axe Auditor vs Octopus Scanner (formerly A11y Scanner)

axe Auditor guides manual accessibility testing and produces actionable findings and audit trails. It can be used to examine native mobile apps, HTML pages, desktop applications, Microsoft documents, and PDFs. Step-by-step guidance helps testers find complex accessibility issues that automated scanning alone may not catch. The product supports WCAG 2.2 and includes automated scans, manual review tools, mobile testing, a browser extension, and remediation guidance. Teams can create, review, approve, and publish ACR/VPATs, while tailored reports and audit trails help demonstrate accessibility conformance to stakeholders, partners, and customers. Deque says its axe DevTools integration can significantly reduce manual testing requirements. SaaS and Private Cloud customers can send findings to Jira through a two-way integration that tracks issue progress, displays Jira status, and records push history. An administrator must configure the Jira connection and issue template. Contractor access controls can limit external contributors to assigned test cases while internal team members retain full visibility. The product is intended for accessibility practitioners at agencies, companies, and consulting firms, including testers at different experience levels.

Octopus Scanner, formerly A11y Scanner, is a free desktop tool for auditing website accessibility on Windows and macOS. It uses browser automation and axe-core-powered checks to scan sites against WCAG 2.2; setup also supports requirements including Section 508 and EN 301 549. It can record and replay authenticated flows such as logins and checkouts without code, and handle dynamic interfaces, Shadow DOM, embedded frames and dark mode. Scans produce an interactive HTML report and a companion CSV, and the tool can check the structure of linked PDF documents. Scanning, analysis and reporting stay on the local machine. Scanned-site traffic can be routed through HTTP, HTTPS or SOCKS proxies. Optional update checks use official checksums and signatures, and updates can be reverted. The Windows download is 64-bit and the macOS download is ARM64. Listed version 5.0.9.8 is marked beta. The software is free; contributions to its independent developer are optional.