When building your website, you’ll want to think about how you store your visitors’ browsing data. Because data is such a sensitive matter, some rules go along with it. A cookie plugin on your WordPress website can help you meet and manage the requirements effortlessly. In this post, we’ll share the seven top cookie plugins so you can easily find the plugin that matches your needs!
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Cookie plugins help website owners comply with cookie laws and regulations. When a cookie plugin is enabled, it will notify visitors about using cookies on a website. This usually happens in the form of a banner or corner popup. This banner or popup will allow your visitor to accept or reject cookies. Cookie plugins can also track user behavior, personalize content, and perform other actions.
Here are some benefits of using a cookie plugin on your website:
- Legal Compliance: Cookie plugins can ensure websites comply with these regulations (Ex: GDPR.)
- Improved User Experience: Cookies can provide personalized content and recommendations based on browsing history.
- Analytics and Insights: Cookie plugins can provide website owners with insight into user behavior. This can include the pages users visit, the time they spend on the site, and their actions.
- Customization: Many cookie plugins for WordPress offer customization options, allowing website owners to tailor the plugin’s functionality to their specific needs.
Ensuring your website uses cookies properly is super important, especially considering the rules and regulations behind them. So, let’s look at the top cookie plugins available.
🥇 Most Effective Cookie Plugin Overall
CookieYes is a WordPress plugin with over a million active users and a 5-star rating. Its primary purpose is to enable website owners to comply with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations. In addition, the plugin provides a range of customizable cookie consent banner templates, automatic cookie scanning, and support for popular cookie consent solutions.
Additionally, CookieYes provides website owners with a comprehensive cookie consent solution, a range of customizable consent banner templates, and support for multiple languages. In addition, you can customize the font, color, and position of the banner on your page.
The plugin also automatically scans and categorizes cookies, making managing and controlling them easy. Additionally, website owners can set granular cookie settings and permissions to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations.
What We Like
- Customization: CookieYes, although limited on the free plan, offers a wide range of customization features for the cookie consent banner, allowing you to tailor it to your brand and seamlessly integrate it with your website design.
- Simple Implementation: CookieYes ensures a straightforward and user-friendly implementation process. It makes it effortless for website owners to comply with cookie consent regulations without hassle.
- Automated Cookie Scanning: With CookieYes, you can automate the scanning and detection of cookies on your website. This makes identifying and categorizing cookies easier for compliance, saving time and effort.
What Could Be Improved
- Costly: CookieYes’ premium plans may be priced at the higher end, which could discourage businesses with limited budgets from considering this service.
- Lack Of Integrated Consent Recording: CookieYes requires you to use a third-party consent recording solution to comply with GDPR and CCPA regulations.
🥇Why We Picked It
CookieYes is our top pick because it’s user-friendly, reliable, and helps you comply with cookie consent regulations. With customizable consent banners, automatic cookie scanning, and easy integration with popular plugins, it’s an excellent choice for managing cookies on your WordPress website.
Who Should Use It
Businesses and medium-to-large website owners who must comply with global cookie laws and regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and ePrivacy Directive should choose CookieYes. It manages cookie consent and preferences actively while offering extensive customization and localization.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Members on websites like G2, Capterra, and the WordPress plugin repository have given CookieYes raving reviews. Many users have specifically praised its user-friendly dashboard and easy implementation.
Pricing
There’s a free version of CookieYes available to suffice for a small to medium-sized business. If you need more, upgrading starts at $100/Year.
2. Complianz
🥈 Cookie Plugin For Global Websites
Complianz is a WordPress plugin for cookie consent developed by the same company behind the popular Really Simple SSL plugin (which helps migrate WordPress sites from HTTP to HTTPS.)
This plugin supports GDPR, CCPA, and other cookie consent regulations. Moreover, it allows visitors to apply different consent behaviors based on location, ensuring compliance and optimal user experience for each location.
My favorite feature of this plugin is its comprehensive and easy-to-use setup wizard, which guides users through ensuring privacy compliance, making it an excellent choice for those new to privacy compliance. Please read our full overview of Complianz here.
What We Like
- Automatic Cookie Scanning: Complianz automatically scans your website for cookies, so you don’t have to sift it through manually. Moreover, it also categorizes your cookies.
- Customizability: While not as advanced as other options, Complianz’s cookie banner templates can still be painted to match your website’s overall look.
- Supports An Array Of Regulations: CookieYes for a wide range of privacy regulations apart from just GDPR, ensuring your website remains privacy-friendly throughout the globe.
- Built-in Consent Management: Complianz offers a complete consent management solution to enable control and tracking of user permissions.
What Could Be Improved
- Lengthy Setup Process: Setting up Complianz may require more than just a quick coffee break, depending on how complex your website is. Its versatility and comprehensive coverage make the process quite involved.
