Axe vs Chromatic: Accessibility Testing Comparison

Thinking of accessibility testing using axe (axe-core) or Chromatic? If you're a developer, it can be time-consuming to compare every solution and where it integrates into your workflow. We gathered info to help you choose which tools are right for you.

Read on for an in-depth look at axe and Chromatic including features, workflows, pricing, and pitfalls. We'll cover what drives modern frontend requirements and how to map that back to an accessibility testing tool.

Table of Contents

• Can you setup axe by yourself?
• Why run accessibility tests in the cloud instead of locally?
• What is accessibility regression testing, and does axe support it?
• Modern tools test components, legacy tools test pages
• Which frontend frameworks does axe support?
• Do I still need manual audits if I use axe?
• How does axe handle branching and merging?
• How do you debug issues in axe vs Chromatic?
• What does axe cost vs Chromatic?
• Does axe integrate with my tech stack (Git, Slack, etc.)?
• Ready to try Chromatic?

💡 Why should you trust us? Our team has decades of experience in the open source community. We maintain Storybook, an industry-standard open source tool for frontend developers.

Can you setup axe by yourself?

Yes. Axe (axe-core) is an open source library by Deque. Developers can install axe by itself or integrate it with Storybook, Playwright, or Cypress.

• In Storybook, axe is built into the official A11y addon. Developers can spot-check components for WCAG violations without extra setup. It's a convenient way to visually debug issues in the browser instead of parsing blobs of text.
• In Playwright and Cypress, you'll need to install and configure axe by downloading an npm package.

Notably, axe is designed to be a powerful library, not to address the whole developer workflow. To bring it into the software development lifecycle, not only do you need to hook it up to testing tools, but you also need to integrate it with a Git provider, test runner, CI pipeline, data storage provider, frontend framework, and more.

Chromatic uses axe and offers integrations with Git, CI, and popular developer tools to power its Accessibility Regression Testing workflow. This means you still get all the benefits of axe, but with a streamlined developer experience.

What WCAG standards are covered by axe?

Axe supports the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are maintained by the W3C, not by axe or any other tool vendor. When a tool like axe says it supports WCAG 2.1 (A/AA/AAA), it means it has automated checks for those specific guidelines. Your organization still needs to decide which version and level to target.

WCAG 2.0 was the initial rule set, followed by 2.1, 2.2—each adding or refining success criteria. Within each version, there are three conformance levels: A, AA, and AAA. Think of them as tiers of strictness:

• A: Basic accessibility requirements
• AA: Stricter standards often mandated by legislation
• AAA: The highest, most demanding level

Every rule in WCAG is tied to one of these levels. Testing only for AA rules doesn't ensure you've satisfied A-level rules. But from a compliance standpoint, in order to claim AA compliance you must satisfy both A and AA rules. By default, axe covers WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 at Level A & AA, combining all relevant rules from those versions.

It's worth noting that automation can't catch every issue – you need to combine it with manual audits. However, it's a great way to catch the majority of accessibility problems so a human auditor can efficiently focus on complex issues.

European Accessibility Act and Americans with Disabilities Act

Both the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) use WCAG 2.1 level A & AA as the de facto baseline for compliance. Axe helps you identify WCAG 2.1 violations to prioritize fixing. While it can't catch every WCAG 2.1 violation, it provides quick automated coverage for most issues. You'd supplement axe with a manual audit to ensure your app is fully compliant.

For more about EAA compliance, check out the comprehensive developers guide to EAA. If you need to demonstrate compliance without stopping development to fix every accessibility issue, learn why accessibility regression testing is a must-have.

Do I still need manual audits if I use axe?

Yes. While automated tests can catch the majority of accessibility problems, they don't catch everything. Complex context-sensitive issues still require human judgment.

Automated tools like axe help you quickly identify errors (e.g., missing labels, color contrast problems, etc.) without needing an expert auditor. As a developer, you can fix these issues early in your workflow, reducing the load on auditors so that when they do step in, they can focus on deeper or more nuanced problems.

Chromatic layers automation on top of axe, scanning every state of your app on every push and notifying you about new issues. You still need manual audits for complex or interactive scenarios—like ensuring your tab order makes sense to real users, or that custom widgets work properly with screen readers—but automation handles the bulk of the routine checks.

Why run accessibility tests in the cloud instead of locally?

Axe is a library for running accessibility tests in a real browser environment—either on your local machine (CLI or browser extension), in CI, or via a managed service like Chromatic. Each approach trades off performance, accuracy, ergonomics, and cost.

Local testing: Testing locally is straightforward and "free." You run tests in a real browser on your own machine, which can be fine for personal or hobby projects. But as your setup changes (OS upgrades, new tooling, or hardware limitations), tests can become inconsistent from other teammates. Plus, your local machine can bottleneck performance if you're running other tasks.

CI pipelines: CI offers consistent accessibility results by testing with uniform browser images in the cloud. Your local machine is unencumbered because tests run elsewhere. CI is not free; you pay for consistency and scale. You also have to consider maintenance – whether that's keeping pipelines up to date, debugging flaky tests, upgrading browsers, or handling Git integrations. Someone on your team typically gets stuck babysitting the CI pipeline.

