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 WordPress Webmaster
Looks after the WordPress site of a mid-sized engineering company on top of the actual job, with Google Analytics, a YouTube channel, a Maps embed and a contact form with reCAPTCHA. Wants a plugin that finds these by itself, blocks them until the visitor agrees, survives the next plugin update and caching, and costs a known amount per site per year without a call to sales.
Borlabs Cookie
Real Cookie Banner
This judge calls it a tie.
Criterion by criterion
Banner & choice architecture
Borlabs Cookie
The features page documents consent by group and by individual service, over 150 design options with bar and box layouts in nine positions, WCAG 2.1 level AA accessibility, eight professionally translated languages plus automatic translation of my own services, and freely positionable icons so visitors can reopen and change their choices, with consent statistics broken down by service and group. What the captured pages do not show is whether reject sits on the first layer at equal weight, per-country banner rules beyond an EU versus non-EU switch, or A/B testing of the dialog.
Real Cookie Banner
Consent is stored per service and per service group — finer than category — and per vendor once TCF is switched on, with stacks, purposes, vendors and legal basis auto-integrated, known non-compliant options hidden and a contrast warning; the banner is documented as WCAG 2.2 Level AA with full keyboard control, screen-reader compatibility and an accessibility score in the customizer, geo-restriction decides per visitor country from a locally stored MaxMind database, and twenty-plus templates with two hundred-plus options shape design in nineteen languages. I found no public information on a reject option of equal prominence on the first layer, a persistent link for visitors to change their choice later, or consent-rate analytics beyond aggregated statistics.
Prior blocking & script control
Borlabs Cookie
This is what I care about most and it is documented in depth: content blockers hold YouTube and Google Maps until consent with over 370 vendor-maintained packages, a script and style blocker stops JavaScript and CSS before consent, an audit feature checks that the site sets no cookies or loads nothing external without a decision, and there is automatic cache clearing for third-party plugins plus a safe mode for botched updates. The Google Tag Manager documentation goes deep, with a gallery template, per-service opt-in events, local container hosting, and the limits of basic versus advanced consent mode spelled out. We found no public information on server-side tagging or Matomo Tag Manager.
Real Cookie Banner
Blocking is template-driven: over 130 content-blocker templates hold back data processing until consent, YouTube and Google Maps embeds can run banner-less as click-to-consent blockers with lazy loading, inline external fonts are blocked granularly, and my page-cache plugin is flushed automatically after banner changes. A dedicated knowledge-base page covers use with Google Tag Manager or Matomo Tag Manager and the help centre explains testing that cookies are really set only after consent; I found no public information on passing consent into contact-form CAPTCHAs such as reCAPTCHA or on server-side tagging.
Scanning & cookie classification
Borlabs Cookie
An automatic scanner analyses the site for cookies, external resources and consent-requiring functions and suggests matching packages, and the documentation is frank about scope: it scans a subset (homepage, an older and a newer page per post type, archive pages, legal notice and contact form), accepts custom URLs, and can reach HTTP-auth protected areas. Cookie details such as purpose, type and lifetime are managed per service with provider information kept centrally. We found no public information on scheduled rescans, alerts when new trackers appear, or a cookie declaration generated from the scan.
Real Cookie Banner
A service scanner crawls the sitemap and detects iframes, script and link tags, @font-face embeds, installed WordPress plugins and special services via HTTP headers, suggesting matches from over 160 manually researched templates, and a cookie declaration is generated from the banner configuration. But the vendor itself states it offers no cookie scanner and does not promise to find everything, lists what the scanner misses (cookies from unknown plugins, AJAX-loaded embeds) and recommends always checking manually; I found no public information on scheduled rescans or alerts on new or changed trackers.
Consent records & proof
Borlabs Cookie
Consents are documented in a log including changes over time, stored on my own server because the plugin transmits no visitor data to the vendor, and the dialog asks again when services change or when the configurable consent lifetime expires, with cross-domain and multisite history aggregated. We found no public information on retention periods for the log, exporting it, a consent ID visitors could look up, or records tied to the exact banner version shown.
