Alternatives · Lighthouse
Certvo vs Lighthouse: which actually makes you compliant?
Lighthouse is the auditing tool built into Chrome DevTools; its accessibility category runs a subset of axe-core rules and returns a 0-100 score. Certvo takes a different approach: we audit the underlying HTML and return code patches you can review and ship. Here is the honest comparison, including where Lighthouse is the better choice.
- Their pricing
- Free, built into Chrome and available via PageSpeed Insights and CI.
- Their approach
- Runs a fixed subset of axe-core rules on one page and weights them into a single score.
- Our approach
- AI audit + code patches in your repo
- Our pricing
- Free public scan; from $29/mo for monitoring
What Lighthouse does well
Already in the browser — zero setup, instant result
Familiar score that non-specialists understand at a glance
Available in CI via the Lighthouse CI tooling
Bundles performance, SEO and best-practice checks in the same run
Where Lighthouse falls short
Every accessibility vendor has a target customer and a target solution. Lighthouse's shape works for some teams and badly for others. The points below come up most often when buyers move off Lighthouse and what they wish they had asked sooner.
The 100 score is widely misread as "accessible" — it only means no automated failures on that page
Runs a subset of axe-core rules, so it detects less than a dedicated accessibility scan
Single page, single run — no crawl, no history
No remediation guidance beyond a link to the rule documentation
Why teams pick Certvo instead
Full axe-core rule set rather than the Lighthouse subset
Site-wide crawl instead of the one page you happened to open
Generated code fixes and WCAG-to-law mapping per finding
Evidence trail: scan history, exportable reports, VPAT and statement
Try a free public scan on the same URL you would test with Lighthouse. Compare what each tool says is wrong and how each proposes to fix it.
When you should still pick the other tool
Bluntly: if the only thing you need is a visible widget on your site (e.g. as part of a settlement consent decree that names a specific overlay product), an overlay vendor is the path of least resistance. Certvo does not ship a widget. We give you patches; the widget is only a UI for the audit.
If you have an enterprise procurement process that already has a long-running contract with a competitor and the buying motion would take six months to switch, you can use Certvo alongside as the audit-and-fix tool while the widget keeps sitting on the page.
Frequently asked questions
My Lighthouse accessibility score is 100. Am I compliant?
No, and this is the single most costly misunderstanding in the field. A Lighthouse score of 100 means the automated checks it ran found no failures on that one page. It does not evaluate whether alt text is meaningful, whether focus order matches the layout, whether a custom widget behaves as its ARIA role promises, or whether the flow works with a screen reader — and it did not look at your other pages at all. Sites with a 100 score have been the subject of accessibility complaints.
Why does Lighthouse find fewer issues than a dedicated scanner?
Lighthouse runs a curated subset of axe-core rules chosen to keep the audit fast and broadly applicable, and it scores one page in isolation. A dedicated scan runs the full rule set, crawls the site so template-level problems surface everywhere they occur, and keeps the result so you can see what changed since the last release.
Should I still use Lighthouse?
Yes — as a smoke test. It is free, instant and already in the browser, which makes it perfect for catching an obvious regression while you are building a component. Treat the score as a signal that something is broken, never as proof that nothing is.
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All accessibility tool comparisons
Full list of alternatives and honest comparisons
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