Consent≠PrivacyInfrastructure

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Consent tools capture preferences. Ethyca enforces privacy policy where data is processed—across systems, pipelines, and CI/CD.

The core difference

Capturing consent at the banner is not the same as enforcing it in the system. Ketch is designed to manage what users choose and activate compliant data for marketing and advertising. Ethyca is designed to enforce that those choices are respected inside every system that processes the data — at the database, pipeline, and code level.

Ketch

Consent management and data permissioning for privacy and marketing teams. Ketch's strength is the consumer-facing consent and preference layer — adaptive banners, progressive consent embedded in digital journeys, DSR automation with no-code workflow builders, and first-party data activation across marketing platforms. Its focus on privacy-as-growth-lever resonates with marketing and privacy teams who want consent to drive better data, not just compliance checkboxes.

→ Strong consent UX, first-party data activation, and no-code DSR automation

Ethyca

Permissioned data still needs to be governed inside the systems that use it. Ketch captures consent and manages preferences. But between the consent banner and the AI model, the database query, or the marketing pipeline, there are many systems where that consent signal needs to be enforced — not just stored. Ethyca's Fides taxonomy creates the shared standard between what consent was given and what systems are allowed to do with it.

→ Consent captured is not consent enforced

Where the platforms diverge

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CUSTOMERS

Companies building trust into data with Ethyca

• The New York Times
• WeTransfer
• Ramp
• SurveyMonkey
• Vercel
• Axios

Ketch's limitations

Where a consent platform reaches its boundary. Ketch collects and stores consent signals and activates them to marketing platforms. It doesn't enforce them inside proprietary databases, internal applications, or AI pipelines. The gap between 'preference stored' and 'preference enforced across all systems' is where Ethyca operates.

No engineering-native enforcement tooling

Ketch is designed for privacy and marketing teams to operate without engineering. That works for managing banners and DSR workflows. It means engineers have no privacy tooling — no CLI, no CI/CD linting, no way to enforce policy in the code they write. Every system engineers build is privacy coverage that has to be connected to Ketch after the fact, through integration work.

AI governance is a compliance gap, not a strength

Ketch's AI governance capabilities center on regulatory compliance frameworks and consent for AI use cases. There is no equivalent to Astralis — enforcement at the pipeline level that controls which consented data enters AI training and inference runs.

The structural gap

Ketch and Ethyca address adjacent layers of the same problem. Ketch manages what users choose. Ethyca enforces that choice inside the systems that process data on users' behalf.

The open source advantage

Ketch is proprietary. Ethyca's foundation is open. Ketch is a closed platform — consent signals, data maps, and audit trails are all vendor-mediated. Fides is the world's most widely used open-source privacy engineering standard: inspectable, contributable, and deployable independently.

7k+ GitHub stars

Actively maintained, community-contributed, and deployable independently of Ethyca's commercial platform.

Apache 2.0

Open license. The enforcement standard is yours. Ketch can't offer an open equivalent.

IAPP

Recognized standard. Recognized by the IAPP as a governance standard — shared taxonomy across the industry, not a vendor-specific schema.

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"By adopting Ethyca's infrastructure, we're unifying privacy, legal, and engineering around a single source of truth, enabling us to manage data responsibly and confidently as we expand globally." — Director of CRM & Lifecycle Marketing · JustPark

Feature comparison

Ethica vs. Ketch — side by side.

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Organizations that need consent enforced, not just captured.

Enterprises where the gap between 'consent stored' and 'consent respected in every system' is material — where legal and engineering need infrastructure that closes the loop.

Switching from Ketch

From consent management to enforcement infrastructure.

Teams moving from Ketch have typically built strong consent capture workflows. The transition is additive — that consent foundation is preserved and extended with system-level enforcement, engineering-native tooling, and AI pipeline governance.

↳ Step 1 — Migrate your consent configuration with Fides

Existing consent categories and user preferences from Ketch migrate to the Fides taxonomy — the open standard both legal and engineering share. Consent signals that Ketch captured become enforceable policies in Fides, applied at the system level.

↳ Step 2 — Extend consent enforcement into your systems

Fides connects consent to the databases, APIs, and pipelines that process user data — enforcing the preference at the system level, not just at the banner.

↳ Step 3 — Replace workflow-based DSR with system-level fulfillment

Lethe executes against actual databases — erasure and access at the system level. Fulfillment becomes faster, more auditable, and less dependent on integration chains being correctly configured.

↳ Step 4 — Embed Fides into your engineering workflow

Fides CLI and privacy linting in pull requests means engineers enforce the consent policy in every system they build.

↳ Step 5 — Extend to AI pipeline governance with Astralis

Astralis enforces which consented data can enter AI training and inference runs — closing the gap between consent captured and consent honored in the AI models.

Open
Apache 2.0. Fides. The shared standard legal and engineering both own. Consent logic is yours, not Ketch's.

Enforce
Consent respected inside systems, not just stored in a platform. Policy runs where data flows.

Weeks
Typical deployment. Large enterprises live across 90+ websites within a month, with forward-deployed engineering support.

Flat
Pricing with support included. No separate support fee, no modular add-ons required.

FAQ

Common questions

What teams considering Ketch ask us.
We need better consent management and first-party data. Isn't Ketch the right fit?
If consent UX, adaptive compliance banners, and first-party data activation for marketing are the primary problems, Ketch is genuinely well-suited to them. Where the question gets more complex: once consent is captured, what enforces that signal inside your databases, APIs, and AI pipelines? Ethyca's Fides closes that gap — connecting the consent signal to the system-level enforcement layer.

Ketch has strong customer support and a no-code approach. Isn't that an advantage?
Ketch's customer support reputation and operational ease are real strengths. Ketch’s operational friction can be reduced. However, when engineering isn't equipped with privacy tooling, privacy gap can occur. Ethyca’s approach gives engineers the tools directly.

Does Ethyca include consent management capabilities?
Yes. Ethyca's Fides platform includes consent banner management, preference centers, and consent orchestration.

What's the clearest question to ask both vendors?
Ask both: "If a user withdraws consent for a specific data processing purpose, how does your platform ensure that consent withdrawal is honored inside our internal databases and AI training pipelines?"

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