Lighthouse vs axe DevTools

Free and open source

From $40 per user/month (indicative, Pro)

Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.

Free extension covers a lot. Pro adds guided manual testing; enterprise plans are quote-based.

Everything, self-hosted

Free browser extension with the core axe-core rule set.

Category standard

Google · since 2016

Widely used

Deque Systems · since 2015

• Already installed in every Chrome browser — zero adoption cost.
• Covers performance, accessibility and SEO in one report.
• Lighthouse CI turns scores into enforceable build assertions.

• Guided manual testing addresses the two thirds of WCAG that scanners cannot.
• Findings come with concrete code-level remediation advice.
• Deque's accessibility expertise is the deepest in the industry.

• Lab data from a synthetic environment, not what real users experience.
• Scores vary run to run, which makes strict thresholds frustrating.
• Accessibility coverage is the axe-core subset, not a full audit.

• Per-seat pricing adds up across a large engineering organisation.
• The free extension is good enough for many teams, blurring the upgrade case.
• Enterprise deployment needs process design, not just a licence.

Every web team as a first, free quality baseline.

Organisations with a formal accessibility programme and compliance obligations.