.
Why I picked accessScan: This tool uses artificial intelligence to simulate user testing and scan web pages for accessibility issues. accessScan gives you clarity by simply telling you whether or not your website is accessible and compliant. It takes a step farther to let you know what needs to be fixed. The tool finds accessibility problems and presents them in a way that is easy to analyze and understand.
accessScan Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: accessScan uses accessiBe’s AI engines to spot and report website accessibility issues. The AI-powered technology increases reliability and helps you find errors that would be difficult to spot with a manual accessibility audit. And the tool is super fast. With a few clicks, it turns up accurate results within seconds. It’s also very secure and compliant with data security regulations. Even though no personal data is collected, whatever you do with the tool is well protected.
Integrations include WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Joomla, Drupal, Webflow, and BigCommerce.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- It’s very fast
- It’s available for free
- Accurate and reliable
Cons:
- More customizable workflows needed
- Not enough tutorials for beginners
ACTF aDesigner is built to enable you to test the accessibility and usability of web pages for people who are blind or who have low vision.
Why I picked ACTF aDesigner: aDesigner helps you create web pages that are accessible and usable for people who are blind or visually challenged. aDesigner enables you to check your web pages’ compliance with accessibility guidelines. After analyzing web pages, the tool creates a report that outlines the issues that would decrease the accessibility and usability of your product.
The tool helps you understand your website’s accessibility level and provides the information you need to effect changes to address accessibility issues.
ACTF aDesigner Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: ACTF aDesigner tests webpages for users who are blind or who have low vision. Consequently, the tool has two types of visualization: the low vision tab and the blind tab. In the low vision mode, aDesigner helps you improve accessibility and usability for individuals who are visually challenged (weak eyesight, color vision deficiencies, cataracts, etc.). In the blind tab, the tool helps you test and optimize pages for blind users.
Other features include accessibility checking for OpenDocument Format (ODF) files, GUI accessibility checking, and accessibility checking of web pages containing Flash content.
Integrations: It allows you to integrate with website development tools.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Detailed accessibility testing reports
- Comprehensive documentation
- Comprehensive accessibility testing
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- The product website is difficult to navigate
JAWS, Job Access With Speech, is the leading screen reader designed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. It helps visually impaired people to perform important operations on their computers and offers speech and Braille output for popular computer applications.
Why I picked JAWS: The software provides access to easy-to-use accessibility testing products for developers: JAWS Inspect and ARC. Both products provide industry-standard web accessibility capabilities you can use to ensure your website meets relevant accessibility requirements.
JAWS Inspect is a screen reader testing tool. It offers a text output of JAWS speech, which streamlines accessibility and JAWS compatibility testing. The tool enables you to identify accessibility issues in real-time so you can optimize your content accordingly. JAWS Inspect requires minimal training; you can get started without having to spend weeks trying to figure out the tool.
JAWS Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: ARC provides a continuous accessibility testing capability that enables you to properly manage and keep track of your accessibility program. It comes with exceptional features, such as advanced testing and monitoring, automated testing, program oversight, and an advanced accessibility scanner.
With accessibility analytics, you can uncover insights required to guide your testing process and keep tabs on work progress across the enterprise. ARC offers collaboration features and allows you to integrate into your existing DevOps systems and processes via the ARC API.
Integrations: You can make accessibility testing part of your SDLC by integrating the tools into your DevOps ecosystem. In addition to integrating with DevOps tools like Jenkins and Jira Work Management, ARC supports integration with Zapier, which gives you access to wider integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Streamlined testing
- You can automate tests
- Easy to get started
Cons:
- More tutorials required
- Long customer service response time
Evinced uses the power of AI-powered automation to streamline the processes of finding and tracking accessibility bugs. It automatically assesses your website, finds problems, groups them, and helps you track issues until they are resolved.
Why I picked Evinced: Evinced helps to find and categorize accessibility issues using the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The tool uses automation capabilities to find, cluster, and track problems across all your websites. Instead of generating hundreds or thousands of unorganized reports that are hard to analyze, Evinced categorizes and prioritizes issues into common coding defects. This helps your team to analyze issues faster without getting lost in bug reports.
Evinced Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include Web Flow Analyzer, automation SDKs, and site scanners. Web Flow Analyzer, a Chrome plugin, analyzes user journeys on your website and generates the report you need to improve accessibility. Automation SDKs let you integrate Evinced into web and mobile automated testing, enabling you to find and track accessibility issues automatically.
Site scanner checks your entire website, scans every page, and generates reports. The reports help you understand issues on your website so you can take appropriate remediation steps.
Integrations include Selenium, Cypress, WebdriverIO, XCUITest, Espresso, Appium, Sauce Labs, and LambdaTest.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- AI-powered accessibility tests
- Well-organized bug reports
- Easy integration
Cons:
- It takes time to master
- Occasional performance issues
Tanaguru provides a set of tools and resources that are designed to enable you to perform web accessibility testing. It offers a suite of accessibility assessment features to help you make your web product accessible.
