--- title: "Cloudflare vs Vercel | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "Cloudflare vs Vercel: rubric grades side by side, the sourced difference and verdicts for platform engineers, security engineers and publisher ops." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/cloudflare-vs-vercel-botid site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-04 section: "Comparisons" --- # Cloudflare vs Vercel | Agent Ready Crawlers > Cloudflare vs Vercel: rubric grades side by side, the sourced difference and verdicts for platform engineers, security engineers and publisher ops. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/cloudflare-vs-vercel-botid Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-04 Head-to-head # Cloudflare vs Vercel In short Cloudflare publishes a no-training preference into robots.txt with Disallow AI Training (2026-09-15); Vercel's AI Bots ruleset logs or blocks AI crawlers and AI assistants separately (2026-10-29) without writing robots.txt. On charging the rubric grades Cloudflare partial and Vercel not published, and on commerce agents the rubric grades Cloudflare partial and Vercel not published. ## The sourced difference Cloudflare publishes a no-training preference into robots.txt with Disallow AI Training (2026-09-15); Vercel's AI Bots ruleset logs or blocks AI crawlers and AI assistants separately (2026-10-29) without writing robots.txt. [Source](https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules), read 2026-11-04. ## Side by side | Question | Cloudflare | Vercel | | --- | --- | --- | | Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Yes; Web Bot Auth signatures, IP validation, verified bot and signed agent directory (BotBase) | Yes; IP, reverse DNS and Web Bot Auth; directory at bots.fyi | | Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Yes; separate Search, Training and Agent controls on all plans, plus Disallow AI Training since 2026-09-15 | Yes; AI crawlers and AI assistants handled separately since 2026-10-29 | | Charging for access | Partial; Pay per crawl with HTTP 402, Cloudflare as Merchant of Record, private beta | Not published; support (checked 2026-11-04) | | Lets signed commerce agents through | Partial; Visa TAP and Mastercard Agent Pay built on Web Bot Auth, managed rulesets announced Oct 2025; current rule name not confirmed in docs (checked 2026-11-04) | Not published; Visa TAP or Mastercard Agent Pay support (checked 2026-11-04) | | Cost | free tier covers AI Crawl Control; Pro from USD 20/month; Bot Management and BotBase are Enterprise and sales-led | published: Basic free; Deep Analysis USD 1 per 1,000 checks on Pro | | Reporting | Yes; AI Crawl Control analytics on crawler activity, request patterns and robots.txt compliance | Yes; Firewall tab BotID filter and Observability Plus metrics | | Where it runs | edge: enforced on Cloudflare's reverse proxy, no app code needed | both: managed rulesets at Vercel's edge firewall; BotID verdict read in server code via checkBotId() | | Points, rank | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) | 6 of 10, rank 6 (tied) | | Price read 2026-11-04 | AI Crawl Control and the Search, Training and Agent controls are on all plans including Free (USD 0). Pro USD 20/month billed annually or USD 25 monthly; Business USD 200/month annually or USD 250 monthly; Enterprise Bot Management and BotBase are sales-led. Pay per crawl prices are set by the site owner (private beta). | BotID Basic free on all plans; Deep Analysis USD 1 per 1,000 checkBotId() calls on Pro, custom on Enterprise; AI Bots managed ruleset on all plans. | ## Verdicts by reader Platform engineer Pick by host: both are zone or project toggles. Security engineer Both verify Web Bot Auth; Vercel exposes isVerifiedBot in checkBotId(). Publisher operations Cloudflare keeps Googlebot, Applebot and Bingbot in search while refusing training; Vercel blocks by category. ## What each does not do ### Cloudflare - BotBase does not block traffic itself; mitigation needs Security rules or AI traffic options (BotBase docs, updated 2026-10-08). - Disallow AI Training cannot pass a no-training preference to Bing until Microsoft ships robots.txt support, targeted early 2027 (Cloudflare blog, 2026-09-15). - Web Bot Auth verification does no nonce validation today; Cloudflare relies on short expires values (Web Bot Auth docs). - Pay per crawl is not self-serve: the docs (updated 2026-07-28) tell site owners to reach out to Cloudflare to join the beta. ### Vercel - No charging or pay-per-crawl for AI crawlers (BotID and firewall docs read 2026-11-04). - BotID Deep Analysis is not on the Hobby plan; it is listed for Pro and Enterprise only (BotID pricing table). - BotID does not inspect passive page views; it only runs where the app calls checkBotId() (BotID docs). More: [alternatives to Cloudflare](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/cloudflare/alternatives/), [alternatives to Vercel](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/vercel-botid/alternatives/). ## Sources - [vercel.com: block ai crawlers and assistants independently with managed rules](https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules) read 2026-11-04 - [cloudflare.com: network cdn.md](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/network-cdn.md) read 2026-11-04 - [vercel.com: botid](https://vercel.com/docs/botid) read 2026-11-04 - [developers.cloudflare.com: verified bots](https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/concepts/bot/verified-bots/) read 2026-11-04 - [vercel.com: vercels bot verification now supports web bot auth](https://vercel.com/changelog/vercels-bot-verification-now-supports-web-bot-auth) read 2026-11-04 - [Have it both ways: stay discoverable in search while disallowing AI training](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accountable-mixed-use-ai-crawlers/) read 2026-11-04 - [developers.cloudflare.com: what is pay per crawl](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-crawl-control/features/pay-per-crawl/what-is-pay-per-crawl/) read 2026-11-04 - [Securing agentic commerce: helping AI Agents transact with Visa and Mastercard](https://blog.cloudflare.com/secure-agentic-commerce/) read 2026-11-04 - [vercel.com: verified bots](https://vercel.com/docs/botid/verified-bots) read 2026-11-04 Last reviewed 2026-11-04