Introducing OCI — Open Consent Infrastructure

Today we are announcing something we have been working toward for a long time: the source-available release of OCI — Open Consent Infrastructure, the core engine that powers the Conzent consent management platform.

Starting today, anyone can download, inspect, modify, and self-host a fully functional consent management system for their own properties. OCI is released under the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL 1.1) — free to self-host, with each release converting to the fully permissive Apache 2.0 licence after four years.

Why Source-Available Consent?

The cookie consent industry has a problem. Most consent management platforms are black boxes. Website owners pay monthly fees for a JavaScript snippet they cannot inspect, connected to servers they do not control, processing data in ways they cannot verify. The irony is not lost on us: tools designed to give users transparency about data collection are themselves opaque about how they handle data.

We built Conzent five years ago because we believed consent could be done better. Over those five years, we learned something important: the technology behind consent management is not complex enough to justify the prices the industry charges. A cookie banner, a consent logger, and a scanning engine — these are solved problems. What makes them expensive is vendor lock-in and opacity.

So we asked ourselves: what if consent infrastructure was open? What if any developer could inspect exactly how consent decisions are recorded, how cookies are categorised, how geolocation targeting works? What if a company concerned about data sovereignty could run the entire system on their own servers in their own jurisdiction?

What OCI Includes

OCI is not a stripped-down demo. It is the same codebase that powers our managed cloud service, minus the multi-tenant billing layer & AB Splitesting. You get:

• A customisable consent banner with multiple layouts, colours, themes, and full multi-language support
• Cookie scanning that detects and categorises every cookie and script on your site against a reference database of over 50,000 known cookies
• Consent logging with a complete audit trail — timestamps, anonymised IPs, per-category choices, TCF strings
• GDPR and CCPA compliance features including geo-targeted consent experiences
• Google Consent Mode v2 integration for maintaining measurement while respecting consent
• A REST API for programmatic access to consent data and banner configuration
• An admin dashboard for managing sites, banners, and viewing reports

The entire system runs in Docker. Installation is a single command:

curl -sSL https://getconzent.com/install | sh

In under five minutes, you have a production-ready consent management system running on your own hardware.

The Business Model

A reasonable question: if you are giving the software away, how do you make money?

Our answer is straightforward. We offer a managed cloud service for organisations that do not want to operate their own infrastructure. The cloud version includes additional features — IAB TCF v2.3 certification, automated scanning infrastructure, priority support, and SLA guarantees — that make sense as a managed offering.

We also accept sponsorships from companies that want consent to be free for everyone. Here is the part we are most excited about: every euro in sponsorship revenue reduces the price of the cloud service. Our goal is to reach 100,000 euros in annual recurring sponsorship revenue. If we get there, the managed cloud becomes free for everyone too.

This is not charity. It is a bet that the best way to build a sustainable business is to align our incentives with our users. If the self-hosted version is excellent, more people use it. If more people use it, some percentage choose the managed cloud. If sponsors believe in the mission, they fund the difference. Everyone wins.

What This Means for Existing Users

Nothing changes for current Conzent cloud customers. Your service continues exactly as before. The source-available release means you now have the option to self-host if you choose, but the managed cloud remains the easiest way to use Conzent.

For agencies and developers who have been asking for a self-hosted option — this is it. Run OCI on your own infrastructure, manage consent for your clients, and customise every aspect of the platform to fit your needs.

The Vision

We believe consent management should be part of the internet's open infrastructure, not a premium SaaS product. Just as web servers, databases, and email are powered by transparent, community-driven software, consent should be too.

OCI is our contribution to that vision. We are building it in the open, accepting contributions from anyone who wants to make consent better, and measuring our success not just by revenue, but by how many websites run consent software that respects both their visitors and their operators.

If this resonates with you, try OCI today. If you want to support the mission, consider becoming a sponsor. And if you find a bug or have a feature request, open an issue on GitHub.

The future of consent is open. Let us build it together.