A community of folks hoisting up the axe logo and the text 1 billion downloads

1 Billion Downloads later, axe-core is the source of truth for automated digital accessibility testing

Open-source digital accessibility testing rules library axe-core achieves incredible milestone

HERNDON, VA – Dec 5, 2023 –  Today, Deque Systems, the trusted leader in digital accessibility, marked an important landmark in accessibility history with its open-source accessibility rules library, axe-core, surpassing 1 billion downloads.

“We’re incredibly proud and fortunate for so many reasons; the community support, the incredible partners, our brilliant engineers, and for having the foresight to develop our “no false-positives” mantra so many years ago,” said Preety Kumar, CEO and Founder at Deque Systems. “In an age now where AI has the power to amplify noise, our measured approach acts as a signal, continuing to earn trust while still rapidly accelerating what automated accessibility testing can do.”

Axe-core is the world’s most popular accessibility testing library embedded in accessibility-first development and testing initiatives worldwide. According to npm-stat, axe-core is downloaded nearly 15 million times a week.

“The acceleration and wide adoption of axe-core over the years is really a testament to the hard work of our contributors,” said Dylan Barrell, CTO, Deque Systems. “We added support for WCAG 2.2 this year and continue to invest significantly in the development of the project with a commit per workday and a release every month, on average, over the last 12 months.”

Deque reached out to axe-core contributors asking them what this milestone means to them. Here is what they said:

Special celebration giveaway

We’re giving away free axe-core shirts! Register for your chance to win a “3-commas” shirt, representing the growing prevalence of accessibility and each of the commas in 1,000,000,000 axe-core downloads.

Two folks wearing navy t-shirts with 3 large commas and white text reading accessibility everywhere

For a more robust, efficient and accurate path to high velocity accessibility, check out Deque’s suite of axe Tools, powered by the open-source axe-core rules library.

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 875,000+ browsers and with 8,000+ audit projects completed, Deque is the industry standard.

Axe ® is a registered trademark of Deque Systems, Inc.

News Media Contacts

At Deque: Ryan Bateman, +1-703-225-0380, marketing@deque.com

At Deque Europe: Ron Beenen, +31 30 799 5009, ron.beenen@deque.com

At Deque APAC & MENA: Abin Roy Choudhury, +91 9000189666, abin.choudhury@deque.com

photo of Deque Systems

About Deque Systems

Deque (pronounced dee-cue) stands for digital equality. For over 20 years, our software, services and training have helped eliminate billions of accessibility barriers from websites, mobile apps and other digital content - improving the web for everyone, including people with disabilities.

We work with enterprise-level businesses and organizations to ensure that their sites and mobile apps are accessible. Our axe tools have been downloaded over one billion times by accessibility champions around the world. Our experts have implemented thousands of successful accessibility programs. Our training has impacted over a hundred thousand learners.

Deque is the digital accessibility industry standard.