axe Auditor vs Total Validator

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.

Total Validator is a freemium tool for checking website accessibility, HTML, CSS, broken links and spelling. Automated accessibility checks cover WCAG 2.2, 2.1 and 2.0, US Section 508 and ARIA standards. It validates HTML and XHTML against W3C and WHATWG standards, and CSS against W3C standards. The product runs through web, Windows, macOS, Linux, an API and a browser extension, with CI/CD integration. Jenkins, Team City and Selenium can call the CI version, which also provides a Web API. Remediation guidance is included. Pro can test authenticated pages, intranets, private websites and JavaScript-generated DOMs through browser extensions, while returning results locally for security. The free Test version shows only a one-page issue summary. Basic handles one page at a time; whole-site and multiple-site validation are Pro features. Manual review tools and mobile testing are not provided.