AccessVane – Accessibility Checker and Fixer
Find and fix accessibility problems. Scans against WCAG 2.2 AA and explains every issue in plain English. Not an overlay.
Use with caution
AccessVane works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. Was last updated 1 month ago, and scores 60/100 on our health check.
- Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
- Small user base (<10 active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where AccessVane stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| a11y | >100 |
| accessibility | >100 |
| ada | >100 |
| Alt Text | >100 |
| wcag | >100 |
About AccessVane
From the official readme · v1.2.0Description
AccessVane checks your pages against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, tells you what is wrong in language you can act on, and repairs the problems that can be repaired safely.
It is not an accessibility overlay. Overlays load a script on top of your site and try to patch things in the visitor’s browser; they do not change your pages, which is why sites carrying one still fail scans. AccessVane changes what your server actually sends.
What it does
- Scans your pages against WCAG 2.2 Level AA using axe-core, the same open-source rule engine behind Chrome’s Lighthouse audit.
- Explains every finding in plain English — what is wrong, who it blocks, and the exact steps to fix it in WordPress, WooCommerce, Elementor or the block editor.
- Repairs what can be repaired safely — skip links, visible keyboard focus, pinch-zoom, missing image descriptions, unlabelled form fields, untitled embeds, unnamed menus, keyboard access to scrolling areas.
- Bulk alt text editor — every image missing a description on one screen, saving as you type, instead of one Media Library modal at a time.
- Accessibility statement generator — builds the statement the European Accessibility Act requires, worded honestly, as a draft page you review before publishing.
- Checks while you write — an Accessibility panel in the block editor flags missing alt text, skipped heading levels, empty buttons and vague link text before you publish, not after.
- A 16-point manual checklist for the problems no scanner can find.
The scan runs in your browser, not on your server
Each page is loaded into a hidden frame in your own admin session and tested there. Nothing about your site is sent anywhere, no external service is contacted, there is no API key, no account, and no per-scan cost. Scan as often as you like.
What this plugin will not tell you
Automated testing reliably detects roughly one third of WCAG failures. A clean scan is a good sign, not a certificate of compliance, and any plugin that tells you otherwise is misleading you. A tool can see that an image has alt text; it cannot tell whether that text is accurate. It can see that a button is focusable; it cannot tell whether pressing it does the right thing.
That is why the Manual checks screen ships with the plugin rather than being sold as an upgrade. Working through it — especially the keyboard-only test and the screen reader test — will teach you more about your site than any scan.
Every repair is optional and reversible
Nothing is switched on when you activate the plugin. Each repair is listed with what it changes and what could go wrong, you choose which to enable, and switching one off restores exactly what your theme produced before. No stored content is ever rewritten.
Credits
Accessibility testing is powered by axe-core by Deque Systems, licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. The unminified source is included in assets/js/axe.js.
Installation
- Install and activate the plugin.
- Go to Accessibility → Scan pages and scan your homepage first, then a content page, your contact page, and — if you sell online — a product page and the checkout.
- Read the findings on Accessibility → Overview.
- Turn on the repairs you want under Accessibility → Repairs, then look at your site.
- Work through Accessibility → Manual checks.
Frequently asked questions
Does this make my site legally compliant?
No plugin can honestly promise that. Automated testing catches about a third of WCAG failures; the rest needs a person. AccessVane finds what a machine can find, repairs what can be repaired safely, and gives you a structured checklist for everything else. In 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission fined an accessibility vendor $1 million partly over compliance claims of exactly this kind, which is why the wording here is careful.
I already have an accessibility widget. Do I need this?
If you have an overlay, this plugin will show you the failures it is not fixing. Overlays patch the visitor’s browser, not your pages. In the first half of 2025, 456 US accessibility lawsuits were filed against websites that already had one installed.
Will the repairs break my site?
Every repair is off until you turn it on, and each one is listed with an honest note about what could go wrong. Most are invisible to sighted visitors. The two that change appearance — underlining content links and the focus outline — are marked as such. Switching a repair off removes its effect completely.
Does it slow my site down?
The scanner runs only in wp-admin and never on the front end. On the front end, the CSS-only repairs add well under a kilobyte inline, and the small JavaScript file loads only if you enable a repair that needs it. If you enable nothing, nothing is loaded.
Does it send my data anywhere?
No. There is no external service, no API key and no account. Scans run in your browser and results are stored in your own database.
Which standard does it check?
WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the level referenced by the European Accessibility Act, Section 508, EN 301 549 and most national accessibility rules.
Can I scan pages that are not published?
The scanner lists published pages and posts. To test a draft, preview it and scan the preview address, or publish it privately first.
Changelog
Right-to-left admin support, translation template included, and landmark names no longer announce half in English.
1.2.0
- The whole admin now works right to left. Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Urdu sites had panels, indents and the coloured severity bars drawn on the wrong edge — the severity colour disappeared entirely, because the border it painted had no width in that direction. Rewritten with logical properties, so one stylesheet serves both directions and cannot drift apart.
- Fixed half-translated landmark names. “Footer”, “Header” and “Sidebar” were hardcoded in English while the word “navigation” beside them was translated, so a screen reader on a translated site announced a mixture of two languages. In a plugin whose job is what the screen reader says, that was the wrong way round.
- Added the translation template (languages/accessvane.pot), so the plugin can be translated into any language without asking us and without a paid add-on. 214 strings.
- One status message on the scan screen was still hardcoded English. It now goes through the same string table as the rest.
1.1.0
- New: an Accessibility panel inside the block editor. It reads your blocks as you write and flags images with no description, alt text copied from the file name, headings that skip a level, buttons with no words, links that only say “click here”, and tables with no header row. Click a finding to jump straight to that block.
- The panel says plainly that it only sees your content, so nobody mistakes a clean panel for a clean page. Colour contrast and anything the theme adds still need a full scan.
1.0.1
- Logos are no longer reported as having alt text copied from the file name. A logo’s correct description is the organisation’s name, which is also what the file is called, so the old check was asking people to replace a right answer with a wrong one.
- Added a review request on the overview screen. It appears once, after a week, and only if you have actually scanned something.
1.0.0
- First release.
Screenshots
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best AccessVane alternatives
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FAQ
AccessVane: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 21, 2026
Is AccessVane free?
Yes. AccessVane is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is AccessVane safe to use in 2026?
AccessVane works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. Was last updated 1 month ago, and scores 60/100 on our health check.
How many websites use AccessVane?
AccessVane is active on <10 WordPress websites and has been downloaded 293 times since it launched in August 2026. It was downloaded 95 times in the last 30 days.
Does AccessVane work with WordPress 7.1?
Yes. The developer has tested AccessVane up to WordPress 7.1.3, the latest release. It requires WordPress 6.0 or newer.
What PHP version does AccessVane need?
AccessVane requires PHP 7.4 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was AccessVane last updated?
The latest version, 1.2.0, was released on September 6, 2026 (1 month ago).
Who makes AccessVane?
AccessVane is developed and maintained by SaifBrand.
What are the best alternatives to AccessVane?
The most popular alternatives to AccessVane are Web Accessibility (formally… (500K+ installs), WP Accessibility (60K+ installs) and AccessibleWP (20K+ installs).
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