A11y Pulse helps you find accessibility issues across your whole website and fix the ones that matter most.
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How is A11y Pulse different to Pa11y?
Pa11y is an open-source toolkit for automated accessibility testing. The simplest way to run Pa11y is with the command-line interface (CLI), however this interface is primarily aimed at developers. If you want scheduled accessibility testing and a user-friendly interface with graphs, you can run Pa11y Dashboard. By default, Pa11y tests websites with HTML_CodeSniffer. This tests the accessibility of the HTML document without any JavaScript, which makes it unsuitable for single page applications (SPAs) and websites with lots of dynamic content. Pa11y can also run Axe with some additional configuration.
While Pa11y Dashboard is fairly easy to set up, it does require an up-front investment of time as well as ongoing maintenance and potentially extra hosting costs.
A11y Pulse has many of the same goals as Pa11y, but has been designed to be set up in minutes with no technical knowledge required. It allows multiple sites to be scanned, with automatic page discovery via sitemaps or a site crawl. This means A11y Pulse is a “set and forget” tool - the tested pages will always be up-to-date, and you will receive reporting via email.
The other benefit of A11y Pulse is that it loads your websites in a real web browser, which means all page content is included in accessibility testing: JavaScript, ads, third-parties, and dynamically-loaded styles.
What makes A11y Pulse simpler?
For your team to get the most out of Pa11y, they must regularly log into Pa11y Dashboard and review accessibility testing results. This is fine for teams with dedicated accessibility testers, but can be difficult for teams who struggle to make accessibility a priority. As well as having a simple web interface, A11y Pulse also sends regular accessibility reports via email and can notify you of regressions via email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. The simplicity of A11y Pulse gives you confidence that accessibility reports reach the right people, and allows you to focus on building great websites.
Is A11y Pulse affordable?
Pa11y is free and open-source, although running Pa11y Dashboard does require some hosting which may incur extra costs. A11y Pulse starts at $19 USD per month, with plans that scale from small non-profits to large organisations that mange dozens of websites.