Cookiequiet vs Silktide Consent Manager: free script or hosted service
Pick Silktide Consent Manager if you want a free, open-source banner on any number of sites and you are happy to list your cookie types and wire your scripts yourself: it costs €0 where Cookiequiet Starter costs €29 a year per site (€145 for five). Pick Cookiequiet if you want what Silktide's free banner does not include: a cookie scanner, a consent log you can show as proof, geo-targeting, policies written from the scan and 24 ready-made languages, all on its free plan for one site.| Cookiequiet | Silktide | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for one website | Free for 1 website; Starter €3 a month or €29 a year per website; Pro €9 a month or €99 a year per website | €0: free forever, no account |
| Five websites for a year | €145 a year on Starter (5 × €29), or €116 with one site on Free; Pro on all five: €190 a year on Agency (a bundle of 10 Pro websites) | €0, on any number of sites |
| Pageview limits | None on any plan | None |
| Reject all on the first screen | Yes, by default: Accept all and Reject all at the same size and weight on the first screen | Accept all and Reject non-essential buttons on the prompt, plus Preferences |
| Google Consent Mode v2 | Every plan, Free included, plus Microsoft UET | Yes: each consent type maps to Consent Mode parameters; a dataLayer event on every change |
| Geo-targeting | Every plan, Free included: regulated countries, a custom list, or a US opt-out notice | Not offered: the banner shows to every visitor |
| Consent log | 30 days on Free, 1 year on Starter, 5 years on Pro; CSV export on Starter and Pro | None: the choice is kept in the visitor's localStorage only |
| Cookie scanner | 10 pages per scan on Free, 50 on Starter and Pro; monthly on Free, weekly on Starter and Pro; about 80 providers | None in the free banner; you declare the cookie types yourself |
| Policy generators | Privacy policy, cookie policy and terms written from the scan, in English and French, on every plan | None |
| Languages | 24, picked from the visitor's browser, every string editable | One set of texts you write in the language you choose |
| Script blocking | Marked scripts and embeds on every plan, plus an auto-blocker for about 80 known trackers | Scripts listed in the config are injected after consent; onAccept and onReject callbacks |
| Setup | One script tag before your other scripts, on any site; no plugin to configure; the scan fills the cookie table and prefills the policies; Reject all on by default; Consent Mode v2 switched on in the snippet the dashboard gives you; about five minutes to a live banner | Configure colors, wording and consent types in the install wizard, host or link the JS and CSS, run init() (recommended in a Google Tag Manager Custom HTML tag), move tags into the config |
| Google-certified CMP / IAB TCF | No: not a Google-certified CMP, no IAB TCF | No: not on Google's certified CMP list, no TCF |
| Open source | Hosted: the script is served from cookiequiet.com; not open source | Yes, MIT License; self-host the two files or use a CDN |
Pricing
Silktide sells a web governance platform (accessibility, content, analytics and AI visibility) on quote only; its pricing page publishes no figures. Its cookie banner, the Silktide Consent Manager, is a separate free tool: no account, no traffic limit, no fee, on as many sites and subdomains as you like, with the code on GitHub under the MIT License. On 2026-10-21 the banner's page described it as free forever.
Cookiequiet is free for one website, then €3 per website per month or €29 a year on Starter, €9 per website per month or €99 a year on Pro, with the AI design agent, and €190 a year on Agency for a bundle of ten Pro websites and five team seats. On price alone Silktide wins: five sites cost €0 with Silktide and €145 a year on Cookiequiet Starter (or €116 with one site on Free). The comparison that matters is what each free option includes, because Silktide's banner is a front end only, and Cookiequiet's free plan is a hosted service with a scanner, a log and policies. The cost calculator shows paid tools side by side if you need more than one free site.
What the Silktide banner does
The banner shows a prompt with Accept all, Reject non-essential and Preferences, a preferences modal with one toggle per consent type, and a small icon to reopen it. You define the consent types yourself (for example essential, analytics, marketing); each can be required, can have a default value, can map to Google Consent Mode parameters, and can list scripts to inject or callbacks to run when the visitor accepts or rejects. A dataLayer event fires on every change for Google Tag Manager. The choice is stored in the visitor's localStorage and the banner sets no cookie of its own. It is accessible with keyboard navigation, focus traps and ARIA labels.
What it does not do, according to its README and documentation: there is no scanner, so you need to know which cookies and scripts your site loads; no server-side consent log, so you cannot export proof of consent; no geo-targeting, so every visitor in every country sees the banner; and one set of texts, in the language you write them in. Its page says it is built with the GDPR and ePrivacy in mind; the documentation describes no US opt-out notice.
What Cookiequiet adds
Cookiequiet's free plan covers one website with the same basics (Accept all and Reject all at equal size, a preferences centre, Consent Mode v2) and adds a scanner that reads 10 pages a month and names what it finds from about 80 providers, a consent log kept 30 days (1 year on Starter and 5 years on Pro, with CSV export), geo-targeting by country with a US opt-out notice and Global Privacy Control, a banner in 24 languages picked from the visitor's browser, and a privacy policy, cookie policy and terms written from the scan. If a regulator or a client asks you to show that consent was collected, a log is what you hand over; see proof of consent.
Setup
Silktide's setup starts in its install wizard, where you pick colors, layout, wording and consent types; it generates a config plus the JavaScript and CSS files. Its documentation recommends loading the script from the head and placing the init({...}) call in a Google Tag Manager Custom HTML tag. Your tracking tags then have to move into the config (as scripts to inject) or be triggered in Tag Manager by the consent event, which you set up yourself.
Cookiequiet takes one script tag placed before your other scripts, on any platform, with no plugin settings. The first scan fills the cookie table and prefills the policies, Reject all is on by default, Consent Mode v2 is switched on in the snippet the dashboard gives you, and a banner is live in about five minutes. Existing tags are marked with type="text/plain" data-cq-category="..." rather than moved, and an auto-blocker holds scripts injected by JavaScript from about 80 known trackers. The script is about 7 KB compressed, against 53 KB of JavaScript and 11 KB of CSS listed for Silktide's files.
Where Silktide is better
- Free on any number of sites, with no account; Silktide says it tracks nothing on your site.
- Open source under the MIT License: you can read, fork and self-host the code.
- Fine-grained control in code: custom consent types, callbacks, and a namespace for several banners on one domain.
Where Cookiequiet is better
- A scanner, a consent log, geo-targeting and generated policies, free for one website.
- 24 banner languages picked from the visitor's browser instead of one set of texts.
- No need to move tags into a config: mark them in place, and an auto-blocker covers about 80 known trackers.
- A smaller script, records kept 5 years on Pro, AI brand match on Starter and an AI design agent on Pro.
Neither is a Google-certified CMP; publishers serving Google ads in Europe need one for those ads.
Switching
Remove the Silktide script, stylesheet and init call (or the Tag Manager tag holding it). Put back the scripts you had moved into its config as normal tags, marked with type="text/plain" data-cq-category="...", and add the Cookiequiet tag before them. Visitors will be asked again, since Silktide's choices live in their browser's localStorage. For other free options, see tarteaucitron.js.