Real Cookie Banner
Each consent is documented in my own WordPress database with a server-generated pseudonymous UUID, the chosen services and groups by ID, TCF and Consent Mode choices, and a revision hash tying every record to the exact banner settings (texts, colours, services) shown, so the origin can be reconstructed afterwards and a fresh consent is forced when anything changes; the list is viewable and exportable in the backend, forwarded consents are marked, and records are auto-deleted after the statutory retention period with manual deletion on request. I found no public information on a consent ID the visitor can look up, configurable consent expiry, or withdrawal recorded as its own event.
Frameworks, signals & platforms
Borlabs Cookie
As a WordPress plugin this is native to my stack, with certified IAB TCF 2.4 including Global Vendor List download and vendor management by ID and purpose, Google Consent Mode v2 in basic and advanced mode documented in depth, Microsoft UET consent mode listed as included, a JavaScript API, WP-CLI support, cross-domain consent and priced agency tiers. We found no public information on a registered IAB CMP ID number, GPP or Global Privacy Control, iOS or Android SDKs, a REST configuration API, or versions for other CMS platforms.
Real Cookie Banner
TCF is supported with a weekly auto-updated Global Vendor List and per-vendor consents, Google Consent Mode v2 transmits choices automatically including additional consent types to Google Tag Manager, and a REST API, a JavaScript API, multisite operation and cross-installation consent forwarding are documented, with agency licences covering up to 25 sites. The captured pages give different statements on Google's CMP partner certification and different figures for the supported TCF version, no registered CMP ID is shown, and I found no public information on Microsoft UET, GPP or Global Privacy Control signals — the product is a native WordPress plugin.
European sovereignty
Borlabs Cookie
Borlabs GmbH is registered in Hamburg with a commercial register number and VAT ID, the product is developed in the EU, and everything runs on my own server — the banner, consent logs and data stay there, with a data processing addendum accessible in the customer portal and one offered whenever support needs credentials. The order and customer-service process runs through Paddle as merchant of record, the privacy policy names Amazon SES and a current processor list is available on request. We found no public information on ownership, where the update and library infrastructure runs, or security certifications such as ISO 27001.
Real Cookie Banner
The contracting entity is devowl.io GmbH in Grafling, registered at Amtsgericht Deggendorf, and the whole product runs on my server: the banner is served from my webspace, consent logs sit in my WordPress database with no vendor access during operation, and geolocation uses a locally stored MaxMind database. The licence, update and Global Vendor List chain reaches devowl's own servers (license.devowl.io, assets.devowl.io) with telemetry I can stop by deactivating the licence, and export and deletion are documented — but I found no public information on where those servers are hosted, on subprocessors there, on the owner or parent, or on security certifications, and the vendor states it offers no data processing agreement for operation because it processes nothing while the plugin runs.
Pricing transparency
Borlabs Cookie
I can compute my annual cost from the pricing page alone: from €49, with 10 websites at 179 € per year, 25 at 229 € and 99 at 499 €, unlimited page views and subpages so there is no traffic arithmetic, and every function including TCF, Google Consent Mode and Microsoft UET in every plan; prices are stated excluding VAT, cancellation is anytime and a 30-day money-back guarantee applies to the first purchase. We found no public information on setup fees or data-return terms on cancellation.
Real Cookie Banner
Five tiers are public with every feature included — from 59 € Brutto pro Jahr for 1 Website up to the AGENCY tier at 299 € Brutto pro Jahr for 25 Websites — with VAT included, cancellation any time without notice, staging environments included at the same count, and a free version plus sandbox trial described, so the annual cost per site is exactly what I can compute myself. Only the optional expert setup service and the Enterprise terms above 25 websites are not priced publicly.
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.