- Potential Performance Impact: While Complianz strives for minimal impact, adding scripts and features can affect website loading times. It’s crucial to test and optimize configurations to minimize performance dips.
🥈Why We Picked It
We pick Complianz as our next pick as it offers a comprehensive solution for GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations, with automated cookie consent management, customizable templates, and geolocation-based functionality, ensuring legal compliance and user trust for your WordPress site.
Who Should Use It
Small to medium-sized website owners seeking to offer visitors a transparent and secure browsing experience and ensure compliance with privacy regulations will find Complianz to be an outstanding choice.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Complianz Privacy Suite is well-regarded on websites like G2 and the WordPress Plugin Repository for its ability to ensure WordPress websites comply with privacy policies in different regions.
Pricing
A free version is available, and the Pro version starts at $59/year.
🥉Ideal Cookie Plugin For Customization
GDPR Cookie Compliance is a widely used cookie plugin available for free with the option to upgrade to a premium version offering additional features (Like most other plugins on the list.) Although named after the GDPR, the plugin is compatible with other cookie regulations, including CCPA, PIPEDA, and LGPD.
The free version of the plugin focuses primarily on creating a cookie consent banner that can be triggered based on user actions, such as scrolling or clicking on a link. However, the premium version provides more advanced compliance management features, such as consent logs and cookie blocking until acceptance.
The key feature of this plugin is its customizable cookie consent banner, which can be styled to match your website’s design and branding. The banner can be triggered based on user actions, such as scrolling or clicking on a link, and can include options for accepting or rejecting cookies.
The plugin also allows blocking scripts and cookies until consent is obtained, which can help ensure compliance with cookie regulations. GDPR Cookie Compliance includes an automatic cookie scanner that detects cookies on your website and generates a cookie declaration, making it easy to provide transparent information about the cookies used on your site.
What We Like
- Cookie Blocking: With GDPR Cookie Compliance, all cookies are blocked until the visitor consents.
- Customization Options: GDPR Cookie Compliance offers extensive customization options, which allow you to design your cookie banner to blend seamlessly with your website.
- Automated Cookie Scanner: The plugin thoroughly scans your entire website to identify any cookies, eliminating the need for manual addition and reducing the risk of human errors.
What Could Be Improved
- Essential Consent Management: This plugin allows you to store user consent details to demonstrate given consent. However, it only offers basic functionality and is available in the premium version.
- Unclear Pricing Structure: Many users find the pricing structure of this plugin confusing, particularly when it comes to owning multiple licenses. Furthermore, the premium version still has limitations in several areas.
🥉Why We Picked It
We consider GDPR Cookie Compliance an amazing WordPress cookie plugin because it can help your website comply with GDPR while offering user-friendly features, customizable cookie banners, and tools to manage user consent. This plugin ensures legal compliance and protects user privacy, making it an excellent option for your website.
Who Should Use It
GDPR Cookie Compliance is the ideal choice for website owners seeking a straightforward and efficient method to adhere to cookie regulations. It is especially suitable for small businesses and bloggers who desire a lightweight solution that does not hinder the performance of their website.
Community Reviews And Ratings
WordPress users on the plugin repository highly praise this plugin, particularly its ease of setup and features.
Pricing
While the basic version is free, the premium version starts at $75/year.
Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA is a well-known WordPress cookie plugin with a nearly perfect 4.9-star rating from almost 2,900 reviews. The plugin has two main parts: Cookie Notice and Cookie Compliance.
First, a Cookie Notice is a straightforward banner that informs website visitors about the usage of cookies on your site and allows them to provide consent in various ways. On the other hand, Cookie Compliance is a full-featured Consent Management Platform (CMP) that adheres to guidelines from more than 100 countries and offers users detailed options for managing their privacy. For instance, users can permit some cookies but block others.
Still, Cookie Notice features are fully self-contained within the plugin, while the Cookie Compliance features require a connection to the developer’s web application. However, the plugin allows you to use only the Cookie Notice features if you prefer.
One of the standout features of Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA is its advanced consent management functionality. The plugin allows website owners to block cookies until users provide consent, and it also offers options for revoking consent and managing user preferences.
What We Like
- Ease of Use: Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA has a simple user interface, typically with checkboxes and radio buttons, making the entire process easy to follow.
- Advanced Consent Management: The Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA plugin records each consent and allows users to export these records. However, it is essential to note that the consent history is only accessible for a period of 30 days in its free version.
- Multi-regulation Compliant: The Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA complies not only with GDPR and CCPA but also with LGPD, PECR, and other regulations.
What Could Be Improved
- Expensive: The premium version of this plugin starts at $149.5/Year for a single site, which can be especially expensive if you’re a small business with multiple websites.
