NVDA Is the Only Screen Reader You Need to Test With

Imagine You're the Accessibility Lead

You're sitting in a kickoff meeting, and your boss just asked you to pick a screen reader for the QA team. The vendor for JAWS is on the phone, quoting a per-seat license that would eat a chunk of your budget. You glance at the spec—JAWS has been the industry standard for years. But here's the thing: you don't need it. You should be testing with NVDA, the free, open-source screen reader from NV Access. Not because it's cheaper—though it is—but because it's better at finding the problems your users actually hit. Let me walk you through why.

The Market Has Already Moved

Look at the numbers from WebAIM's 2024 Screen Reader User Survey. Among 1,539 respondents, NVDA is the most commonly used screen reader overall, at 65.6%—that's higher than JAWS at 60.5%. For primary desktop use, JAWS still leads slightly, 40.5% to 37.7%, but the gap is closing fast. And 71.6% of users switch between multiple screen readers. So if you test with JAWS alone, you're missing the experience of a huge chunk of your users. The real world is multi-reader, and NVDA is the one that's free and widely used.

Why Free Is a Feature, Not a Compromise

NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) was first developed in April 2006, and the non-profit NV Access was set up in early 2007 to support it. It's translated into more than 55 languages and used in over 175 countries (NV Access). That means when you test with NVDA, you're testing with the same tool that a teacher in rural Kenya or a developer in Tokyo might use. And because it's free, you can install it on every developer's machine, every CI runner, and every QA laptop—no license counting, no begging for budget. That's a huge practical advantage. You can't say that about JAWS, which is commercial.

What NVDA Catches That JAWS Misses

Here's the concrete scenario: imagine you're building a checkout form. You've got a text input for the credit card number, and you've added a label, but you've forgotten to associate it properly—maybe you used a placeholder instead of a real label. When you test with NVDA, you'll hear the screen reader announce the field with no name, just 'edit.' That's a clear failure. JAWS might also catch it, but here's the kicker: NVDA users are more likely to rely on keyboard navigation and less on mouse simulation, so they'll hit the Tab key and hear the broken label. In the WebAIM Million analysis, missing form input labels appear on 51% of home pages (WebAIM Million). That's a massive, common failure that NVDA will expose.

Another example: low contrast text. The same WebAIM Million study found that low contrast text is the most common failure, affecting 83.9% of home pages. NVDA doesn't check contrast—no screen reader does—but it does read the text, and if it's too low contrast, a user with low vision will struggle. But more importantly, the free availability of NVDA means you can test on every page, not just a few. You can automate it. With JAWS, you might only test the top three flows because of license costs. With NVDA, you can test everything.

Mobile Matters More Than You Think

Don't forget mobile. The same WebAIM survey found that 91.3% of respondents use a screen reader on a mobile device. On mobile, VoiceOver (Apple) is used by 70.6% and TalkBack by 34.7%. But for desktop, NVDA is your go-to. And here's a quick tip: if you're only testing on desktop, you're missing the majority of your users. But for the desktop part, NVDA is the one that's free and cross-platform in spirit.

What About JAWS Users?

You might worry that JAWS users have a different experience. They do—JAWS has a steeper learning curve, and some users prefer it for legacy reasons. But from a testing perspective, the accessibility of your site shouldn't depend on which screen reader you use. If you follow WCAG 2.2, you'll cover most of the bases. WCAG 2.2, published by W3C as a Recommendation on 5 October 2023, defines 86 success criteria across four principles (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative). NVDA, being a modern screen reader, supports these standards well. And the reality is, most accessibility failures are not screen-reader-specific—they're code-level mistakes like missing alt text, empty links, or no document language. Those six most common errors account for 96% of all detected issues on home pages (WebAIM Million). NVDA will surface them just as well as JAWS.

Legal and Practical Imperatives

There's also the legal angle. The U.S. Department of Justice has made it clear that the ADA applies to websites, and they even adopted WCAG 2.1 Level AA as a technical standard for state and local governments in a final rule published on April 24, 2024 (ADA.gov). The European Accessibility Act applies from June 28, 2025. With US federal lawsuits for web accessibility reaching 3,117 in 2025—a 27% increase from 2024—you cannot afford to ignore accessibility. Using NVDA is not just a cost-saver; it's a risk mitigator. Because it's free, you have no excuse not to test every page.

The Bottom Line

Stop paying for JAWS. Start testing with NVDA today. It's free, it's open-source, it's used by the majority of screen reader users, and it will catch the same critical failures as JAWS. The only thing you're giving up is the brand name. And your users don't care about brand names—they care about whether they can use your site. Make the switch. Your budget will thank you, and so will your users.

Sources

• WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey - https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey10/
• WebAIM Million - https://webaim.org/projects/million/
• NV Access - https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nv-access/
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WCAG) - https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
• ADA.gov - https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/
• European Accessibility Act (EUR-Lex) - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019L0882