Managed services: Services like Chromatic work in tandem with CI but manage the testing infrastructure and integrations for you. Chromatic spins up standardized cloud browsers that include custom heuristics to prevent false positives. It parallelizes tests to run as fast as possible. All the infrastructure, scaling, and uptime monitoring is handled for you. If you run into issues, a dedicated Chromatic support engineer fixes them for you.

In short, many teams find that building and maintaining a reliable testing pipeline can be painful (and expensive in developer time). Using a managed service frees you from babysitting infrastructure, letting your team focus on what matters most: shipping features. However, if you're on a tight budget or just tinkering, local tests may suffice.

What is accessibility regression testing, and does axe support it?

Accessibility regression testing ensures that new code changes don't introduce or revive accessibility issues. It highlights only new or changed violations whenever you push code, preventing the backlog of existing issues from overwhelming your development workflow.

Axe identifies WCAG violations at a single point in time, but it doesn't differentiate between preexisting and newly introduced problems. You get a flood of warnings with no clear path to triage. That's fine for an initial audit, but it can block development when you just want to confirm you haven't made accessibility worse.

Chromatic, on the other hand, compares test results over time. It flags only new or updated violations, which helps you catch regressions immediately without being burdened by unrelated issues. You can fix legacy problems on your own schedule, confident that new code changes haven't broken anything else.

Regression testing is essential for professional teams juggling multiple branches. You keep your product accessible, even if you haven't had time to address all your existing issues.

Note: Axe DevTools Enterprise is a paid solution that may record violations globally for reporting. But this is not the same as regression testing in the software development workflow which highlights only new or changed violations in each PR.

Modern tools test components, legacy tools test pages

Legacy accessibility tools often run axe on entire pages, which is fine for QA or auditing, but developers build with reusable components. If a single component breaks, you'll see that error repeated on every page. This overloads your test results with duplicates and masks the true source of the issue.

Chromatic takes a different approach by running axe on each component in isolation. That way, you catch the real source of the bug without wading through duplicates. This prevents issues from snowballing into larger compliance blockers.

Benefits of component-level testing:

• Accuracy: Zero-in on the exact component that fails.
• Efficiency: "Shift left" by catching issues early, while you're coding new features.
• Less noise: Solve a bug once instead of chasing it across multiple pages.

Read our Accessibility Tools Overview for an in-depth comparison of tools by type, audience, and price.

Which frontend frameworks does axe support?

Axe supports any frontend framework—React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Next.js, etc.—because it checks the final rendered UI in the browser, not your source code. However, you typically need to wire it up for each framework you use (for example, react-axe in React). That can mean multiple setups or configurations if you maintain more than one tech stack.

Storybook's axe integration works with all major frameworks out of the box. Chromatic integrates with Storybook to enable accessibility regression testing.

How does axe handle branching and merging?

Axe evaluates accessibility at a single point in time. It doesn't track changes across branches or merges, so you need to rerun it manually on every branch and keep your own records of which issues are fixed or are still lingering. This gets messy fast, especially when multiple branches are in play.

Chromatic layers on top of axe to make accessibility testing fit into your Git workflow:

• Each branch has a baseline of known violations.
• Every commit runs axe and compares the results to the baseline.
• Merging or updating from main automatically syncs baselines so old issues don't sneak back in.
• If a newly merged commit reintroduces a known issue, Chromatic flags it right away (e.g., in PR checks or Slack).

How do you debug issues in axe vs Chromatic?

"But it works on my machine" is a familiar excuse when UI code behaves differently across environments. A production-grade accessibility testing solution should let you inspect the exact UI state that triggered an error.

With axe, you get a suite of tools ranging from Lighthouse reports in Chrome, CLI reports, browser devtools, and test runner logs.

Chromatic complements your existing axe debugging workflow by focusing scans at the component level and streamlining reproductions. It archives the DOM, styling, and assets for a component at the moment tests run.

For reproductions, click a link to open a fully-inspectable test with the violations pinned to the exact visual location in the UI. This makes debugging consistent across environments so every collaborator can help fix accessibility issues.

What does axe cost vs Chromatic?

Axe (axe-core) is free. To integrate it into your development workflow, you'll need to hook it up with your testing tools, CI pipeline, and Git provider. Unfortunately, "free" doesn't account for your time spent on ongoing DevOps maintenance, performance, and support.

Chromatic is a paid tool that complements axe. It unlocks accessibility regression testing, and "just works" with your favorite tools. Here's a detailed breakdown of how Chromatic differs from axe:

Is axe free? Is Chromatic free?

Yes, axe is open source and free. It's great for local checks and single-run scans. Chromatic has a free plan with 5000 accessibility test runs per month, unlimited parallelization, and unlimited users. This is ideal for teams that want continuous coverage.

Does axe integrate with my tech stack (Git, Slack, etc.)?

Even though axe is a powerful open source library, developers still need to integrate it with their existing developer tools, Git providers, and collaboration tools.

Chromatic integrates axe with the tools below for you, this helps you focus on shipping accessible UIs instead of cobbling together your own tooling.

Ready to try Chromatic?

Accessibility compliance is a journey. We hope this guide clarifies how axe works and how Chromatic's Accessibility Regression Testing superpowers turbocharge axe for your development workflow. If you're ready for component-level testing that doesn't slow you down, Chromatic is a no-brainer.

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