Introducing Cookiebench: A Comprehensive Benchmarking Tool for Cookie Banner Performance
In the world of web development, enhancing user experience often involves adding necessary elements like cookie banners. However, a common challenge is ensuring these components don’t hinder site performance. To address this, I embarked on creating a specialized tool designed to evaluate the impact of cookie consent banners on website speed and efficiency.
The result is Cookiebench, a dedicated benchmarking platform that examines how various cookie banners influence real-world website performance metrics. This tool provides valuable insights into the efficiency and optimization levels of different Consent Management Platforms (CMPs).
What Does Cookiebench Measure?
Cookiebench evaluates several key aspects, including:
- Render Time: How quickly the cookie banner appears on the page
- Visual Stability: Layout shifts and delays during hydration
- Network Impact: Requests generated and overall bundle size
- Code Optimization: Use of external IIFEs versus proper bundling practices
- Screen Space & Responsiveness: Visual footprint and user interaction delays
Surprising Findings
Preliminary results reveal some concerning trends. Many prominent CMPs contribute significant script bloat and cause layout jank, often even before a user interacts with the banner. These issues can detract from user experience and site performance.
Explore the Results
Interested in seeing how various CMPs perform? Visit our live benchmarking leaderboard at Cookiebench, where you can compare different solutions and observe how they stack up.
Join the Conversation
We’ve also launched Cookiebench on Product Hunt here—we welcome your feedback! Your insights will help us identify which CMPs to evaluate next and how to refine our scoring criteria for better accuracy.
If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out. Improving website performance while maintaining compliance is essential, and tools like Cookiebench are a step forward in achieving that balance.
