As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates Borlabs Cookie 3/5 and Real Cookie Banner 3/5 in Consent Management (CMP). Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick Borlabs Cookie and 2 pick Real Cookie Banner, 2 call it a tie. Borlabs Cookie scores higher on 4 of 7 criteria (Scanning & cookie classification, Pricing transparency, Prior blocking & script control, plus 1 more). Real Cookie Banner scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (Consent records & proof, Banner & choice architecture and European sovereignty). Provenance — Borlabs Cookie: EU-Made; Real Cookie Banner: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
Borlabs Cookie and Real Cookie Banner split this panel rather than settle it. The weighted totals split by persona: two benches lean Real Cookie Banner (data protection officer, 6.6 vs 5.9; in-house lawyer, 6.4 vs 5.6), two lean Borlabs Cookie (publisher-marketing lead, 6.8 vs 6.1; skeptic, 6.3 vs 6.2), and two tie (agency developer, 6.3 each; WordPress webmaster, 6.2 each). Borlabs Cookie leads pricing transparency (8.0 vs 7.3; 4 leans to 1), prior blocking (7.3 vs 6.7; 4 leans, 0 against) and scanning and classification (4.8 vs 4.0; 3 leans, 3 ties). Real Cookie Banner leads consent records (6.7 vs 4.2; 6 leans to 0) — its verdict records consent records in the customer's database, and we found no public information on Borlabs Cookie's log retention or export — and banner and choice (6.7 vs 6.2; 4 leans to 1). Sovereignty splits 3 leans apiece (6.8 vs 7.0); standards and platforms is close (6.2 vs 6.0; 5 ties, 1 lean Borlabs Cookie).
Choose Borlabs Cookie if
You need scripts, styles and content blocked before consent — prior blocking leans Borlabs Cookie 4 judges to 0, with 2 ties.
You run up to 99 websites and want published pricing — pricing transparency leans Borlabs Cookie 4 to 1, with tiers from €49 to 499 € per year for 99 websites.
You rely on scanning plus an audit check for content that loads without consent — scanning and classification leans Borlabs Cookie 3 to 0, with 3 ties.
Your team is publisher-side marketing — that bench's weighted total is 6.8 for Borlabs Cookie against 6.1.
Choose Real Cookie Banner if
You must keep consent records in your own database for audit — consent records leans Real Cookie Banner 6 judges to 0, and its verdict records consent records in the customer's database.
You weight the banner and choice criterion — it leans Real Cookie Banner 4 to 1 (mean 6.7 vs 6.2).
You are a data protection officer or in-house lawyer — those benches total 6.6 vs 5.9 and 6.4 vs 5.6 for Real Cookie Banner.
Your vendor review weighs subprocessor exposure — the recorded subprocessor exposure for Real Cookie Banner is none, against US cloud act for Borlabs Cookie.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The In-House Lawyer
In-house counsel at a retailer with shops in Germany, France and Austria, who has read the court decisions on missing reject buttons and the regulators' banner guidance. Wants § 25 TDDDG and the GDPR mapped to concrete settings, equal-weight choices as the default, consent that can be withdrawn as easily as it was given, and records that would hold up if a competitor or a consumer group sued.
Borlabs Cookie
Real Cookie Banner
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Banner & choice architecture
Borlabs Cookie
Consent is granular to the individual service and to service groups, with over 150 design options, bar and box layouts, eight professionally translated languages plus automatic translation, a stated WCAG 2.1 level AA banner with a colour assistant that enforces it, freely placeable settings icons so visitors can revisit their choice, and per-service consent statistics. We found no public information on whether reject sits on the first layer with the same weight as accept — the point the German courts have punished — nor on per-country or per-regulation rules beyond an EU versus non-EU split, nor on A/B testing limits.
Real Cookie Banner
The captured pages document consent by purpose and by TCF vendor (stacks, purposes, special purposes, features, vendors, legal basis), per-country handling through a MaxMind geo database processed locally on the server, WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility with keyboard and screen-reader support and an accessibility score, 19 languages, 20+ design templates with 200+ options, and aggregated consent statistics. However, we found no public information stating that reject carries the same weight as accept on the first layer, nor on a persistent route for visitors to change or withdraw their choice as easily as it was given — the two points a supervisory authority would raise first.
Prior blocking & script control
Borlabs Cookie
Script and style blockers hold back specific JavaScript and CSS until consent, more than 370 vendor-maintained packages cover named services including YouTube and Google Maps, a Google Tag Manager template ships in the official gallery with a dedicated opt-in event per service and local hosting of the GTM container, and an audit check plus debug console let the site owner verify nothing loads before consent. We found no public information on server-side tagging or continuous monitoring that alerts when a new tracker bypasses the banner.
Real Cookie Banner
Service and content-blocker templates (160+ and 130+) are described as preventing personal-data processing before consent, embeds load only after the consent check with lazy loading, external fonts are blocked granularly, and knowledge-base pages for Google Tag Manager and Matomo Tag Manager, a JavaScript API and a developer API are documented, with guidance to test that cookies really are set only after consent. We found no public information on server-side tagging, on consent being passed to forms and CAPTCHAs, or on distinct automatic and manual blocking modes with their limits explained.
Scanning & cookie classification
Borlabs Cookie
An automatic scanner analyses the site for cookies, external resources and consent-requiring functions, proposes matching library packages, can be pointed at custom URLs, reaches HTTP-protected areas, and the vendor states plainly that it samples a subset of pages rather than every page. We found no public information on scheduled rescans, a cookie declaration generated and kept current from the scan results, or alerts when new or changed trackers appear — so the list staying true over time rests on the site owner.
