5 Best WordPress Cookie Consent Plugins

Last updated - October 30, 2023

Cookies are the most convenient approach to gathering user information. But today, every website is required, under privacy laws, to obtain user consent before transmitting any cookies.

The laws also demand that you have a clear cookie policy. This means that you must employ a cookie consent notice bar to inform visitors of your use of cookies. But how do you do that? A WordPress cookie consent plugin can be useful in this situation. It assists you in ensuring that your website complies with different cookie regulations.

We have put together a list of WordPress cookie consent plugins using which you can easily create a cookie notice for your WordPress website. But first, let’s understand the concept and the need for these plugins in detail.

Table of Contents

Why Would I Need to Request Visitors’ Consent Before Using Cookies?

Every time a server connects to your site, it creates and stores a cookie, a kind of text file. A cookie stores information such as your username, passwords, geolocation, browser type, and device type, among other things, to identify your computer on the network.

In recent years, privacy rules have been strengthened, and they now cover the collection, storage, and use of electronic data. In the past, servers would collect personal data and your online behaviors without your knowledge.

Global governments, and the European Union (EU) in particular, are attempting to give individuals more choice over the information gathered regarding them and how it is handled and used.

In May 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. Users in the EU must explicitly consent to the use of cookies that collect personal data on websites that they visit, as well as to the use of cookies that are used for tracking.

Legislation governing cookie consent is not exclusive to the EU. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States of America contains comparable strict regulations that must be followed by all websites. If users’ explicit consent isn’t obtained before using cookies, it may be illegal in the places that mandate it. Therefore, we suggest obtaining users’ consent regardless of their location.

Top WordPress Cookie Consent Plugins

1. CookieYes

CookieYes is one of the most popular WordPress cookie consent plugins with more than 1.4 million active installations. Along with GDPR in the EU and UK, the plugin supports compliance with multiple privacy laws such as LGPD (Brazil), POPIA(South Africa)and CCPA/CPRA (California).

Features:

Fully customisable cookie banner — including the text, colour, font and layout of the banner.
Detailed cookie list in the second layer of the banner.
Auto-translating cookie banner in 40+ languages.
Get a banner preview before deploying it on live.
Cookie auto-blocking for third-party cookies until the user gives consent.
Customisable revisit consent widget to help users withdraw or change their permissions.

You can also connect the plugin to the CookieYes web app for free and utilise features such as cookie scanning for an up-to-date cookie list and consent log for proof of compliance.

2. Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR & CCPA

One of the most used cookie plugins on WordPress.org is Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR & CCPA, which has a near-perfect 4.9-star rating across over 2,900 reviews. “Cookie Notice” and “Cookie Compliance” are the two components of the plugin.

Simple website banners called “cookie notices” inform users about the use of cookies on your site and provide multiple ways for them to express their consent.

In addition to offering customers comprehensive privacy management options, Cookie Compliance is a fully functional consent management platform (CMP) that takes into consideration regulations from over 100 different countries.

Features:

This plugin’s outstanding features are that it provides cookie auto-blocking and cookie categories. The majority of the other plugins’ pro versions provide both these capabilities.
There are numerous editable GDPR and CCPA notice templates. So pick anyone you want.
You can set the cookie expiration dates here.
Because it is WPML and Polylang compliant, the plugin is prepared for translation.
It is SEO-friendly.
It enables notice message customization.
Options for cookie placement.
Layouts and colors can be changed to match your website.

3. Complianz

Complianz is a full-featured privacy package for WordPress, not simply a cookie notice plugin. It complies with PIPEDA, DSGVO, CCPA, and GDPR.

You can set up your website’s cookie notice specifically for your country, such as the European Union, the USA, the United Kingdom, or Canada, or you can use a single cookie notice for all nations. It has a built-in feature that allows you to add cookie descriptions by scanning your website for cookies. The setup procedure is easy to use and straightforward.

Features:

The plugin provides a cookie consent banner that is highly customizable.
All cookies from social media websites can be automatically blocked.
It also works great with WooCommerce and nearly all contact forms.
It provides support for custom CSS.
It offers Tag Manager and Analytics integrations.
You can check the data and use the A/B testing functionality to make adjustments if you buy the premium version.
It possesses the capacity to classify cookies into various groups.
A data breach notification is provided.

4. GDPR-Cookie Compliance

Another plugin that has received over 200k downloads from the WordPress plugin directory is GDPR Cookie Compliance. Utilizing GDPR Cookie Compliance makes it incredibly simple to get your website fully compliant with GDPR laws. You may give your users complete freedom to save cookies on their PC and the option to remove permission by using our WordPress cookie notification plugin.

Features:

This plugin includes two outstanding cookie banner layouts that are fully responsive.
You can modify the animations to improve the aesthetics of your cookie banner.
The plugin complies with QTranslate, WPML, Polylang, etc.
It is a free plugin.
It supports all plugins for caching.
Information about required cookies, third-party cookies, and any other extra cookies is provided with options for modifying that information.
It provides analytical information on users who have accepted the cookies.
It is SEO-friendly.

5. GDPR Cookie Consent Banner

The GDPR Cookie Consent Banner is one of the most well-known and user-friendly WordPress cookie consent plugins that complies with both the CCPA and the GDPR. It is a sophisticated plugin for WordPress that generates responsive cookies. Just install and activate this plugin to automatically display the cookie consent notification bar.

Features:

It allows you to set a link to the privacy statement.
There is an option to only display the notification on the landing page, in which case it won’t show up on any other pages the user views in the future.
You have the option to display notices elsewhere on specific pages, such as a sidebar, at the top, at the bottom, or as a floating element.
There are three ways to dismiss it: click, time, or scroll.
It supports translation and is mobile-friendly.
It is multilingual.
For more details, you can connect it to an external or absolute URL.
It’s a no-cost plugin.

Conclusion

You can use these five incredibly helpful plugins to make your website more transparent about how it uses cookies and protect users’ privacy. We wish you luck in selecting the GDPR cookie consent plugin that will be most effective for your website.