Best Open Source Accessibility Testing Tools 2026

The gold standard open source accessibility rule engine. Powers Deque axe DevTools, Pope Tech, and dozens of other tools. Has the most comprehensive WCAG 2.2 rule set and is actively maintained by Deque. The axe-core library itself is MIT-licensed.

import axe from 'axe-core';
const results = await axe.run(document);
console.log(results.violations);

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool from WebAIM. The best free browser-based scanner for visual accessibility review. Overlays accessibility information directly on the page, making it easy for non-technical reviewers to understand issues. Not suitable for CI/CD — browser extension only.

Pa11y is a Node.js command-line tool for automated accessibility testing. It runs Headless Chrome and can test URLs in batch. Uses either axe-core or HTML_CodeSniffer as its rule engine. Pa11y Dashboard provides a web interface for monitoring multiple sites over time.

# Install and run
npm install -g pa11y
pa11y https://example.com --reporter cli

# Batch testing
pa11y-ci --sitemap https://example.com/sitemap.xml

jest-axe adds axe-core accessibility assertions to Jest. Run axe checks on rendered React, Vue, or Angular components as part of your unit test suite. Ideal for component libraries or design systems where accessibility regressions should fail tests.

import { axe, toHaveNoViolations } from 'jest-axe';
expect.extend(toHaveNoViolations);

it('Button has no accessibility violations', async () => {
  const { container } = render(<Button>Click me</Button>);
  const results = await axe(container);
  expect(results).toHaveNoViolations();
});

axe-playwright integrates axe-core into Playwright test suites. This is the most powerful open source approach for testing authenticated SaaS applications — Playwright can log in, navigate complex flows, and run axe on each page state. Playwright's built-in accessibility tree snapshot (page.accessibility.snapshot()) provides additional structural testing.

import { checkA11y } from 'axe-playwright';

test('Dashboard has no accessibility violations', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('/dashboard');
  await page.waitForLoadState('networkidle');
  await checkA11y(page, undefined, {
    runOnly: { type: 'tag', values: ['wcag2aa', 'wcag21aa', 'wcag22aa'] },
  });
});

Google's Lighthouse includes an accessibility audit using axe-core under the hood, combined with additional checks. Scores 0–100 on accessibility. Note: the Lighthouse accessibility score does NOT equate to WCAG conformance — a 100 score does not mean WCAG AA conformant. Use it as a quick signal, not a compliance benchmark.

# CLI usage
npx lighthouse https://example.com --only-categories=accessibility

# CI with budget
npx lhci autorun --budget-path=budget.json

IBM's open source accessibility checker. Includes browser extensions and a Node.js API for CI integration. Uses IBM's own rule set (ACT-rules based) which often catches different issues than axe-core. Running both axe-core and IBM's checker in CI provides broader coverage than either alone.

const { getCompliance } = require('accessibility-checker');
const results = await getCompliance(document, 'testLabel');
console.log(results.report.results);