Why I picked Tanaguru: The tool offers Contrast Finder, which is designed to help you test the accessibility of colors. It lets you optimize the contrast ratio between the background color and the test color. Tanaguru Contrast Finder enables you to find the right color combination with just a few clicks.
There are web accessibility courses you can rely on to train your entire project team. This makes using the tool and complying with standards very easy. With Tanaguru, you have access to a team of experts. They are trained to provide expert guidance to your project team.
Tanaguru Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: This website accessibility testing software comes with an exceptional feature, Tanaguru Engine, that is built to help you with auditing your websites’ and apps’ web accessibility. Tanaguru Engine is an open-source solution that empowers you to meet RGAA compliance requirements. It streamlines the process of checking your accessibility level with just a few clicks.
Integrations: It allows you to integrate with your DevOps tools, such as GitHub and Jenkins.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Expert support is available
- There are accessibility testing courses
- Finding the right colors is easy
Cons:
- The UI needs to be improved
- Difficult settings for new users
The 10 Best Website Accessibility Testing Tools Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| QA Wolf | From $149/user/month | Website |
| A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator | Free to use | Website |
| Tota11y | Free to use | Website |
| Level Access | Pricing upon request | Website |
| ARC Platform by TPGi | From $29/user/month | Website |
| accessScan | Free to use | Website |
| ACTF aDesigner | Free to use | Website |
| JAWS | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Evinced | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Tanaguru | Free to use | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther Options
Here are a few good options that didn’t make the best mobile automation testing tools list:
- SortSite
For checking for broken links and spelling errors
- DYNO Mapper
For scheduling ongoing automatic testing and reporting
- Pope Tech
For automated scanning
- Siteimprove
For getting web and content performance insights
- CSS & HTML Validator
For validating HTML
- Rocket Validator
For identifying accessibility and HTML issues
- Accessibility Checker by CKSource
For checking the accessibility level of content created in CKEditor 4
- WAVE
For testing accessibility directly within your web browser using WAVE, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browser extensions
- HTML_CodeSniffer
For checking compliance with WCAG and the U.S. section 508 legislation
- TGPi
For achieving ADA compliance and WCAG conformance
Selection Criteria For Website Accessibility Testing Tools
Here’s a summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best website accessibility testing tools for this article:
Core Functionality
I considered the following core functionalities:
- Ability to check for compliance with local and international guidelines
- Accessibility testing of web-based content for individuals who are blind
- Accessibility testing for people with low vision
- Automated testing
- Color contrast evaluation
Key Features
Some major features I considered while researching this article:
- Reporting: This feature gives you access to a well-organized, breakdown of test results.
- Website scanning: A capability that accessibility testing tools use to search your website for accessibility violations.
- Color contrast finder: It helps evaluate your site for color contrast violations. This feature is used to assess color combinations to ensure they meet the standard contrast ratio.
- Notifications: This feature notifies you, testers, or stakeholders when changes happen on your website. How you get notified depends on the settings and channels available.
Usability
Some website accessibility testing tools are great but they have poor UIs, which make them notoriously hard to learn and use. To enable your team to get started without delays, I selected solutions with outstanding user interfaces that are intuitive and easy to learn.
Software Integrations
Moving from one tool to another when running tests is time-consuming and can lead to fatigue. Being able to integrate your toolset with the website accessibility testing software helps to increase testing velocity and enables your team members to collaborate productively.
Pricing
I considered affordability, flexibility, and transparency. All the tools on this list offer flexible, friendly pricing. Carefully evaluate each software to find the one that suits your needs and budget.
People Also Ask
Some interesting questions people are asking about website accessibility testing tools are outlined and answered below.
What are the benefits of website accessibility testing tools?
The benefits of web accessibility evaluation tools include:
- Improving user experience
- Increasing accessibility for blind customers
- Boosting customer base and market share
- Increasing accessibility for visually challenged customers
- Helping web developers comply with guidelines
Who uses website accessibility testing tools?
Website developers and QA professionals use web accessibility testing frameworks. Developers use them to ensure they publish compliant content, while testers use the tools to validate webpages to ensure they are accessible to everyone.
What are the 2 types of accessibility testing?
The two major types of accessibility testing are automated testing and manual testing. During manual testing, testers manually check the website for accessibility violations. On the other hand, automated testing involves the use of automation technologies to run tests.
Other Testing Software
If you want to learn more about software testing, check out the following reviews.
- Best Test Management Tools for Jira
- Best Test Management Tools
- Best Free Test Management Tools
- Best Open-Source Test Management Tools
Select The Best Website Accessibility Testing Tool For Your Team
Making your site accessible to everyone will help you increase your customer base and give you access to new markets. There are strict web content accessibility guidelines that mandate companies to create websites that are accessible and usable for individuals with disabilities. To meet compliance requirements easily, check out the tools I’ve recommended to find the software that suits your project and team.
Do you want to learn more about software testing? Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest insights from top thinkers in the QA industry.