Head-to-head
AWS WAF Bot Control vs DataDome
In short
AWS WAF charges AI bots natively over x402 at no extra fee beyond WAF charges; DataDome charges through partners from its USD 8,670 Advanced plan. On per-purpose policy the rubric grades AWS WAF Bot Control yes and DataDome partial, and on commerce agents the rubric grades AWS WAF Bot Control not published and DataDome partial.
The sourced difference
AWS WAF charges AI bots natively over x402 at no extra fee beyond WAF charges; DataDome charges through partners from its USD 8,670 Advanced plan. Source, read 2026-11-04.
Side by side
| Question | AWS WAF Bot Control | DataDome |
|---|---|---|
| Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Yes Web Bot Auth (rule set Version_4.0+), verified self-identifying bots |
Yes Web Bot Auth, KYA tokens, official IP lists, reverse DNS, plus fingerprinting fallback |
| Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Yes rules on bot category and name labels; prices can differ by bot identity and verification status |
Partial policies per agent, trust score and intent; no published search versus training switch (checked 2026-11-04) |
| Charging for access | Yes HTTP 402 x402 monetization on CloudFront, Coinbase x402 settlement in stablecoins |
Yes AI crawler and agent monetization through partners, from the Advanced plan |
| Lets signed commerce agents through | Not published Visa TAP or Mastercard Agent Pay support (checked 2026-11-04) |
Partial TAP and KYA trust-authority integrations listed; Experian Agent Trust member since 2026-10-01 |
| Cost | published: USD 10/month per web ACL plus USD 1 or USD 10 per million requests after free allowance | published: from USD 3,830/month |
| Reporting | Yes Bot Control console dashboard, AI activity dashboard, CloudWatch metrics and logs |
Yes agent traffic by intent, identity, geo, URL and endpoint type |
| Where it runs | edge or regional: CloudFront edge and regional resources such as load balancers and API Gateway | both: server-side module on web servers, CDNs or API gateways plus client-side tag |
| Points, rank | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) |
| Price read 2026-11-04 | Bot Control USD 10/month per web ACL. Common level: first 10M requests/month free, then USD 1.00 per million. Targeted level: first 1M requests/month free, then USD 10.00 per million. Standard AWS WAF web ACL and rule charges also apply; AI traffic monetization has no extra charge. | Bot Protect Essentials USD 3,830/month (under 100M requests/month), Advanced USD 8,670/month (under 200M), Premium USD 10,160/month (under 300M), Enterprise from USD 13,270/month (over 300M). Agent Trust capability listed from Essentials; monetization from Advanced. |
Verdicts by reader
- Platform engineer
- AWS for CloudFront shops; DataDome for multi-CDN.
- Security engineer
- DataDome adds intent detection on authenticated agents; AWS adds targeted ML for bots that do not self-identify.
- Publisher operations
- AWS pays out in stablecoins; check that suits your finance team.
What each does not do
AWS WAF Bot Control
- Monetize only works with CloudFront-associated web ACLs, not regional resources (Bot Control docs).
- Stripe payouts and Machine Payments Protocol are not live yet; settlement is via Coinbase x402 in stablecoins (what's new, 2026-06-15).
- Web Bot Auth is off unless the rule group version is pinned to Version_4.0 or later (Bot Control docs).
DataDome
- Agent Trust does not run on its own; Bot Protect must be fully installed with server and client components (Agentic Trust docs).
- Monetization is not in the Essentials plan; it starts at Advanced (pricing page).
- No published control that separates search crawling from training crawling as distinct purposes (docs and pricing read 2026-11-04).
More: alternatives to AWS WAF Bot Control, alternatives to DataDome.
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-11-04