PolicyStack
Open-source, developer-first privacy and cookie-consent infrastructure with headless consent flows and version-controlled policies.
🔗 Visit PolicyStack
Description
Every website needs a cookie-consent banner to comply with privacy laws, but most teams end up bolting on a clunky third-party SaaS widget that's disconnected from the actual codebase, hard to test, and easy to configure wrong. PolicyStack treats privacy consent as something that belongs in your code: policies are written as configuration, version-controlled alongside your app, and tested just like any other feature, instead of being an afterthought managed in someone else's dashboard.
It's built around three pieces — a lightweight headless consent engine (under 4kb), a TypeScript-based policy configuration layer, and an optional hosted "Cloud" control plane — with framework adapters for React, Vue, Solid, Svelte, and Angular. It's fully open-source under Apache-2.0, with a public commitment to never relicense or hold back features behind a paywall, positioning itself against both legacy consent-banner vendors and heavier all-in-one privacy SaaS platforms.
💬 Our review
The short version: PolicyStack is a refreshing, developer-native take on cookie consent that fits naturally into a modern app's build and test pipeline, and its open-source Apache-2.0 core with a no-relicensing promise removes the usual fear of getting locked into a SaaS vendor — the main caveat is that its hosted Cloud tier is still in early access with no public pricing yet.
Compared to legacy consent-banner vendors (OneTrust, Cookiebot, and similar), which are typically configured through a web dashboard disconnected from your codebase, PolicyStack's headless, framework-adapter approach means consent logic lives in your repo and ships with normal code review — a meaningful upgrade for teams that already work this way. The tradeoff is maturity: the core library is genuinely lightweight and free, but if you want a fully managed, support-backed solution today, the Cloud control plane isn't priced or generally available yet, so you're either self-hosting now or waiting.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
Free open-source core; Cloud tier in early access, pricing TBD
Pros
Open-source Apache-2.0 with no-relicense commitment
Lightweight headless core
Multi-framework adapters
Version-controlled, testable policies
Cons
Cloud tier not yet generally available
No published Cloud pricing
Smaller ecosystem than established vendors