A quick Google search will give you enough information to determine that picking the best web accessibility checker is a challenging process. There are hundreds of extensions, software programs, and platforms. Well then, how to choose a web accessibility checker? Each checker offers a variety of features, some of which even in different categories. First, you should determine whether the level of compliance you’re looking for on your website. Next, pick a few extra features that would help may be a great addition to your site. And that’s it! Go through reviews and find the ones that suit your needs. In this article we compare SiteImprove vs WebAIM Accessibility.
SiteImprove vs WebAIM – Web Accessibility Checkers compared
A web accessibility audit is an essential part of ensuring that your website is accessible by everyone. Web accessibility means that your website is accessible to people with disabilities, including those who are blind, deaf, hard of hearing, have motor impairments, or have cognitive or learning disabilities.
In this post, we’ll compare two of the most popular accessibility checkers on the web right now. SiteImprove offers great automated and semi-automated compliance solutions for all your website pages. While WebAIM comes in 3 different pricing plans with various features.
What is SiteImprove?
Pros
- Incredibly easy to use
- Provides detailed reports of errors
- Includes information on how to fix the mistakes if you need help
- Generates reports that can be exported to you
- Is regularly updated
- It’s affordable
Cons
- Limited free scan
- Pricing plans aren’t transparent
- No mobile accessibility
Siteimprove is a powerful, easy-to-use software program for conducting accessibility audits and measuring web accessibility for your website. It’s a tool that anyone can use, from a small business owner to a large corporation.
It is one of the best web accessibility checkers on the web right now. It’s a powerful tool with a low learning curve, making it simple to understand and use.
One of the best aspects of Siteimprove is its ability to audit all of the pages on your website and quickly provide you with a detailed report of all the problems that they find. The report that Siteimprove generates can be exported, allowing you to create a checklist of the issues that you need to fix.
Siteimprove is a powerful web accessibility checker with a lot of valuable features. It’s a great tool for anyone who wants to ensure that their website is accessible to everyone.
While there are other web accessibility checkers out there, Siteimprove is one of the best. If you’re looking for a web accessibility checker, then you should definitely consider Siteimprove. You can also check a detailed SiteImprove review covering all its features. It’s a powerful tool that makes it simple to ensure that your website is accessible.
What is WebAIM?
Pros
- Effortless of Use
- Scan and Remediate Multiple Pages at Once
- Accessibility Training Offered
- Comprehensive Reports
Cons
- It could be a bit costly
- Can’t remediate 100% of the problems
- The report takes 2 to 5 days
If you’re interested in accessibility, then you’ve probably come across the WebAIM Accessibility Checker. This tool is one of the leading accessibility checkers in the industry, providing detailed audit reports that you can receive 2 to 5 days after your initial request. Its reporting interface allows you to see how your web pages stack up against WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 accessibility standards.
If you need a thorough audit of your web pages for accessibility, then WebAIM can help. Whether you’re looking for a free solution, a low-cost solution, or a more comprehensive one, WebAIM offers all the features you need to ensure that your web pages are accessible to everyone.
Pricing plan WebAIM
WebAIM offers three different features with different pricing plans:
- Wave Runner
- Wave API
- Wave Stand-Alone API
When using the Wave Runner, a professional from their team will help you with the audit report, and you’ll receive a detailed report sheet with all the errors. Also, you’ll receive comprehensive remediation guidelines with the report.
The Wave API uses the WAVE engine and lets you use an automated evaluation on your website’s pages. It ensures that your website is compliant according to the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 requirements.
We can’t skip mentioning the Wave Stand-Alone API. It’s the most comprehensive tool offered by WebAIM. But its pricing may look costly. Of course, you get a high-quality product for the pricing. You can check a more in-depth review of WebAIM to get a better understanding of it.
Scanner Comparison
Site Improve is an automated web accessibility and usability service that continuously monitors your site for accessibility and usability issues and reports the findings directly to your team.
