Complianz vs. Kakapo Consent: Which Cookie Banner Fits?

A consent plugin is rarely judged by how pretty the banner is, but by whether the consent is worth anything when it's put to the test. That means: does the text say what's really running? Is anything blocked before consent is given? And can you prove afterward who consented to what, and when?

The short answer

Complianz is an established consent plugin with a detailed setup wizard that uses questions to guide you to a suitable configuration and legal texts, with versions for multiple jurisdictions and a free tier.

Kakapo Consent starts from the inventory instead of a questionnaire: a scan collects which cookies and which third-party hosts actually appear on the website; the consent text is assembled from that, and every sentence carries its origin — derived, fixed, or default. Anything that can't be backed up doesn't go in.

In short: if you want to be guided and need to cover multiple jurisdictions, Complianz is a good choice. If you want a text that describes exactly your own website and proof that holds up in an audit, Kakapo Consent is the better-suited tool.

What both can do

• Banner or dialog with categories and individual selection
• Block scripts until consent is given
• Log consents
• Generate a cookie policy as a page
• Multilingual output

Where the two differ

The difference: a text that describes your own site

A template text makes claims about a website it doesn't know. The sentence about a third-country transfer to the US is simply untrue on a site with local analytics — and a false statement in the consent text is worse than a brief correct one.

That's why Kakapo Consent assembles the text from what can actually be measured, and labels every sentence: derived (from the inventory), fixed (always applies), or default (please review). If the inventory contains a third-party host whose origin is unknown, the third-country statement is dropped entirely — anything said about that host would be a guess.

After the first scan, check whether all embeds were really found. A scan sees what appears on the pages it checks — anything that only loads during checkout or in a form has to be shown to it.

The proof

A log with a timestamp answers the question “did someone click?” But the question in an audit is: what was consented to? That's why Kakapo Consent stores, for every consent, a hash of the displayed text and the configuration in effect. If the text changes, the hash changes — and you can see that an old consent referred to a different version.

When Complianz is the better choice

• You want to be guided through setup
• You need versions for multiple jurisdictions in one tool
• You want to start for free
• You're looking for a very widely used plugin with lots of tutorials

When Kakapo Consent is the better choice

• You want the text to describe your own website, not a generic one
• You want to be able to prove, for every consent, what was consented to
• You need right-to-left or many display languages
• You look after multiple sites and want to manage them centrally

Switching: what to do

1. Note which services were assigned to which category in the old plugin.
2. Install Kakapo Consent and enter your license key.
3. Run the scan across the website once and compare the result with your notes.
4. Assign unknown hosts manually — anything that stays unknown leads to a more cautious text.
5. Review the generated consent text sentence by sentence, especially anything marked as “default.”
6. Test with a fresh browser profile that nothing loads before consent.
7. Only then switch off the old plugin.

Two consent plugins at the same time produce two banners and two cookies. The visitor then consents in one and gets asked again by the other — switch off the old one before you go live.

Frequently asked questions