tarteaucitron alternative: free open source or hosted CMP?

tarteaucitron is one of the most widely used cookie consent solutions in France, largely because its library is open source and free. This article compares tarteaucitron with Consenteer, the platform we publish, to help you choose. The two approaches are different: it is not only a matter of comparing prices, but of deciding whether you want to maintain your own banner or use a hosted service.

Transparency first: we publish Consenteer, which is part of this comparison. The information on tarteaucitron comes from its official website and its GitHub repository, checked on November 5, 2026. Offers change: always check with the publisher before deciding.

Two products, two approaches

tarteaucitron.js is a JavaScript library under the MIT licence, available on GitHub since 2013. You download it, configure it in your site's code, host it and update it yourself. It is free, auditable, and very widespread.

tarteaucitron.io is the online offer built on that open source core. It provides a Pro licence with a configuration console, automatic detection of third-party services and consent statistics.

Consenteer is a hosted service: you add a one-line snippet, the banner is configured from a dashboard and we host it in Europe. There is nothing to maintain on your site.

The tarteaucitron offer at a glance

The page describes a single licence for all your sites and your clients' sites, with no traffic limit, and a 7-day trial with no credit card.

Features, side by side

What it costs for several sites

Let's take concrete cases, excluding taxes.

Two honest conclusions. Below three sites, Consenteer is cheaper than the tarteaucitron Pro licence. Beyond that, and especially for an agency managing many client sites, the unlimited-site Pro licence is more advantageous, and the open source library stays free whatever the number of sites.

Where tarteaucitron is ahead

• Price at scale. An unlimited-site licence, or the free library, costs less than our plans once the number of sites becomes high.
• Open code. You can read, audit and modify the code. For a technical team that wants full control, this is a real asset.
• The catalog of services and languages. The page advertises more than 220 preconfigured services and 36 languages with the Pro licence. We do not claim to match that catalog: check that your services and your languages are on it.
• The lifetime licence. A one-off payment of €690 excl. VAT, with no subscription: some projects prefer this model.
• No dependence on a hosted service. With the library, your banner depends on no external provider.

Where a hosted CMP makes a difference

• The consent log. Keeping proof of each visitor's choice (Article 7 of the GDPR) requires server-side recording. We provide it from the free plan, with CSV export; tarteaucitron's public page only mentions aggregated statistics. To learn more, see our article on proof of consent.
• No maintenance. No library to update on your side: you neither host nor maintain the banner's code.
• The complete compliance foundation from the free plan: banner editor, Consent Mode v2, GPC signal, automatic blocking, cookie scanner.
• Hosting in Europe, with no data leaking to third parties: no Google Fonts, geolocation computed on our servers, IP addresses never stored in clear.
• An official WordPress plugin, all plans: see the WordPress plugin.

Moving from tarteaucitron to Consenteer

1. List what your site actually sets. Run the cookie scanner rather than reproducing an old configuration as is.
2. Keep your statistics. Export them if you have any: they do not replace an individual log, but they document your history.
3. Recreate the banner from the dashboard: colors, texts, languages.
4. Remove the tarteaucitron code and replace it with our snippet (or install the WordPress plugin). Never leave both active together: visitors would see two banners.
5. Check in a private window that no tracker is set before the visitor makes a choice.

How to choose

tarteaucitron is a good fit if you have a technical team, a large number of sites, or if you value open, self-hosted code. We are a better fit if you want a hosted banner with no maintenance, individual proof of consent, and clear pricing for a small number of sites. To widen the comparison, see our CMP comparison, as well as our articles Axeptio alternative and Cookiebot alternative.

The data on tarteaucitron comes from its public pages at the date indicated and may change; it constitutes neither legal advice nor an assessment of the compliance of either service.