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Cookie Consent Tools · Editorial review

Klaro! review: open-source consent banner, no TCF by design

klaro.org

Klaro! is a consent manager from KIProtect GmbH in Berlin whose banner is open source under the BSD 3-Clause license. It holds back scripts, images and iframes until consent, ships in 23 languages and deliberately skips IAB TCF. Klaro Cloud adds consent records and scans from €19 to €299 a month.

JavaScript libraryPrior script blockingEmbedded content blockingMultilingual supportGoogle Consent ModeGoogle Tag ManagerOpen-source licence

Our verdict on Klaro!

Klaro! fits an adult site that earns from adult ad networks rather than Google Ads, serves several languages and is comfortable with a library that has not shipped a release since March 2024. Its contextual consent for embedded videos is the feature a tube will use most.

Sites that depend on personalized Google ads in Europe should look elsewhere, because KIProtect has said it will not implement IAB TCF.

Klaro! documentation welcome page with the Klaro consent notice in the lower right corner offering Let me choose, I decline and That’s ok buttons
Klaro!

Klaro! and Google ads without TCF

In December 2023, KIProtect said it would not implement IAB TCF, which it considers incompatible with informed consent, and noted that CMP registration costs around €1,600 a year. A site running Google advertising with Klaro! will mostly see non-personalized ads. Google Tag Manager, Google Maps and Google Consent Mode v2 still work, with a dedicated guide for GTM. Adult ad networks such as ExoClick or TrafficJunky do not use TCF, so a tube paid by them loses nothing here.

Contextual consent for videos and embeds

Tags are blocked by switching them to type="text/plain", naming the service and moving external URLs to data-src. Images, pixels and iframes work the same way. A blocked YouTube video or third-party player shows a notice where the visitor can accept that one service on the spot, without opening the full preferences panel.

Klaro Cloud pricing

PlanBilled yearly, per monthBilled monthlyConsent records a month
Startup€19€2520,000
Company€79€99100,000
Group€239€299500,000

Cloud plans add consent records, URL scans, a third-party service database, audit logs, a REST API and statistics. Prices are in euros only, and the trial lasts seven days with no payment details.

Is Klaro! still maintained?

The last tagged release is 0.7.22, from March 2024, and npm still serves 0.7.21. The last pull requests were merged in March 2025. The repository has about 1,520 stars and 171 open issues. The banner works as is, but fixes for browser or Google changes may not come. The “Klaro Consent Manager” plugin on WordPress.org is a third-party wrapper, last updated in May 2019 and tested up to WordPress 5.2, with about 200 active installs.

Klaro! strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • 23 languages built in.
  • Contextual consent for embeds.
  • Free under BSD, self-hostable.

Limitations

  • No release since March 2024.
  • No consent log without Klaro Cloud.
  • No IAB TCF, by choice.

Klaro! or CookieConsent

CookieConsent is lighter and also blocks tagged scripts, but ships no translations and has no cloud edition for consent records. Klaro! brings 23 languages and an optional paid backend. A multilingual adult site saves work with Klaro!, a single-language site that wants the smallest script picks CookieConsent.

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