Why another scanner reports issues that ours does not

You may run a second accessibility scanner on a site and get a different answer. Ours can report no issues while another tool reports a "non-compliant" result with a list of problems. This is common, and it does not mean one tool is broken. Scanners test different things and use different rules.

What we test

• WCAG conformance findings. We use axe-core with its WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 Level A and AA rules. These are the issues that appear under Issues in your results and count against conformance.
• Best-practice suggestions. A separate axe-core pass looks for things that are not WCAG failures but can make a page harder to use. They appear as Suggestions and never change your result.
• A Lighthouse score. A sampled Lighthouse accessibility score is shown as a supplementary signal.

Why results differ

• Different rule sets. Some scanners add their own checks on top of WCAG. Examples are wording of landmark labels, whether decorative icons are hidden from screen readers, or how page regions are nested. These are style and screen-reader-comfort preferences. They are not WCAG success criteria, so a page can pass every WCAG rule and still trip them.
• Different scoring. One tool may call a site "non-compliant" because of a single flagged item. Another may report a clean result because it lists only WCAG failures. The label reflects the tool's scoring, not a legal finding.
• Different pages. A scanner that checks only the home page can see different problems from one that crawls many pages.
• Different timing. Pages that load content with scripts, or show different content to signed-in visitors, can give different results from one run to the next.

What to do when results conflict

1. Read each finding, not the label. Look for the specific element and the reason. A score or a banner with no reason is not actionable.
2. Check whether it maps to a WCAG success criterion. If it does, treat it as a real issue and fix it. If the tool cannot point to one, treat it as a suggestion.
3. Fix the cheap ones anyway. Many extra findings take a minute to resolve and cause no harm, such as hiding a decorative icon with aria-hidden="true" or shortening a redundant label. Doing them removes the disagreement.
4. Test by hand. No automated tool can confirm conformance. See What automated scans can and cannot find.

To see how we group and rate findings, read Read your scan results.