GitHub Accessibility Scanner vs Total Validator

GitHub Accessibility Scanner is a free, MIT-licensed GitHub Action for finding accessibility barriers in websites, repositories, and dynamic content. It checks against WCAG 2.2, using Axe by default, and also supports AccessLint and plugins. Findings can be filed as GitHub issues and tracked between runs to prevent duplicates; issues can also be closed when a finding no longer appears. Copilot is optional: without it, the scanner still files issues, while Copilot can be assigned an issue to suggest a fix and create a pull request. Users can configure scan URLs, authentication, screenshots, issue grouping, experimental and best-practice findings, and selectors for individual URLs. It works with public and private repositories and supports GitHub Enterprise Cloud. Setup requires GitHub Actions and Issues to be enabled, available Actions minutes, and a fine-grained personal access token with write permissions. The project is in public preview, with ongoing feature development, and suggested fixes are not guaranteed to be fully accessible. It does not scan mobile apps, desktop applications, documents, email templates, or PDFs. Support requests and bug reports are handled through GitHub Issues.

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.