Features

About Octopus Scanner

The main features of Octopus Scanner, from crawling whole websites to clear reports and ready-to-paste tickets.

1. Key features

2. Scanning and discovery

  • Hybrid Discovery Modes: Audit anything from a single page to a full-domain crawl, using sitemaps (XML and gzipped), lists of specific URLs, multi-domain discovery or single-page application routes. All of these work within one scan. Learn more
  • Local File Scanning: Audit HTML files on your computer as well as live websites, so you can test work before it is published. Learn more
  • Interactive Mode: Browse the site yourself in a visible browser and audit the exact state on screen, such as an open menu or a filtered view. Learn more
  • No-Code User Journeys: Record a flow such as a sign-in or checkout by using the browser, then add Scan Page steps wherever you want an audit. Steps marked Sensitive Value, such as passwords, are never saved with a configuration or report. Learn more
  • Dynamic Content, Shadow DOM and Frame Support: Deep Scan opens tabs, accordions and other interactive components, including controls inside open shadow roots, so hidden content is audited too. Content inside embedded frames is audited as well, including frames from other websites. Learn more
  • Dark Mode Auditing: Runs a second audit in dark mode when a page's styling responds to the system preference. This finds issues that only the dark colour scheme introduces, such as contrast failures. Learn more
  • Two-Phase State Scanning: When Force-Reveal Hidden Content expands content, both the expanded and collapsed states are audited. Matching findings are then merged, so each issue in a tab, accordion or disclosure widget is reported once. Learn more
  • Force-Reveal Hidden Content: Reveals content hidden by techniques such as smooth-scrolling wrappers and content-visibility optimisations. This improves coverage and reduces false positives on heavily animated websites. Learn more
  • Adaptive Bot Handling: Responds to firewalls and bot protection by adjusting the crawl delay as the scan runs and, when Stealth Mode is on, strengthening stealth measures and browser fingerprints. If you turn Stealth Mode off, it stays off. Learn more
  • Parallel Multi-Viewport Scanning: Scans mobile and desktop layouts at the same time, with tablet and larger desktop sizes available. A viewport blocked by bot protection is scanned again on its own afterwards. Learn more
  • Overlay Dismissal: With Attempt to Dismiss Overlays on, tries to accept or close cookie banners and pop-ups before each audit, so they don't hide the page. Learn more

3. Configuration and control

  • Setup Walkthrough: A guided setup chooses scan settings for you from 16 short questions, covering standards, screen sizes, scan size, report format, screenshots and more. Your answers are saved as your default configuration. Learn more
  • Standards Selection: Audit against WCAG 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2 at Level A, AA or AAA, Section 508, EN 301 549, Trusted Tester or RGAA 4, with best-practice rules as an option. Learn more
  • Visual Scanner Progress: Shows a live view of the scanning browser while an HTML report with screenshots is being built, so you can follow navigation without reading the logs. The dashboard counts pages audited, pages crawled, duplicates skipped and live network traffic. Learn more
  • Device and Viewport Emulation: Emulates popular devices with presets such as iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy and iPad, or any custom viewport size. Learn more
  • Saved Configurations: Save reusable scan profiles, and import or export configuration files to share them between computers or colleagues. Learn more
  • Network and Session Control: Supports persistent sessions, configurable timeouts and HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS proxies for traffic to the scanned website. Learn more
  • Granular Rule Logic: Turn off specific axe rules, or run only the rules you list, for targeted compliance testing. Learn more
  • Exclusions: Leave out addresses by pattern, and page regions such as third-party widgets by CSS selector. Learn more
  • Crawl Etiquette: Follow robots.txt rules, and choose whether to crawl beyond the sitemap. Learn more
  • Wait Before Scan: Wait a set time, or for a chosen element, before auditing pages that load slowly. Learn more
  • Before You Scan: Before a scan starts, lists any settings that change how it interacts with the site and reminds you to check you have permission. Learn more
  • Past Reports: Search earlier reports and delete them individually or by age, together with their CSVs and screenshots. Learn more

