Downloads of Industry-Standard Axe-core Digital Accessibility Rules Hit 100 Million

Open Source Downloads Grow Tenfold In Under Two Years, Suggesting Expanding Need for Digital Accessibility Testing

HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Deque Systems, the trusted leader in digital accessibility, announced today that axe-core, the most accurate and widely used open source library of accessibility rules, has exceeded 100 million downloads, growing at a rate of more than 4 million downloads a week.

Driven by a need for fast and accurate accessibility testing, the use of axe-core spans the globe. The vast majority of downloads came from external (non-Deque) web sources, including Google and Microsoft—a testament to the growing and vibrant developer community that has openly embraced axe-core.

“The contributions of the developer community and their commitment to making the web accessible to people with disabilities have fueled our growth trajectory since we released axe-core as open source in 2015,” comments Dylan Barrell, Chief Technology Officer at Deque Systems. “The exponential rate of adoption we’ve seen in recent years is indicative of digital accessibility becoming more pervasive for the nearly one in four U.S. citizens with a disability.”

Many organizations reference the axe-core rules library as the de facto standard for accessibility testing, including Google, Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others. These rules help inform testers and web developers what is and isn't accessible to people with disabilities. Fast, secure and lightweight, axe-core was built to seamlessly integrate with any test environment and can automate testing alongside regular functional testing.

Axe-core is the foundation of Deque’s accessibility testing tools including the free axe browser extensions and the axe DevTools toolkit. Developers may download axe-core at: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core.

“Besides being legally mandated per the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), more organizations are realizing the benefits of digital accessibility, ranging from capturing overlooked market share, lowering operational costs and boosting brand value,” says Preety Kumar, CEO of Deque Systems.

Momentum Heading into First axe-con: Deque’s axe-con is a new industry conference to be conducted online March 10-11, 2021. Axe-con is an open and inclusive event that welcomes developers, designers, business leaders and accessibility professionals of all levels to a unique conference focused on building, testing, and maintaining accessible digital experiences.

Registration for axe-con is free, with leaders in the field offering attendees best practices for accessibility in design, development, and testing. Speakers include American internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Disability Rights Lawyer and Author Haben Girma, Smashing Magazine Editor in Chief Rachel Andrew and dozens of other industry influencers.

To register for axe-con, please visit deque.com/axe-con/register.

About Deque Systems

Deque (pronounced dee-cue) is a web accessibility software and services company, and our mission is Digital Equality. We believe everyone, regardless of their ability, should have equal access to the information, services, applications, and everything else on the web.

We work with enterprise-level businesses and organizations to ensure that their sites and mobile apps are accessible. Installed in over 250,000 browsers and with over 4,000 audit projects completed, Deque is the industry standard.