Head-to-head
Fastly vs Akamai
In short
Both route AI bot charging to TollBit, and both partner with Skyfire (Fastly 2026-06-10, Akamai 2026-06-15); Akamai documents Web Bot Auth verification and Visa TAP, Fastly docs read did not. On verifies agents the rubric grades Fastly partial and Akamai yes, and on commerce agents the rubric grades Fastly partial and Akamai yes. For a platform engineer: Both are edge.
The sourced difference
Both route AI bot charging to TollBit, and both partner with Skyfire (Fastly 2026-06-10, Akamai 2026-06-15); Akamai documents Web Bot Auth verification and Visa TAP, Fastly docs read did not. Source, read 2026-11-04.
Side by side
| Question | Fastly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Partial verified-bot signals for AI crawlers and fetchers; Skyfire credentials at the edge (announced); Web Bot Auth not found in docs (checked 2026-11-04) |
Yes Web Bot Auth (RFC 9421) at the edge, verified bot list incl. AI bots; Visa TAP and Skyfire/Experian KYA via the agentic framework |
| Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Partial crawler versus fetcher signals, suspected versus verified |
Partial allow, challenge, delay or block per verified bot or category; no published search versus training switch (checked 2026-11-04) |
| Charging for access | Partial through TollBit paywall redirect |
Partial through TollBit and Skyfire partners, no native billing |
| Lets signed commerce agents through | Partial Skyfire KYA/KYAPay partnership (Jun 2026); no Visa TAP or Mastercard Agent Pay found |
Yes Visa Trusted Agent Protocol integration, Skyfire and Experian KYA |
| Cost | no public price; sales-led | no public price; sales-led |
| Reporting | Not published AI bot reporting not described on pages read (checked 2026-11-04) |
Yes TrafficPeak and web security analytics |
| Where it runs | edge: classification and actions on Fastly's edge network | edge: verification and enforcement on Akamai's edge network |
| Points, rank | 4 of 10, rank 10 | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) |
| Price read 2026-11-04 | no public price for Bot Management or AI Bot Management; contact sales (checked 2026-11-04). Free tier covers up to 100,000 requests/month for delivery. | no public price; sales-led (checked 2026-11-04) |
Verdicts by reader
- Platform engineer
- Both are edge; both sales-led.
- Security engineer
- Akamai has the stronger published verification story on the pages read.
- Publisher operations
- Equivalent charging path through TollBit.
What each does not do
Fastly
- Bot Management is not available on the Essential platform for Next-Gen WAF (Bot Management docs).
- No native per-crawl billing; charging relies on TollBit (Fastly-TollBit blog).
- No public price for bot products (pricing page).
Akamai
- No native per-crawl billing; monetization runs through TollBit or Skyfire (Akamai blog and partnership release).
- The June 2026 framework release gives no availability dates or prices (press release read 2026-11-04).
- No published control that separates search crawling from model training as purposes (pages read 2026-11-04).
More: alternatives to Fastly, alternatives to Akamai.
Sources
- investors.fastly.com: fastly and skyfire partner enable trusted agentic commerce
- fastly.com: pricing
- akamai.com: akamai unveils agentic security framework to power trusted ai driven interactions and commerce
- fastly.com: how to control and monetize ai bot traffic using fastly and tollbit
- akamai.com: redefine trust web bot authentication
- akamai.com: no free crawls akamai tollbit and skyfire turn traffic into revenue
- akamai.com: akamai and visa join forces to secure the next era of agentic commerce
Last reviewed 2026-11-04