- Translucent Business Practices: While the plugin itself is free, you still require a subscription to use it, and what features exactly are free is somewhat unclear till you complete the whole setup.
Who Should Use It
Website owners who require a comprehensive cookie compliance solution accommodating multiple regulations will find Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA best. However, those seeking a cost-free alternative will find the plugin’s basic features suitable.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Users express their satisfaction with Cookie Compliance’s ease of use in the reviews we found on G2 and the WordPress plugin repository.
Pricing
The free version is available, but premium licenses start from $149.50/year.
Get Cookie Notice and Compliance For GDPR / CCPA
5. Iubenda
Iubenda is an all-in-one solution that streamlines compliance for your website by providing cookie consent banners and notices, as well as privacy and cookie policy pages. In addition, it allows you to create terms and conditions pages.
The main aim of this plugin is to simplify the process of ensuring your website complies with different regulations, including the GDPR, the ePrivacy directive, the LGPD, the CCPA, and more.
To begin, regarding cookie consent, Iubenda enables you to customize your cookie banner fully. For example, you can adjust its location, design and include your logo. Additionally, Iubenda empowers users to choose what data they want to share, providing you with more opportunities to obtain user consent.
The plugin also allows you to determine the duration of cookies and block third-party scripts for services such as Facebook and Google Analytics.
What We Like
- Ease of use: Iubenda offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface, making it accessible even to individuals without a legal background. The platform employs wizards and questionnaires to assist users in generating compliant documents.
- Comprehensive Solution: Iubenda provides a range of templates and features that cater to different compliance requirements. These include cookie consent banners, privacy policies, terms of service, and data breach notifications.
- Automatic Updates: Iubenda keeps your website compliant by automatically updating its documents whenever there are changes in data privacy regulations. This ensures you don’t have to worry about staying up-to-date with the latest requirements.
What Could Be Improved
- Lack of extensive customization: Although Iubenda offers some customization options, the templates provided in this service are not as versatile as those listed above.
- Cost: Iubenda’s pricing can be a considerable cost for small businesses – especially those with websites that do not have much traffic.
Who Should Use It
Website owners seeking an all-in-one compliance solution, including cookie consent, privacy policy, and terms and conditions, will find Iubenda the best option.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Iubenda makes following GDPR and other rules much easier, as users on G2 and Capterra say. They also mention that if you need help, the support team quickly responds.
Pricing
A bare-bones free version is available, and the pro version starts at $72/year
6. WP AutoTerms
As a free plugin for WordPress, WP AutoTerms offers a straightforward method to generate essential legal pages, including privacy policies, terms of service, and cookie consent pages. Boasting over 100,000 active installations and a solid 5-star rating on WordPress.org, this plugin has gained popularity among website owners.
Moreover, WP AutoTerms is regularly updated, ensuring website owners can stay up-to-date with the latest legal requirements. The plugin offers a range of templates and layouts, and customization options to tailor the legal pages to your website’s specific needs. Additionally, WP AutoTerms supports multiple languages, making it an excellent choice for website owners with a global audience.
First and foremost, WP AutoTerms allows users to generate legal policies specific to their website needs. In addition, the plugin keeps up-to-date with legal changes and updates policies accordingly, ensuring that websites remain compliant with relevant laws and regulations.
What We Like
- Auto-generation: WP AutoTerms auto-generates all legal documents, such as privacy policy, terms and conditions, and more automatically for your WordPress website.
- Pricing: WP AutoTerms starts at only $39, a one-time cost, making it a cost-effective solution.
What Could Be Improved
- Not A Complete Solution: WP Autoterms solely functions as a document generator for your website. It does not display cookie banners or handle visitor consent.
Who Should Use It
WP AutoTerms suits website owners who need legally compliant policies but wish to bypass the complexities of legal language and regulation. It also serves well those who seek to automate the creation of privacy policies and other legal documents for their websites.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Many WordPress users describe WP AutoTerms as a great, simple, and useful plugin on its listing in the WordPress Plugin Repository.
Pricing
You can access the basic version for free and purchase the premium version with a one-time payment of $39.
7. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a popular WordPress plugin that provides comprehensive tracking and analytics capabilities for website owners. Besides that, it also offers an addon focused on EU compliance. Enabling this addon will help you make your Google Analytics compliant with GDPR.
The addon will, for instance, allow you to anonymize IP addresses and limit demographic collection. It’s important to mention that to use this addon, you must connect it to a Cookie plugin. Amongst other cookie plugins, MonsterInsight integrates with the following plugins that are mentioned in this post:
Key Features for the EU Compliance Addon MonsterInsights:
- Quick and easy setup.
- Fully compliant with EU regulations and guidelines for cookies.
- Integrates with popular cookie consent plugins.
