# axe

Accessibility engine for automated Web UI testing

Repository: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/axe
Homepage: https://www.deque.com/axe/
Language: JavaScript
License: MPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: axe, a11y, accessibility
Last push: 2026-08-25T17:25:46+00:00
Link (homepage): https://www.deque.com/axe/
Link (site_page): https://docs.deque.com/
Link (site_page): https://www.deque.com/axe/ai

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 84, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4102, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 28, "gap_med": 45.0, "n_releases_24m": 11}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7446, forks 920 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:59.926156+00:00)

## What it is
axe-core is an open-source accessibility testing engine for websites and HTML-based UIs, with rules covering WCAG 2.0/2.1/2.2 and ARIA best practices. It integrates into existing test environments to automate accessibility checks, and react-axe wraps it for dynamic analysis in React apps.

## Use cases
- automate accessibility testing in my test suite
- check my web pages for WCAG violations
- find a11y issues in a React app
- run accessibility audits in CI
- detect ARIA misuse and missing headings automatically
- integrate accessibility checks with Selenium or Cypress

## When to choose
- you want automated WCAG/ARIA accessibility checks inside existing test tooling
- you need a lightweight, widely adopted engine with browser and Node.js support
- you build React apps and want runtime accessibility warnings

## When to avoid
- you need full WCAG compliance - automated tools catch only ~57% of issues and manual review is still required
- you need mobile app accessibility testing rather than HTML-based UIs
- you want enterprise reporting and monitoring rather than a testing engine

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: testing, accessibility, e2e-testing
- domain: testing, web-development, accessibility, frontend
- platform: browser
- tags: a11y, wcag, axe-core, react, automated-testing, nodejs, javascript

## Member repositories
- dequelabs/axe-core (main) score 94
- dequelabs/react-axe (plugin) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.926156+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:37:41.304598+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.926156+00:00, sha df89de32a181)
  - homepage: https://www.deque.com/axe/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:37.700517+00:00, sha 91bd6b802c04)
  - site_page: https://docs.deque.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:37.709944+00:00, sha 2d769ff84b32)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/react-axe (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:37.713525+00:00, sha cefb4d9a3a7c)
  - site_page: https://www.deque.com/axe/ai (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:37.711722+00:00, sha eb3ef8c27ec3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.