Can I keep Pa11y for nightly scans and use VertaaUX for PRs?

Yes — they serve different cadences well. Pa11y for nightly site-wide sweeps, VertaaUX for commit-level signal in PRs. Findings will overlap on a11y; VertaaUX adds the other 6 dimensions.

How does VertaaUX compare to Pa11y Dashboard?

VertaaUX's cloud dashboard is SaaS (hosted); Pa11y Dashboard is self-hosted. If you need to keep audit data on your own infrastructure, Pa11y Dashboard is the answer.

Does VertaaUX use HTMLCS or axe-core like Pa11y can?

VertaaUX uses axe-core as the primary a11y engine plus its own WCAG 2.2 heuristics. Pa11y supports both HTMLCS and axe-core via runners — either is fine to compare against.

CLI comparison

VertaaUX vs Pa11y

Pa11y is an open-source CLI and dashboard focused on accessibility testing across many pages. VertaaUX combines accessibility with six other audit dimensions and ships AI-generated fix code.

Pa11y homepageCategory: accessibilityUpdated 2026-04-17

Where VertaaUX wins

7 audit categories vs Pa11y's 1 (accessibility)
AI-generated remediation code with impact estimates — Pa11y only lists rule violations
Native PR-comment integration via vertaaux/audit-action — Pa11y needs custom wiring
Business-impact estimates per issue — Pa11y uses raw WCAG severity
Score-based quality gates — Pa11y uses pass/fail per rule

Where Pa11y wins

Mature open-source project with a large community and plugin ecosystem
Pa11y Dashboard gives a free self-hosted UI for tracking many URLs over time
Runs entirely local; no account or cloud call needed
pa11y-ci supports bulk sitemap-based scans out of the box

Feature matrix

Feature	Pa11y	VertaaUX	Note
Accessibility rule coverage
Usability / clarity / conversion scoring
Sitemap-based bulk scan			VertaaUX multi-page audit uses sitemap or route list
Self-hosted dashboard			VertaaUX cloud dashboard only
AI-generated fix code
Machine-readable output
PR comments
Baseline diff
Free tier

When to choose Pa11y

Use Pa11y when you have hundreds of URLs to scan in bulk via pa11y-ci and a sitemap, especially if you want a self-hosted dashboard and don't need scoring beyond WCAG pass/fail.

When to choose VertaaUX

Use VertaaUX when you care about UX quality holistically, not just a11y, and when you want scores + AI fixes in PR comments rather than rule-violation lists.

Pricing

Pa11y

Free, open-source (LGPL-3.0 for Pa11y core).

VertaaUX

3 guest audits/day free. Free account tier. Paid plans for quotas and deep mode.

Migration

Run both in parallel for a sprint — Pa11y for bulk-URL accessibility snapshots, VertaaUX for per-PR quality gates. Many teams keep Pa11y for nightly site-wide sweeps and add VertaaUX for commit-level signal.

Before (Pa11y)

pa11y-ci --sitemap https://example.com/sitemap.xml

After (VertaaUX)

vertaa audit https://example.com --routes / ,/pricing,/blog --fail-on error

Frequently Asked Questions

Try VertaaUX in your next CI run

3 guest audits per day without an account, unmetered localhost audits, and a full GitHub Action, CLI, and Docker image on day one.

npm install -g @vertaaux/cli View on GitHub See all comparisons