Accessibility testing is about ensuring that a website is easily accessible to everyone. And by “everyone” we mean people with disabilities, aged individuals or anyone who belongs to the disadvantaged group.
A standard web accessibility testing tool conducts thorough website testing to generate comprehensive reports on the current accessibility status of the tool. These tools further suggest proper fixes and recommendations to resolve these accessibility issues.
This blog will list the top 11 web accessibility testing tools for you to ensure that your website is ready for everyone’s usage.
So, let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Top 11 Accessibility Tools/Extensions/Software for Quick Accessibility Check of your Website
“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee
Here are the top web accessibility tools and extensions to perform a quick accessibility check of your website:
1. Dynomapper
The first name on our best web accessibility testing tools list is Dynomapper. It allows you to test the accessibility of any website or app. The best part is that users can witness the live accessibility test within the browser itself with the “visualize” feature of Dynomapper. Additionally, Dynomap also generates comprehensive online accessibility test reports for the users’ easy understanding.
Top Features
- Dynomapper can test HTML content and can easily create sitemaps irrespective of the URL
- Dynomapper’s powerful Crawler can arrange links and subdomains within minutes
- Dynomapper has outstanding customization features. It lets you personalize the sitemaps with colours for convenience
- Dynomapper can also import XML files for generating sitemaps
Pricing
Starter plan – $64/month
Standard plan – $129/month
Organization plan – $399/month
2. WAVE
WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool that assists websites in creating accessible content. WAVE evaluates website content based on the WCAG guidelines and also conducts the manual evaluation of existing website content to point out all loopholes that could affect accessibility. From unlimited automated scanning to generating consolidated reports, WAVE does it all to help you scale.
Top Features
- WAVE evaluates the accessibility of web pages by annotating the web page copy
- WAVE conducts the accessibility evaluation within the browser. It doesn’t save any data on the server.
- WAVE not only checks accessibility but suggests some recommendations to the users for fixing the accessibility issues.
Pricing
WAVE charges the users based on the number of pages you are checking. Here is the detailed pricing chart for WAVE:
3. Cynthia Says
Cynthia Says is another web accessibility checker on our list that assists users in identifying the accessibility compliance issues within your website. You can test each individual page of a website with this tool to find out the web accessibility errors and get consolidated and comprehensive feedback. The whole idea of launching Cynthia Says web accessibility checker was to increase the awareness of the community on accessibility testing and its significance.
Top Features
- Cynthia Says evaluates the accessibility of your website based on WCAG 1.0 compliance
- It is a simple tool that runs smooth accessibility tests on your website and generates reports based on section 508 compliance
- It is a pretty old web accessibility tool and has not yet been updated for WCAG 2.0 testing
Pricing
Free
4. LERA
LERA is a cutting-edge Chrome extension to perform the web accessibility audit of your web pages. It generates a granular, downloadable report that highlights various accessibility issues and the relevant fixes. Based on axe core it comes with a highly vetted industry rule engine to evaluate the accessibility status of your web applications. An advanced automated workflow conducts the website audit based on WCAG 2.1, Level A and AA success criteria and generates a report within minutes.
Top Features
- Fast automated and manual accessibility testing for individual web pages
- A comprehensive, granular report that highlights the key accessibility issues and fixes
- Advanced testing and WCAG 2.1, Level A and AA compliant
Pricing: Free. LERA is the only web accessibility tool in our list that performs automated accessibility audits and generates a downloadable accessibility report in Excel for free.
5. AEL Accessibility Checker (AAC)
AAC is an API based widget that returns the scan of a single web page. Designed for users who are not comfortable working with APIs, AEL Accessibility Checker has a front-end mechanism to trigger the scan.
The AEL Accessibility Checker (AAC) is a user-friendly solution for quick evaluation of website accessibility. It checks for compliance with web accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1 Level A, Level AA, and 2.0 Level A, Level AA standards.
Top Features:
- Easy to use API with one click.
- Our simple and powerful API works seamlessly across most available browsers.
- Obtain a single page accessibility report for your website in under 30 seconds.
Simply enter your URL in the input field and hit the “Check website” button! scanner will return a summary with the number of violations found on your web page along with an Accessibility score within 30 seconds. This score will help you gauge the Accessibility health of your website.
