Accessibility / A11y Testing
Stark and Assistiv Labs bill differently, which matters more than feature parity here — Stark offers a free tier with paid upgrades (pricing not public), while Assistiv Labs sells a subscription with a free tier (entry price not public). Stark is design-tool accessibility plugin for Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD (contrast, vision sim). Assistiv Labs is remote assistive-technology testing platform (screen readers, voice control, switches). Pick Stark when the job is design teams catching a11y issues in figma before engineering and you accept medium lock-in; pick Assistiv Labs when it is distributed qa and a11y engineers testing with screen readers remotely and you accept medium lock-in. The data we have shows Stark at mostly transparent pricing and docs with average developer experience, and Assistiv Labs at some public pricing / roadmap detail with average developer experience. The honest trade-off: neither is universal — Stark is a poor fit for teams wanting automated scans of production web apps, and Assistiv Labs is a poor fit for teams wanting automated wcag scans or monitoring dashboards. Match the pricing model and lock-in level.
Quick take
Stark is for design-tool accessibility plugin; Assistiv Labs is for remote assistive-technology testing platform (screen readers; decide based on pricing model fit.
| | | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Accessibility / A11y Testing | Accessibility / A11y Testing |
| Pricing Model | freemium | subscription |
| Entry Price | — | — |
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing Complexity | — | — |
| Developer Experience | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| Pricing Transparency | 4/5 | 3/5 |
| Lock-in Level | medium | medium |
| Migration Complexity | — | — |
| Data Portability | — | — |
| Enterprise | — | — |
| GitHub Stars | — | — |
| License | — | — |
Choose Stark if a free tier with room to grow up front matters and the work maps to design-tool accessibility plugin for Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD (contrast, vision sim).
Not for: Teams wanting automated scans of production web apps.
Choose Assistiv Labs if partial public pricing is enough to start and the work lines up with remote assistive-technology testing platform (screen readers, voice control, switches).
Not for: Teams wanting automated WCAG scans or monitoring dashboards.
Check each tool's dedicated page for deeper reviews, setup notes, and pros/cons.
Neither Stark nor Assistiv Labs publishes entry pricing that lets us compare directly — Stark uses a freemium model and Assistiv Labs uses a subscription model. Get quotes from both before assuming one is cheaper.
Migration is possible in either direction. Stark carries medium lock-in and Assistiv Labs carries medium lock-in, so plan for meaningful but not blocking rework. Run both in parallel before you fully cut over.
Both Stark and Assistiv Labs rate the same on developer experience (3/5). The decision on DX then comes down to taste — which CLI, UI, or workflow matches your team's habits. A short side-by-side trial is the quickest way to tell.
Yes — Assistiv Labs is a reasonable alternative to Stark for design teams catching a11y issues in figma before engineering.. The practical differences are freemium-vs-subscription billing and medium-vs-medium lock-in. If those fit your constraints better, treat Assistiv Labs as a credible swap.
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