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Cookie Consent Tools · Editorial review

Silktide Consent Manager review: free banner for GTM sites

silktide.com

Silktide Consent Manager is a free, MIT-licensed cookie banner from Silktide, the web governance company with offices in Austin and Birmingham. One 53 KB JavaScript file and an 11 KB stylesheet run it with no account and no traffic limits. It drives Google Consent Mode v2 for you, but keeps no consent records and only holds back scripts you hand it.

JavaScript libraryGoogle Consent ModeGoogle Tag ManagerOpen-source licenceNo external account

Our verdict on Silktide Consent Manager

Silktide Consent Manager suits an adult site that already loads its tags through Google Tag Manager and wants a free, account-free banner that drives Consent Mode v2 with no custom code. It is a poor fit for a tube whose ad network tags sit in the theme, because it does not touch them.

It stores no proof of consent, so a site that must show records needs a plugin or platform with a consent log. The Silktide reviews on G2 rate the company’s paid web governance platform, a separate product from this banner.

Silktide Consent Manager page headed The best free cookie banner, with the demo banner in the lower right showing Accept all, Reject non-essential and Preferences buttons
Silktide Consent Manager

Does a US site need it?

Silktide’s own FAQ notes that US federal law does not mandate cookie banners like the GDPR, while state rules such as California’s CCPA and CPRA require disclosures, and EU visitors bring EU rules with them. The banner has no geolocation, so it shows the same notice to every visitor. A US paysite with a meaningful EU audience can still run it everywhere for free.

Google Consent Mode v2 without writing gtag calls

Since version 2.0, each consent category can name the Google consent parameter it controls, and the banner updates Consent Mode v2 itself. It also pushes a stcm_consent_update event to the data layer. In Tag Manager, you add a trigger on that event and set consent requirements on your existing tags. The script loads without defer, ahead of GTM’s Consent Initialization tags.

Holding back ExoClick or TrafficJunky outside GTM

The library does not touch cookies or tags already on the page. To hold an ad network tag outside Tag Manager, you remove it from the theme and list it in the marketing category’s scripts property, which injects it once consent is given. Revoking consent reloads the page so running scripts stop. The banner shows Accept all, Reject non-essential and Preferences, with rejection always available from the first screen, and keeps the choice in localStorage without setting a cookie. No translations ship with it. The repository has 136 GitHub stars, and version 2.0.1 is the latest.

Silktide Consent Manager strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Consent Mode v2 with no code.
  • Free, no account or traffic limits.
  • Reject always offered on the banner.

Limitations

  • No blocking of tags already on the page.
  • No consent records or geolocation.
  • No bundled translations.

Silktide Consent Manager or c15t

c15t keeps consent records on a backend, switches between opt-in and opt-out by region and blocks network requests, but needs React for its ready banner. Silktide drops into any site and stays free with no backend. A GTM-based site with no need for records stays with Silktide.

Klaro!

Klaro! is a consent manager from KIProtect GmbH in Berlin whose banner is open source under the BSD 3-Clause license.

Read the review Klaro! →tarteaucitron.js

tarteaucitron.js is an open-source consent manager under the MIT license, built in France by Amauri Champeaux since 2014.

Read the review tarteaucitron.js →CookieConsent

CookieConsent is a free, MIT-licensed JavaScript consent banner by independent developer Orest Bida, published on npm as vanilla-cookieconsent.

Read the review CookieConsent →Complianz

Complianz is a WordPress cookie consent plugin with more than a million active installs, published by Complianz B.V. in the Netherlands, part of the iubenda group.

Read the review Complianz →
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