How Wholisphere compares
Three honest comparisons. Each one names where the alternative wins, because a comparison that never concedes anything isn't one.
vs. accessibility overlays
Overlays (AccessiBe, UserWay, EqualWeb) inject a JavaScript widget that claims to fix accessibility automatically. The documented problems: they can conflict with the screen readers users already run, and 200+ ADA lawsuits have been filed against companies using them (overlayfactsheet.com). Wholisphere's agent takes the opposite architecture — an opt-in landmark that coexists with JAWS / NVDA / VoiceOver, never overriding them, with every action written to an audit log. Where overlays win: they're cheaper and install in minutes. If a checkbox is genuinely all you need, we're not the cheapest checkbox. Full comparison table →
vs. automated scanners
Rule-based engines like axe are excellent at what static analysis can see — and they're free. The gap is coverage: static rules alone can't evaluate keyboard traps, 320 px reflow, images-of-text, or caption quality. Wholisphere layers real-browser Playwright probes and vision-model checks on top of static rules — 80+ evaluators machine-covering 50 of the 55 WCAG 2.2 Level AA criteria — then closes the loop that scanners leave open: remediation via the assistive agent, measured verification, and a VPAT generated from the evidence. Where plain scanners win: free, instant, and perfect for a first pass in CI. We run in CI too — the difference is what happens after the findings list. How scanning works →
vs. VPAT audit firms
Deque, TPGi, Level Access, Accessible.org and peers produce audited ACRs with expert human judgment on every criterion — the right choice for some procurement contexts, and we say so. The trade-off is that a consulting audit is a snapshot that ages with every release, at four to five figures per cycle. We wrote a full, vendor-naming buyer's guide on when to pick which (and when to combine them). VPAT services vs. software →