- Easy option to integrate Google Analytics in a GDPR-compliant way.
MonsterInsights Google Analytics plugin that gives website owners easy access to their traffic stats. You can view all the data you need in your WordPress dashboard without worrying about EU regulations.
What We Like
- Simplified Setup: The addon automates various settings changes in Google Analytics required for compliance, making it easier for non-technical users.
- Data Management: MonsterInsights allows you to manage the data you gather and decide which specific data is transmitted to Google Analytics. Doing so enables you to effectively adhere to data protection regulations and safeguard your users’ privacy.
What Could Be Improved
- Not A Cookie Plugin: MonsterInsight’s EU Compliance scope only lies with Google Analytics. It doesn’t manage cookies for you but merely integrates with other Cookie plugins to make analytics privacy-compliant.
Who Should Use It
Website owners who want to use Google Analytics in a GDPR-compliant manner and access Google Analytics stats in their WordPress dashboard will find MonsterInsights ideal. To integrate this plugin into your website, you must also install an additional Cookie plugin, like CookieYes.
Community Reviews And Ratings
Most reviews often overlook the aspect of privacy, although reviewers generally agree that MonsterInsights, despite not being specifically designed as a cookie plugin, is user-friendly, powerful, and convenient.
Pricing
The basic version is free, and the plus version starts at $99.50 per year, including the EU Compliance addon.
Adding a cookie plugin to your WordPress website is essential for complying with privacy regulations and providing a transparent user experience. After evaluating the plugins available, let’s take a deeper look at the plugins on our list before we give our final remarks.
Feature Comparison
Our top three cookie plugins have some great things going for them! See how they stack up when compared to each other:
| Features | 🥇 CookieYes | 🥈 Complianz | 🥉 GDPR Cookie Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consent Management | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Automatic Cookie Scanning | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Self-Hosted | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Multiple Languages Supported | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Free Option | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Price for All Features | $100/Year | $59.00/Year | $75/Year |
| Get CookieYes | Get Complianz | Try GDPR CC |
Price Comparison
Before we round up our best cookie plugins list, let’s see how each plugin stacks up regarding price:
| Plugin | Price | Free Option | User Reviews (avg) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | CookieYes | $100/Year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Visit |
| 🥈 | Complianz | $59.00/year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5) | Visit |
| 🥉 | GDPR Cookie Compliance | $75/year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5) | Visit |
| 4 | Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA | $149.50/year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5) | Visit |
| 5 | Iubenda | $72/year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5) | Visit |
| 6 | WP AutoTerms | $39 (one-time) | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.8/5) | Visit |
| 7 | MonsterInsights | $99.50/Year | ✔️ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.5/5) | Visit |
Our top cookie plugins are CookieYes and Complianz. These are our top choices, and we highly recommend them to handle your cookies and user privacy tasks on your WordPress website.
Regardless of which plugin you choose, it’s essential to prioritize transparency and user privacy when implementing cookies on your website. While CookieYes offers a comprehensive solution for cookie compliance with customizable cookie banners and consent management, MonsterInsights provides an addon focusing on GDPR compliance.
When choosing a cookie plugin, it’s crucial to prioritize transparency and user privacy above all else. Always ensure your website visitors know the cookies used and provide them with options to manage their preferences. As a final note, remember to regularly review your website’s cookie usage and update your cookie policy accordingly to comply with any changes in privacy regulations.
Are you looking for more great plugins? Check out this list of the best WordPress plugins from every category.
Featured Image via Aygun Ali / shutterstock.com
CookieYes
Complianz
GDPR Cookie Compliance
I wonder if there are any new players in this area worth mentioning since this list was created about a year ago?
I’ve been trough a lot of these cookie consent plugins and they all seem to have the similar fault of being a tad hard to set up correctly without paying for a subscription. Been moving all my clients from Cookieyes to Cookiehub lately as I find it easier to set up. Would love to get some ideas from you guys 🙂
I wonder this too. I’ve been trying to get CookieYes to integrate with our Google analytics for weeks now and it breaks our site every time.
For those who choose to use CookieYes, if you enter the code manually under Divi Options > Integration, it breaks the Divi Builder. However, if you install the CookieYes plugin, it will not break the Divi Builder.
Thanks for that useful note Lee. Given the post is from elegant themes I would have thought that they would have tested and provided comments on the compatibility of their flagship builder.
I use and recommend a free plugin called “Cookies and Content Security Policy” (by Jonk @ Follow me Darling). I had tried more cookie plugins, but I have found this one to be the easiest one to set up and use.
I’m so glad you recommended this, Andrej! I installed this one after struggling to get CookieYes to integrate with GTM for weeks, back and forth with customer service and everything. Every time we tried integrating CookieYes with GTM features in our Divi site would break. But this plugin works great and no issues!