It seems like only yesterday that our axe HTML accessibility rules engine hit one million downloads. Now, a little over a year and a half later, the total number of NPM downloads just surpassed ten million downloads!
The total number of axe HTML rules engine downloads comes from NPM package installs. Users may also access the power of axe through the axe browser extensions, the GitHub repository, and WorldSpace Attest (Deque’s automated accessibility testing toolkit).
854.49% increase from Oct 2017 to Oct 2018 (470,150 downloads to 4,487,532)
Source: https://www.npmjs.com/package/axe-core
Our axe rules library is the most widely deployed open source accessibility rules engine. Google and Microsoft use axe as their accessibility standard, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice. Microsoft added Windows support to axe accessibility rules in March, so developers can now test their code in Web, Windows, Android and iOS platforms using a unified standard.
“When we released the axe rules library as open source in 2015, our hope was to empower the developer community to bring digital accessibility to the world,” says Preety Kumar, CEO and founder of Deque Systems. “That vision is now dramatically picking up speed, signaling that digital accessibility is becoming a functional requirement for software.”
Seven new axe rules were added in the last year, with five new rules currently in progress. Axe currently tests for everything in the most recent accessibility standards from the W3C, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, that can be tested via automation, keeping companies up-to-date on current accessibility guidelines.
Thank you to each and every one of our users and contributors – whether you’re using an aXe extension, the Github repository, Chrome DevTools, Accessibility Insights, PA11y, Sonarwhal, or WorldSpace Attest – every one of those ten million downloads represents someone trying to make something accessible, and we applaud you. Thank you for being a champion of accessibility.
Join our exclusive Axe-Pro Beta!
We’re looking for front-end web developers to join our exclusive beta program to test our new axe-pro accessibility tools. Axe-pro introduces a new approach to accessibility testing that combines automatic and guided accessibility tests to maximize the impact you can make on your site’s accessibility without requiring any special expertise.
We need your help to make sure we’re providing the most effective and user-friendly testing experience possible. Learn more about axe-pro on deque.com.