Sitejar vs WAVE: which accessibility checker do you need?

WAVE and Sitejar are built for different jobs, and most of this page is about which job you have. WAVE is free, widely respected and very good at showing what is wrong with one page, right on the page, which makes it one of the best tools there is for learning accessibility. Sitejar is a commercial scanner that loads several pages in a real headless browser, maps findings to WCAG 2.1 AA, labels how certain each finding is, proposes fixes in your source code, and also checks security, privacy, deceptive design, technical quality and SEO. If you only need to check a page or two, WAVE may be all you need.

It is free, and it is a public service. In WebAIM's words, “WAVE is developed and made available as a free community service by WebAIM at Utah State University.” There is no account, no trial and no upsell inside the tool.

It shows problems where they are. Instead of a list of selectors, WAVE draws icons for errors, alerts, structure and contrast onto the page itself. A content editor or designer who has never opened developer tools can see that an image has no alt text, or that a heading level is skipped, at the exact spot it happens. That visual model is why WAVE is so widely used to teach accessibility.

It works where you are. The extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge evaluate the page you are viewing in your own browser, so you can check intranet pages, pages behind a login and pages that only appear after you sign in. Sitejar cannot do this: it reads public pages only.

It leaves judgement to people. Many of WAVE's results are alerts: things a person should look at, rather than verdicts. For someone learning accessibility, that is exactly the right habit to build.

It has an API. For bulk data collection, the WAVE API is priced per credit, with 100 free credits for new accounts and one credit per basic page analysis.

None of these is a flaw. They follow from WAVE being a free, single-page evaluation tool.

• The page in front of you. For more than one page at a time, WAVE's own home page points to Pope Tech.
• No documents. The free tool does not produce a PDF report, an accessibility statement or an ACR draft.
• No saved history. Each check stands alone, so there is no record of how a page changed between checks.
• Accessibility only. WAVE does not check security headers, cookie consent or tracking scripts, which it was never meant to.
• Results need interpretation. Alerts and contrast items need judgement. That is by design, but it can be slow going for someone new to accessibility.

If you like WAVE and just need more pages, Pope Tech, the option WAVE's home page points to, has a free plan of 25 pages. It may suit you better than Sitejar.

Several pages in one scan, rendered as a visitor sees them. Sitejar crawls up to 5 pages on a free scan and more on paid plans, loading each one in a real headless browser. Content added by JavaScript, navigation menus and consent banners are checked in their rendered state.

Findings mapped to WCAG 2.1 AA, with a confidence label. Each finding is labelled Confirmed, Likely or Needs review. A Confirmed finding is a deterministic fact about the page, such as a form field with no label. Needs review marks something a person must judge, such as text over a background image, where no contrast ratio can be computed.

Fixes proposed in your source code. SURE proposes source-level changes you can review, hand to a developer, or pass to an AI coding assistant through the MCP server. Nothing is applied to your site, and there is no overlay.

Six dimensions in one scan. Alongside accessibility, Sitejar checks security, privacy, deceptive design, technical quality and SEO. A missing Content-Security-Policy header or a tracking script that loads before consent is outside what WAVE is for, and it shows up in the same report.

Documents for other people. Paid plans add PDF reports, an executive report, an accessibility statement builder and an ACR draft. Agency adds white-label PDFs.

Honest limits. The free scan covers 5 pages. Sitejar is fully automated, with no guided manual tests. It reads public pages only, so it cannot check what WAVE's extension can check behind a login. It does not certify compliance.

• You are learning accessibility and want to see problems on the page.
• You need to check one page, or a handful, and your budget is zero.
• The page is behind a login or on an intranet.
• You are a developer or editor fixing a specific page and want instant visual feedback.

• You need several pages checked at once without installing anything.
• You want each finding mapped to a WCAG criterion with a confidence label and a proposed code fix.
• You need something to hand over: an accessibility statement, a PDF report, an executive report or an ACR draft for a procurement questionnaire.
• You also want to know about missing security headers, trackers that load before consent, or deceptive design patterns.
• You want to run scans from a CI pipeline or an AI coding assistant.

Most teams doing real remediation will use both, and the two fit together naturally.

1. Find the issues across the site. Run a Sitejar scan over your key pages and templates. Problems in a shared header, footer or form appear on every page that uses it, so the scan shows you where to start.
2. Inspect each page while you fix it. Open a flagged page with the WAVE extension and see each problem in context, on the page, as you change the code. This also works on staging pages behind a login, which Sitejar cannot reach.
3. Confirm and record. Scan again in Sitejar to confirm the fixes and keep a dated record. When you are ready, publish an accessibility statement.

Generate your accessibility statement, free →

Choose WAVE if you are checking a page or two, learning, testing pages behind a login, or working with no budget. Choose Sitejar if you need several pages, proposed code fixes, documents for clients or procurement, or checks beyond accessibility. If you are fixing a whole site, use both. Neither tool, on its own, can tell you your site is compliant: automated checks cover only part of WCAG, and keyboard and screen reader testing still matter.

Related reading: All seven free checkers compared · How to fix low color contrast · Security headers checker · Cookie consent checker