Real Cookie Banner
The vendor describes a sitemap-based service scanner with several detection methods (iframes, script and link tags, inline fonts, installed WordPress plugins, HTTP headers for services such as Cloudflare) backed by manually researched templates, and a cookie declaration that generates itself from the banner. The vendor's own pages state that no cookie scanner is offered, that specific cookies are not scanned, that services embedded after page load are not found, and that manual checking is always recommended; we found no public information on scheduled rescans or alerts on new or changed trackers.
Consent records & proof
Borlabs Cookie
Consents are documented including their changes over time, stored entirely on the customer's own server, aggregated across multisite installations and shared across domains, with re-consent triggered when services change and configurable consent expiry that brings the dialog back. We found no public information on a stated retention period, export of the consent log, a consent ID the visitor could look up, or the banner version being recorded with each consent — the pieces I would need to reconstruct the exact choice shown if a consumer group sued.
Real Cookie Banner
Each consent is documented on the customer's own server with a pseudonymous UUID, the services and service groups consented to by ID, and a revision hash identifying the exact banner settings (texts, colours, functions, services, content blockers) used at the moment of consent; changes to those settings trigger renewed consent, retention follows statutory periods with automatic deletion, and settings and consents can be exported at any time. We found no public information on a consent ID the visitor can look up, on withdrawal being recorded as its own event, or on a tamper-evident log.
Frameworks, signals & platforms
Borlabs Cookie
Certified IAB TCF v2.4 with Global Vendor List handling and automatic TC-string attachment, Google Consent Mode v2 in both basic and advanced mode with basic mode enabled on install, and Microsoft UET consent mode in every plan, plus a documented JavaScript API, WP-CLI configuration, cross-domain consent and agency licences covering up to 99 websites. We found no public information on a registered CMP ID number, on GPP or GPC signals, on app SDKs, or on any platform beyond WordPress, which is a narrow footprint for anyone running native apps alongside the shops.
Real Cookie Banner
TCF 2.2 is documented in depth (weekly Global Vendor List updates, a vendor tab with autofill, service-specific scope, non-conform options hidden when TCF is active) alongside Google Consent Mode v2 with per-country region signals, additional consent types and privacy-friendly defaults; a REST API, WordPress actions and filters, a JavaScript API, multisite operation, consent forwarding and an agency licence for 25 websites are described. The captured pages give different figures on Google's CMP certification (certified for AdSense on the product page; not part of the Partner Program on two help pages), and we found no public information on a registered IAB CMP ID, Microsoft UET consent mode, GPP or GPC, or app SDKs — the product runs on WordPress only.
European sovereignty
Borlabs Cookie
Borlabs GmbH is registered at the Hamburg court with a full address and VAT ID, the plugin runs on the customer's own server and the vendor states no visitor data reaches them, and the privacy policy names Paddle (United Kingdom), HelpSpace (Germany), Google Ireland and FirstPromoter (Romania) with a current processor list available on request and a data processing agreement reachable through the customer portal. We found no public information on where the licence, library and scanner services are hosted, on ownership or any parent company, or on security certifications, and orders are processed by a UK merchant of record.
Real Cookie Banner
The banner and all consent records run on the customer's own webspace and in the customer's WordPress database, with the vendor stating it has no access to settings or documented consents outside support tickets; the contracting entity is a German GmbH registered at Amtsgericht Deggendorf with a German address and VAT ID, and geolocation uses a locally stored MaxMind database so the IP address is not sent to a third party. The vendor's stated position is that it is not a processor within Art. 28 GDPR during operation and therefore offers no data processing agreement for it — one is requested only for support access — while licence activation and updates run through the vendor's own servers with telemetry that can be deactivated, and we found no public information on ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certifications or on the infrastructure behind those servers.
Pricing transparency
Borlabs Cookie
Tiers are public from €49 per year with unlimited page views and subpages, all functions including TCF 2.4, Consent Mode v2 and Microsoft UET in every plan, prices stated in euros excluding VAT, a 30-day money-back guarantee, cancellation at any time, and agency bundles for 25 and 99 websites at 229 € and 499 € per year. Site counts between the published tiers and beyond 99 websites, any setup fee, and data-return terms on exit are not priced or described publicly, so the annual cost is computable only at the published bundle sizes.
Real Cookie Banner
Five tiers are public with a clear per-website scaling rule — 59 € (1 website), 89 € (3), 129 € (5), 229 € (10) and 299 € (25) gross per year, each with all features, updates and premium support, staging environments included at the same count, VAT included, cancellation at any time without notice period, plus a free version and a free sandbox. Enterprise above 25 websites and the expert setup service are available on request, so the setup cost cannot be computed from the public pages.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Borlabs Cookie
Real Cookie Banner
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
Legal · Disclaimer
Borlabs GmbH provides no legal advice or representation1
Questions about Borlabs Cookie and Real Cookie Banner
Which is better, Borlabs Cookie or Real Cookie Banner?
As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 3/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick Borlabs Cookie and 2 pick Real Cookie Banner, 2 call it a tie. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is Borlabs Cookie or Real Cookie Banner European?
Borlabs Cookie is European (EU-Made). Real Cookie Banner is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do Borlabs Cookie and Real Cookie Banner have a free plan?
As of 30 Oct 2026, Real Cookie Banner’s own pages state a free plan; Borlabs Cookie’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.