webhint

Visit Website

Introduction

webhint is a customisable linting tool that helps improve a site’s accessibility, speed, cross-browser compatibility and more by checking its code for best practices and common errors.

It runs from the CLI, as a browser extension and in the VS Code extension. Hints, its name for rules, cover areas such as axe-based accessibility checks, compatibility of HTML, CSS and JavaScript features with your target browsers, HTTP caching and compression, security headers and manifest validity. Configurations in .hintrc select hints and target browsers.

In the quality loop webhint is a site-level lint step, complementing Lighthouse audits. Development has slowed in recent years, so check that hints you rely on are current.

The source code is at webhintio/hint on GitHub under the Apache-2.0 licence, with about 3,700 stars; the most recent commit was on 21 July 2026.

Features

1. Accessibility hints: axe-core-based checks.
2. Compatibility hints: Browser support for features.
3. Performance hints: Caching, compression and more.
4. Security hints: Headers and HTTPS.
5. Multiple surfaces: CLI, browser extension and VS Code.
6. Configurable: .hintrc presets.

Pros

1. Cross-browser checks: Uncommon in other linters.
2. Free to use: Open source under the Apache-2.0 licence, so the core tool costs nothing to use.
3. Actively maintained: The repository had commits as recent as 21 July 2026.
4. Community: About 3,700 GitHub stars.

Cons

1. Slower development: Release activity is low.
2. Overlap: Lighthouse covers many checks.
3. Node required: Needs Node.js.

Usage and Links (Example)

npx hint https://example.com

Resources:

• webhint website
• GitHub repository

Pricing

webhint is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 licence.

Recommended for?

1. Front-end teams checking compatibility and best practices.
2. VS Code users wanting inline web hints.

Conclusion

webhint offers a useful mix of compatibility, accessibility and performance checks.

Treat it as a complement to Lighthouse rather than a replacement.

On CheckOps, webhint is filed under the Accessibility and Release & CI gates stages. Related tools listed here include Lighthouse, axe-core, Pa11y, SiteSpeed.io, Unlighthouse and ESLint. A short trial on a real project, with your own code, data and pipeline, is usually the fastest way to choose between them, because fit matters more than feature lists. Facts here come from the official site, documentation and repository, checked on 11 November 2026.