Pricing: Its free to use
6. SortSite
The next top web accessibility testing tool on our list is SortSite. You can use it as a web or desktop application on your Windows or Mac system. SortSite can evaluate your entire website and focus on major checkpoints like accessibility, compatibility, broken links, SEO, and usability with one simple click.
Top Features
- SortSite evaluates websites based on WCAG 2.0, and 110 checkpoints.
- SortSite is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS. You can use it as a desktop app, desktop browser and mobile browser.
- SortSite can evaluate the HTTP error codes instantly
- The best part about SortSite is that you can purchase it one time and use for a lifetime
Pricing
Standard – $149 for a single user license
Professional – $349 for a single user license
Developer – $849 for a single user license
7. Accessibility Checker by CKSource
Another great web accessibility testing tool that inspects website content with respect to WCAG 2.0, is Accessibility Checker by CKSource. It checks all the compliance errors within your website content and makes it accessible in real-time. This tool is a favourite among developers and regular users because of its flexibility and simple user interface.
Top Features
- Accessibility Checker has an optimized UI, and it inspects accessibility level in an in-depth manner
- It can perform accessibility testing of websites in three steps namely content validation, issue reporting and fixing
- The Accessibility Checking engine of this web accessibility tool can categorize issues as warning, error and notice
- There is a “Quick Fix” feature associated with this tool that frees up time by promptly fixing the common accessibility issues
Pricing
Free – $0
Standard – $37
Flexible – Designed based on the specific requirements of an organization
8. JAWS
JAWS is a screen reader application that helps you add a speech synthesizer to make the content on your website readable for people with visual impairment. JAWS stands for Jobs Access With Speech and it makes activities like reading emails, scanning PDFs, filling out forms, etc. easier.
Top Features
- JAWS is a popular screen reader for people with visual impairment
- JAWS supports all browsers and is compatible with Windows operating system
- The Skim Reading feature of JAWS helps in accessing fast information and saves time for the users
Pricing
9. Tenon
Tenon is a powerful web accessibility checker that can fix the accessibility issues of your entire organization with its smart accessibility testing kit. It can solve any accessibility issues while the accessibility test is ongoing. Tenon has a dedicated team that can assist your developers in writing accessible codes and in identifying appropriate KPIs for the accessibility testing process.
Tenon has now been acquired by Level Access.
Top Features
- Tenon evaluates websites with WCAG 2.0 compliance
- Tenon tests the accessibility level of your codes during development and ensures that there are no errors post-deployment
- Tenon identifies the accessibility gaps on the highest traffic pages of a website and fixes the issues quickly
- Tenon helps you create accessibility policies and documentation for every role
Pricing
10. AChecker
The next web accessibility checker on our list is AChecker. It comes with an intuitive dashboard and generates an extensive accessibility report for your website after a detailed audit. AChecker evaluates your website based on WCAG 2.0 AA compliance and helps the users monitor each accessibility parameter.
Top Features
- AChecker helps an organization to perform accessibility audit for multiple domains
- It can generate automated reports regularly for your website without any interruptions
- AChecker generates detailed accessibility reports highlighting status charts, for the domains and includes attractive visualization for sensitive areas
- AChecker comes with three premium plans and pricing changes based on the benefits associated with each plan
Pricing
Basic – $99/month
Lighthouse Single – $199/month
Lighthouse Full – $249/month
11. AXE
AXE is an efficient web accessibility testing extension that helps businesses with automated website testing and compliant reports. It can save your time by quickly catching accessibility errors within coding and offers recommendations for fixing those issues. You can run this extension on multiple browsers including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge.
Top Features
- AXE has a free, open-source extension available for installation and anyone can use it to test the accessibility of website content
- AXE’s accessibility test report adds links to all identified issues to understand each issue in detail
- AXE evaluates website accessibility in light of WCAG 2.0, section 508 compliance
- AXE also comes with a version for manual accessibility testing
Pricing
Available for free installation. However, to download the accessibility testing report, you need to upgrade to the pro version.
Final Words
Before summing up, all we want to mention is that the concept of accessibility has a deep meaning associated with it. When you are trying to scale your business, you have to build a website that is accessible for everyone. Businesses can’t predict which type of audience will visit their website.
What businesses can do is always stay prepared. We hope you find a web accessibility tool from this list that matches your requirements and helps you build an accessible website. You can always click here to learn more about LERA.
Update: This content has been updated to reflect that Tenon.io is now acquired by Level Access
