Osano vs. Zest: which cookie consent tool should you pick?

When you look for a cookie consent solution, you find plenty of options that seem similar at first glance. Osano, OneTrust, CookieYes, iubenda. They all show a banner, store a choice, and promise compliance. But they are not the same, and the differences show up exactly where it hurts: your invoice, your page weight, and how much control you keep.

This is the first in a series where we compare our cookie consent toolkit with other well-known platforms, so you can see how Zest works and what makes it different. We will be honest about where competitors do better, because that is the only comparison worth reading.

TL;DR

If you need coverage of 95+ privacy laws and IAB frameworks across a large multi-jurisdiction site, Osano earns its subscription. If you need GDPR/CCPA consent that you own, on unlimited traffic, for zero dollars, Zest is the better fit.

What is Osano?

Osano is a cookie consent management platform created by Arlo Gilbert and Scott Hertel in 2018. The Texas-based company started when its founders saw that members of the U.S. Congress were questioning technology leaders about online data privacy. Their goal was to simplify compliance: a tool that makes complex, ever-changing privacy requirements easier to follow.

The platform covers more than cookie consent. But on the consent side, it creates banners, discovers cookies and scripts automatically, blocks unauthorized tracking technologies, and manages stored consent preferences.

How does Osano work?

Osano runs on a subscription. You create an account, manage everything from the Osano dashboard, and connect your site with a snippet. Osano recommends adding its osano.js script directly to the <head> of your website.

Once the script is live, Osano scans your site to find cookies, scripts, pixels, and other tracking technologies. You classify them and configure how the platform handles each one depending on the visitor’s consent state. Banner appearance and behavior are managed from the dashboard too, and when you publish an update the changes flow to your site automatically through the installed script.

In short: Osano puts its code on your site and its platform in charge. That gives you a central place to manage consent configuration, and it ties your banner to the Osano platform and its subscription.

What do you get with Osano?

Osano packs in a lot. Three pieces stand out:

• AI-powered assistance. Osano added an AI assistant that helps with everything from compliance management to manual tasks like cookie classification, trained specifically around privacy.
• Privacy templates. A library of expert-maintained legal documents: privacy policies, cookie policies, GDPR statements, CCPA documents, EU standard contractual clauses. Osano itself notes these are not a substitute for legal advice.
• GDPR representation. The company is US-based, but through its Dublin subsidiary it can act as your representative in front of European data protection authorities and data subjects.

There is more, and that is the point: Osano combines cookie consent with a wider privacy platform. That can appeal if you want to manage many privacy tasks in one place.

Osano pros

1. Wide compliance coverage. Osano supports GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and dozens of other privacy laws across many countries. For large sites facing multiple jurisdictions, that range matters.
2. Feature depth. Automatic cookie discovery, AI classification, consent logging, templates, regulatory guidance. If you want a full privacy suite rather than a consent banner, Osano brings it.

What is Zest?

Zest is a lightweight cookie consent toolkit developed by Alex Zappa after years of fighting with supposedly convenient consent platforms that turned out to be more problem than solution. It has been available since early 2026.

The idea is simple: a consent banner that does not depend on any platform. You decide how the banner looks and who manages the consent. Zest takes care of keeping the compliance logic current as the rules evolve.

How does Zest work?

Zest is a small piece of code you add to your site. No account, no dashboard, no subscription.

You add the script to the <head> of your site, before the tracking scripts it should control. When a visitor arrives, Zest checks whether they have already consented. If not, the banner appears and the visitor chooses which categories to allow. If they have, Zest remembers the choice and applies it automatically.

In the background, Zest sits between your website and the tracking technologies on it. It blocks non-essential trackers until the visitor consents, releases the allowed ones, and lets visitors change their preferences at any time.

You can try the whole flow without touching your site in our playground.

What do you get with Zest?

Here Zest is deliberately leaner. Zest focuses on cookie consent and nothing else. We think more is not always better, and we would rather ship one thing that works well, with good support behind it, than a wide catalog of half-finished modules.

Zest pros

1. No dependency, you own everything. The code runs directly on your site. Your banner cannot disappear because a subscription lapsed, a plan changed, or a vendor pivoted.
2. Free forever. No monthly plans, no hidden costs, no trial that becomes an invoice. Zest is open source under the MIT license with unlimited sites, domains, and pageviews.
3. No promos, no upsells. No marketing emails, no upgrade nudges. The tool does a job and stays out of your inbox.

Osano vs. Zest comparison table

	Osano	Zest
Price	Free cookie consent option available, with paid plans and custom enterprise pricing.	Free forever. MIT-licensed open source, unlimited sites, domains, and pageviews. Optional Enterprise service with dedicated support and custom integrations.
Compliance	GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and 95+ global privacy laws across 50+ countries. Supports GPC, Google Consent Mode v2, IAB frameworks, and geolocation-based consent.	GDPR, CCPA, Google Consent Mode v2, GPC/DNT, and geo-targeting, with jurisdiction-based consent experiences. Compliance rules update as the tool evolves.
Customer service	Dedicated support and implementation experts, included at no additional cost for customers.	Community support through GitHub for the free version. Enterprise customers get priority support, custom integrations, compliance audits, and onboarding help.
Languages	42+ languages.	12 built-in languages with automatic detection.
Accessibility	WCAG-compliant, though Osano recommends testing customizations such as colors, placement, and styling.	Built to follow WCAG guidelines and stay responsive across devices and browsers.
Installation	Relatively quick with one line of JavaScript, but configuration and management run through the Osano platform.	Add the script to your site’s <head>. No account, no dashboard, self-hosting is fine.
Banner customization	Customizable banner type, placement, colors, text, policy links, and CSS, plus regional banner templates.	Three modes with customization for position, theme, colors, buttons, layout, and other visual elements.
Consent management	Advanced category-level controls, consent records, historical logs, automatic tracker discovery, blocking, geolocation, and regional rules.	Four consent categories: Essential, Functional, Analytics, Marketing. Blocks scripts until consent is given, and visitors can change preferences later.
Features	Cookie consent, automatic discovery, consent logging, geolocation, compliance automation, reporting, Google Consent Mode, GPC, and broader privacy management tools.	Focused on cookie consent: script blocking, cookie and storage interception, geo-targeting, Google Consent Mode v2, Microsoft UET, multilingual support, a customizable UI, APIs, and framework integrations.

Which one should you pick?

For us there is no doubt: Zest is the better fit for most sites. It installs in minutes, you own the implementation, and it costs nothing. We built it from scratch because of the problems we had with traditional consent platforms, and that experience shaped every decision: keep it simple, keep it light, keep you in control.

But the honest answer depends on what you need.

If your site must comply with many privacy laws that Zest does not cover yet, or you want one platform for privacy policies, data mapping, consent logging, and vendor management, Osano is genuinely appealing. You pay for that breadth with platform dependency: their updates, their pricing, and the features they choose to offer.

If you want a free, ~24KB, self-owned consent banner you can install in an afternoon and never think about again, Zest is all you need.

The right choice is the one that fits your site, not the one with the longest feature list.

Need a consent banner but still writing your policy pages? Our free policy generator drafts a cookie policy or privacy policy from six questions about your site.