4. System stability and performance

  • Smart Deduplication Engine: Canonical references, content fingerprints, template sampling and locale caps stop the same page being audited many times. Every skipped page is listed in the report with its reason and category.
  • Analytics Tracker Blocking: Blocks analytics and ad-tracking requests so pages settle faster, with no effect on rendered content or audit accuracy. Learn more
  • Intelligent Trap Avoidance: Detects crawler traps such as endless calendars, repeating paths, excessive query parameters and soft 404 pages, and keeps the crawl on real content. Learn more
  • Adaptive Crawl Delay: With Adaptive Networking on, increases the delay between requests when errors or blocking are detected, then restores speed gradually once requests succeed again. Learn more
  • Streaming Report Architecture: Results are written to disk as each page completes, so the report is ready when the last page finishes and large websites scan reliably. When memory runs low, safeguards reduce detail rather than letting the scan fail. Learn more
  • Parallel Processing Engine: Speeds up large audits by scanning several pages at once in separate browser tabs. Learn more
  • Periodic Browser Restarts: When on, restarts the browser at set intervals during large crawls, every 25 pages by default, to release memory and keep long scans stable. Learn more
  • Self-Healing Watchdog: Detects a crashed or disconnected browser, relaunches it and continues the scan without losing progress. Learn more
  • Pause, Resume and Finish Early: Pause a scan, or end it early and still get a report. If the connection drops, the scan pauses and resumes on its own. Learn more
  • Progress at a Glance: The Dock or taskbar icon shows scan progress, and the Idle Screen shows progress and time remaining on a full-screen display while you are away. Learn more
  • Shut Down After Scan: Shuts the computer down when a long scan finishes, after a 60-second countdown you can cancel. Learn more
  • Verified Optional Updates: Octopus Scanner maintains itself every month with dependency, Node.js runtime and axe-core updates that pass its safety checks. Dependency and Node.js updates wait 14 days by default, and dependencies are checked for known malware. axe-core engine updates are offered as soon as they are released. Every update is verified before it is installed, and you can revert at any time. Learn more
  • Signed App Updates: New versions download inside the app, and the release information is checked against the developer's signature and the file's SHA-256 checksum before anything opens. Learn more
  • Licence Review: Lists every component and its licence before an update is downloaded, and asks you to accept them first. Learn more
  • Privacy-First Architecture: Scanning, analysis and reporting all happen on your computer, with no telemetry. The only exception is the optional Local LLM Review, which sends page details to an LLM server you run yourself. The only requests the app makes on its own are update and component safety checks, which Offline Mode turns off, and reports make no outbound requests when opened. Learn more

5. Reporting and decision support

  • Interactive Review System: Approve or remove Needs Review findings and move violations to another severity directly in the report. When the report is opened from Past Reports, you can also hide violations. Issue counts, severity totals and charts update to match your decisions. Learn more
  • Report Overview and Search: At a Glance, Top Issues & Pages and Issue Overview show where to start, and search filters the findings. Learn more
  • Passed Checks: Lists every rule that passed, as evidence of what was tested. Learn more
  • Consolidated Reporting Dashboard: Self-contained HTML reports combine findings, evidence screenshots, remediation guidance and code snippets. Every WCAG-mapped issue links to its W3C Understanding document. Learn more
  • Dual-Format Delivery: Every HTML report comes with a companion CSV that contains every instance, untruncated. Screenshots are embedded in the report, or saved to a folder beside it on very large scans, and can be downloaded as a ZIP. Learn more
  • Flexible Report Formats: Choose an interactive HTML report, or a CSV or JSON file for spreadsheets and data work. Learn more
  • Audit Trail: Export a list of every page found, scanned or skipped, and the exact scan settings so the audit can be repeated. Learn more
  • Editable, Shareable Reports: Edit the report's text, then save a self-contained copy with the editing controls removed. Learn more
  • Integrity-Hashed Reports: Each HTML report carries a SHA-256 hash of the file as generated, and captured page content can't run when the report is opened. Learn more
  • Developer Evidence: Copy the failing markup or CSS selector, see the parent element's markup and zoom into screenshots. Learn more
  • Visual Defect Stamping: Optionally stamps the rule, HTML snippet and remediation guidance onto each screenshot, so developers see the context with the image. Learn more
  • Professional Ticket Generation: Open any finding as a structured ticket with a description, who it affects, the WCAG criterion, a suggested severity, steps to recreate and the scan environment. Copy it into any issue tracker, with a download of every instance of the issue. Learn more
  • PDF Accessibility Auditing: An experimental check of linked PDF documents against core accessibility requirements, from tags, text and language to image alternative text, headings, table headers, form fields, links and bookmarks. Each problem found is reported with its WCAG criterion and how to fix it, and can be opened as a ticket. Learn more
  • Local LLM Review: An optional second opinion on axe-core findings, plus suggested issues with screenshots and full tickets for you to approve or remove, from a model you run on your own computer or local network. Off by default, and cloud AI providers aren't accepted. Learn more

And plenty more beneath the surface.

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