--- title: "Skyfire vs Cloudflare | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "Skyfire vs Cloudflare: rubric grades side by side, the sourced difference and verdicts for platform engineers, security engineers and publisher ops." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/skyfire-vs-cloudflare site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-04 section: "Comparisons" --- # Skyfire vs Cloudflare | Agent Ready Crawlers > Skyfire vs Cloudflare: rubric grades side by side, the sourced difference and verdicts for platform engineers, security engineers and publisher ops. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/skyfire-vs-cloudflare Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-04 Head-to-head # Skyfire vs Cloudflare In short Skyfire tokens ride in a kyapay-token header and are verified against Skyfire's JWKS; Cloudflare verifies Web Bot Auth signatures from a Signature-Agent key directory. On per-purpose policy the rubric grades Skyfire not its job and Cloudflare yes, and on charging the rubric grades Skyfire yes and Cloudflare partial. ## The sourced difference Skyfire tokens ride in a kyapay-token header and are verified against Skyfire's JWKS; Cloudflare verifies Web Bot Auth signatures from a Signature-Agent key directory. Skyfire documents enforcing its tokens on Cloudflare with a Worker. [Source](https://docs.skyfire.xyz/docs/verify-and-extract-data-from-tokens.md), read 2026-11-04. ## Side by side | Question | Skyfire | Cloudflare | | --- | --- | --- | | Tells a verified agent from a spoof | Yes; KYA JWTs that sites verify via Skyfire's JWKS; not a bot manager itself | Yes; Web Bot Auth signatures, IP validation, verified bot and signed agent directory (BotBase) | | Per-purpose policy (train, search, answer, act) | Not its job; sellers decide access from token claims such as agent and principal identity | Yes; separate Search, Training and Agent controls on all plans, plus Disallow AI Training since 2026-09-15 | | Charging for access | Yes; pay and kya-pay tokens charged by sellers, settled between Skyfire wallets | Partial; Pay per crawl with HTTP 402, Cloudflare as Merchant of Record, private beta | | Lets signed commerce agents through | Yes; KYAPay carries identity plus payment intent; card payment flow documented | 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) | | Cost | not published (checked 2026-11-04) | free tier covers AI Crawl Control; Pro from USD 20/month; Bot Management and BotBase are Enterprise and sales-led | | Reporting | Not published; on pages read (checked 2026-11-04) | Yes; AI Crawl Control analytics on crawler activity, request patterns and robots.txt compliance | | Where it runs | either: sellers verify tokens in their backend, in a Cloudflare Worker, or through partner bot managers (F5, Akamai, Fastly) | edge: enforced on Cloudflare's reverse proxy, no app code needed | | Points, rank | 6 of 10, rank 6 (tied) | 8 of 10, rank 1 (tied) | | Price read 2026-11-04 | no public fee schedule found on homepage or docs index (checked 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). | ## Verdicts by reader Platform engineer You can run both: Cloudflare for identity at the edge, a Worker for Skyfire tokens. Security engineer Different trust anchors: one issuer (Skyfire) versus each operator's own keys (Web Bot Auth). Publisher operations Skyfire carries committed funds; Cloudflare pay per crawl uses its own billing. ## What each does not do ### Skyfire - Does not detect or block unsigned bots; it only issues and settles tokens that sites or bot managers must check (docs). - KYA tokens alone cannot be charged; only pay and kya-pay tokens move money (introduction docs). - No published fee schedule (homepage and docs read 2026-11-04). ### 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. More: [alternatives to Skyfire](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/skyfire/alternatives/), [alternatives to Cloudflare](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/cloudflare/alternatives/). ## Sources - [docs.skyfire.xyz: verify and extract data from tokens.md](https://docs.skyfire.xyz/docs/verify-and-extract-data-from-tokens.md) read 2026-11-04 - [skyfire.xyz: skyfire.xyz](https://skyfire.xyz/) read 2026-11-04 - [cloudflare.com: network cdn.md](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/network-cdn.md) read 2026-11-04 - [developers.cloudflare.com: verified bots](https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/concepts/bot/verified-bots/) 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 - [docs.skyfire.xyz: payments settlement.md](https://docs.skyfire.xyz/docs/payments-settlement.md) 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 - [kyapay.org: kyapay.org](https://kyapay.org/) 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 Last reviewed 2026-11-04