Pa11y is a developer tool; OnlyEnable is a compliance program. Pa11y is free and great for catching obvious automated issues in CI — but it misses 70% of real WCAG failures, provides no visitor widget, and delivers no audit trail. OnlyEnable adds everything Pa11y lacks — manual expert audits, visitor widget, source-code fixes, and documented compliance reporting — starting at $29/mo. For serious compliance, there's no comparison.
OnlyEnable wins 8 of 10 feature categories
Feature-by-feature comparison
Every feature rated. Green check = clear winner in that category.
| Feature | OnlyEnable | Pa11y |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $29/mo | Free |
| Non-technical user friendly | ||
| Accessibility widget for visitors | ||
| Manual WCAG audit | Included ($99/mo+) | |
| Issue detection rate | 95%+ (manual+auto) | ~30% (automated only) |
| Source-code fix delivery | ||
| Documented compliance trail | ||
| CI/CD pipeline integration | Via axe-core | |
| Commercial support / SLA | ||
| Monitoring dashboard | DIY scripting |
Why teams switch to OnlyEnable from Pa11y
Where Pa11y falls short
Honest drawbacks to know before you sign up.
- Completely free and open source — no cost to run basic automated checks
- CI/CD integration friendly — runs as a CLI tool in build pipelines
- Respected in the developer community as a straightforward automated testing utility
When Pa11y might still make sense
Pa11y is ideal if you have a developer team that wants to automate basic accessibility checks in a CI/CD pipeline and already have a broader accessibility program handling the manual review, widget, and documentation components.
For everyone else — which is the vast majority of businesses — OnlyEnable is the better choice.
Pricing — we cost less, include more
- Manual WCAG audits included
- Source-code fix recommendations
- Monthly billing, cancel anytime
- Free initial audit
- Audits sold separately
- No source-code fixes
- No free initial audit