The European Accessibility Act (EAA) establishes accessibility requirements for a wide range of digital products and services across the EU. After reviewing the act, we identified WCAG 2.1 AA as the technical standard that addresses its requirements and have been using it as our benchmark for improvements to the Plesk platform. The EAA aims to ensure that digital products are understandable and operable for people of all abilities, solidifying accessibility as a baseline requirement for inclusive digital experiences. Although Plesk does not currently fall within the legal scope of the EAA, we have been proactively evolving our platform to improve web accessibility across our interface.
In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we wanted to share our progress. Our focus is not only on meeting regulatory expectations, but also on making Plesk a more inclusive platform and enabling our customers to build websites that meet their own accessibility requirements.
Why We Started Focusing on Accessibility
The EAA prompted a lot of companies to audit their platforms under deadline pressure. Plesk made a deliberate decision to invest in this area because:
- Our users include people who rely on assistive technology: Among the hosting providers, developers, and agencies using Plesk are people who navigate with screen readers or keyboard-only setups. An inaccessible control panel is a real barrier for those users, and that’s worth fixing – independently of any regulatory requirement.
- Accessibility needs will increase over time: As populations age, vision, hearing, and motor abilities change. Software that doesn’t account for this will become less usable for more people over time.
- Our customers’ websites may already be subject to EAA: Businesses in eCommerce, healthcare, and the public sector are already subject to the accessibility requirements, and the platform needs to support them.
This is also why accessibility improvements extend beyond Plesk itself. Tools like Sitejet have been enhanced to support the creation of more accessible websites. More details are available in the Sitejet Accessibility Statement.
What We’ve Done: Our Progress Across the Platform
Plesk is working toward full alignment with WCAG 2.1 AA principles. This means that accessibility is being steadily incorporated into both new development and existing platform improvements.
A key challenge in this process is that improving legacy interfaces is significantly more complicated than designing new ones with accessibility in mind. However, we have already addressed the most frequently used areas of the control panel and key extensions.
Semantic HTML and ARIA standards
The Plesk interface increasingly adheres to semantic HTML structure and ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes. They allow screen reader software to interpret and narrate the interface correctly. For users who rely on assistive technologies to navigate a hosting control panel, this work matters directly.
Keyboard navigation
Full keyboard operability is a core WCAG requirement, and we’ve addressed it: keyboard navigation is supported across the Plesk interface, with visible focus indicators present in several key areas, so users who don’t or can’t use a mouse can follow where they are on the screen and predictably move through the interface.
Scalable text and layout
Plesk partially supports scalable text and layout, maintaining usability and readability at zoom levels of up to 200%. For users who need to increase text size to read comfortably, this means the interface doesn’t break or become unusable.
Clear, understandable content
All content across the interface is written with clarity and comprehension in mind, using plain language, consistent labeling, and predictable structure.
Multilingual support
The Plesk interface is available in a wide range of languages, removing language as a barrier and supporting a broader and more inclusive user base.
Improvements across releases
These changes have been rolled out progressively across multiple Plesk releases since 2025, including updates to our most-used pages and extensions. You can review the full technical details of each release in the Plesk Obsidian changelog.
The Plesk Accessibility Statement is consistently maintained for public transparency.
What We’ve Delivered, and What We’re Working on Next
Over the past year, we completed a large-scale accessibility update of the Plesk interface, addressing the most impactful accessibility gaps. These improvements were delivered in Plesk Obsidian 18.0.77.
We updated around 200 of the most frequently used pages across the interface and most popular Plesk extensions, and implemented:
- Improved compatibility with screen readers, including VoiceOver.
- Improved keyboard navigation across interactive elements.
- Clear and consistent focus indicators.
- Support for interface scaling up to 200%.
Having completed this work, our current priorities include:
- Color contrast: Planned to deliver in 18.0.79, we’ll be addressing color contrast issues across the Plesk interface – one of the most important issues for users with low vision or color blindness.
- Broader accessibility coverage: We’ll continue to extend our accessibility work to more areas of the interface throughout the year.
Accessibility is now part of how we build Plesk going forward, not something added after the fact.
Becoming Inclusive by Design: Our Ongoing Commitment
Accessibility compliance is a practical concern for hosting providers with EU-based customers, for agencies building client websites, and for any organization whose end users depend on assistive technologies. At Plesk, our approach is intentional rather than reactive. We’re investing in accessibility not because it is currently required, but because a platform that only works well for some of its users isn’t good enough.
We’ll continue sharing updates as our work progresses. For full details of current capabilities and known gaps, view the Plesk Accessibility Statement.
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