Site Improve uses an accessibility scanner that is based on WCAG 2.0 AA standards and reports every issue it finds on your site. This includes both errors and warnings, and you can review the list of issues from your report dashboard.
WebAIM is a web accessibility evaluation tool that can be used by anyone to assess the accessibility of any website. WebAIM provides a list of recommendations to improve the accessibility of your site and a detailed audit report that you can use to get a better understanding of what needs to be fixed.
Both Site Improve and WebAIM are free services, but WebAIM provides more detailed results and recommendations. But in order to receive those more precise results, you may need to go into the paid version, which could be costly.
SiteImprove vs WebAIM Features
While SiteImprove goes in-depth into the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, it could help you achieve compliance levels A, AA, and AAA. Its extra features consist of SEO optimization service, 24/7 website performance monitoring, digital analytics, security, access management, and more.
On the other hand, WebAIM is directly focused on web accessibility guidelines. It fixes any errors that may confuse assistive technologies, goes through your HTML code and rich media as well. You also get evaluation and testing tools with WebAIM. The best part is that both tools will help you meet all standards and avoid any law problems with implementing web accessibility.
Ease of Use
When it comes to ease of use, we can’t really compare those two tools. The problem is that both SiteImprove and WebAIM are designed to work like a charm in anyone’s hands. You can’t mess up anything when using them. The developers kept in mind that people want to make their lives easier with the tools rather than get training on how to use it.
Customer Support
Customer support quality is one of the key features of any product as you may require assistance at any time. Siteimprove’s customer support offers an ai chatbot that doesn’t seem to be as effective as human customer support. Also, they don’t offer email support as well. But you can always make a phone call and get in touch with SiteImprove.
WebAIM, on the other hand, offers different phone numbers for training, accessibility courses, and inquiries. You can also send an email to their customer support. On top of that, WebAIM has listed the phone numbers and emails of some of their employees in case someone wants to get in touch directly with them.
Final Verdict: SiteImprove vs WebAIM
So which one is better after all? Does SiteImprove beat WebAIM, or is it the other way around? It’s quite hard to tell so far as both checkers have proven a great performance. Let’s look at the table for a complete comparison between the two:
| SiteImprove | WebAIM | |
| Pricing | Starts at $30 Per Year for 50-Page Block | Starts at $0.4 per web page |
| Features | Digital Analytics, Performance, Security, Compliance, Reporting, User, Role, Access Management, SEO Standards | Personalized Reports by Professionals, Automated WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 Remediations, Comprehensive Evaluation Process, Training Offered if Needed |
| Compliance | WCAG 2.0 A, AA, AAA Levels | WCAG 2.0 / 2.1 |
| Languages Offered | Danish, German, English, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish | English |
| Customer Service | 24/7 Online ChatbotPhone CallContact Form | Contact FormPhone Call |
| Amount of Users | 7,500+ | N/A |
| Client Packages | Free, Custom | Free, Wave Runner, Wave API, Wave Stand-Alone API |
| Year of Establishment | 2003 | 1999 |
| Country of Establishment | Denmark | USA |
| Fully Compliant of Partly | Partly | Partly |
| Free Scans | Available | Available |
| Free Demo/Trial | Available | Available |
As you can see, both of the platforms offer free demo versions with a free scan. But you have to keep in mind that those scans are limited, and you can’t make daily scans on your website for free.
SiteImprove is a great software and assists you in making your website compliant according to the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, but it can’t achieve 100% compliance without your manual assistance. In the meantime, WebAIM goes the extra mile, and depending on your paid plan; you could achieve a higher level of compliance. But once again, WebAIM still can’t guarantee you 100% compliance without manual error fixing.
It would be best if you had gone through the features and the scanners of each tool and already have a basic understanding of what they can and cannot do. Now the time has come for you to pick the better web accessibility checker for your website, which will also grant you helpful features in the long term.
