Access Continuum vs Alfa
Access Continuum
levelaccess.comAlfa
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Access Continuum | Alfa |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Accessibility Testing Software | 8.5 (#28) | 9.0 (#8) |
| Automated scans | Yes | Yes |
| CI/CD integration | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 1999 | 2003 |
| Integrations | The product page lists iOS, Android, Appium, Cucumber, Python, Karma, Jasmine, Java, Ruby, and Sauce Labs among its integrations. | The integrations repository lists packages for Angular, Chai, Cheerio, Cypress, Jasmine, Jest, jQuery, Playwright, Puppeteer, React, Selenium, Unexpected, Vitest, Vue, and WebdriverIO. |
| Purpose | Access Continuum is an SDK that automates accessibility testing so developers can find issues before they reach a live environment. | Alfa is an open, standards-based accessibility conformance testing engine for websites built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. |
| Remediation guidance | Yes | Yes |
| Results | Test results can be returned as JSON or exported in a UI format to the Accessibility Management Platform. | Alfa produces audit results in the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) Schema encoded as JSON-LD. |
Plans
In their own words
Access Continuum
Access Continuum is an SDK for developers adding automated accessibility checks to development and testing workflows. It includes the Professional edition of Access Engine and defaults to automatic tests that do not require human validation. Teams can test code snippets, page nodes or rendered pages within existing automated tests, including CI/CD processes. Its XML-based scripting framework lets teams author accessibility tests without an existing test framework or automation setup. Guided Automatics can flag items for human review; advisory tests are not run in Continuum. Coverage includes WCAG 2.1, with web and mobile testing and examples for Android and iOS. SDK instructions cover C#, Java, JavaScript and Python; Ruby is also listed among supported package repository languages. Results can be returned as JSON or exported to the Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) UI. Use depends on AMP services and access to Level Access package repositories, which may require network access. Licensed customers receive personalized training and expert support. Pricing is available on request, and the product page offers a demo request.
Alfa
Alfa is a free, open accessibility testing engine for websites built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It checks pages against accessibility standards such as WCAG, using included rules or pluggable rules in the ACT Rules Format. Developers can add custom rules and filter results by conformance level or WCAG version. Audit output follows the Evaluation and Report Language schema as JSON-LD, and the command-line interface can audit a single page and save results as JSON. Scraper and crawler tools create page representations and discover pages across a site or subdomain. Ready-made integrations cover frameworks and test tools including Angular, React, Vue, Cypress, Jest, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, and WebdriverIO. Alfa is distributed as separate npm packages under the MIT license. It runs in ECMAScript 2022-compatible JavaScript environments, including recent Node.js and browser versions. Building from source requires Node.js 20 or later and Yarn. The project says most integrations are experimental and may change; older environments may be targetable from source but are not explicitly supported.