--- title: "Alternatives to Vercel | Agent Ready Crawlers" description: "Alternatives to Vercel: 14 bot management and agent identity vendors on one rubric, with the sourced difference for each head-to-head. Read 2026-11-04." canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/vercel-botid/alternatives site: "Agent Ready Crawlers" last_updated: 2026-11-04 section: "Vendors" --- # Alternatives to Vercel | Agent Ready Crawlers > Alternatives to Vercel: 14 bot management and agent identity vendors on one rubric, with the sourced difference for each head-to-head. Read 2026-11-04. Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/vercel-botid/alternatives Site: Agent Ready Crawlers Last reviewed: 2026-11-04 # Alternatives to Vercel In short Vercel shares sixth place on 6 of 10 points with Skyfire and TollBit, and five head-to-head pages compare it with Arcjet, Cloudflare, Netlify, Kasada and AWS WAF Bot Control. The basic BotID tier is free, and Vercel's docs read offer no way to charge AI crawlers. ## Head-to-head, with the sourced difference - [**Vercel vs Arcjet**](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/arcjet-vs-vercel-botid/). Arcjet verifies known bots by IP and reverse DNS inside application code through its SDK; Vercel verifies by IP, reverse DNS and Web Bot Auth at its edge and splits AI crawlers from AI assistants in a managed ruleset since 2026-10-29. [Source](https://vercel.com/changelog/block-ai-crawlers-and-assistants-independently-with-managed-rules), read 2026-11-04. - [**Vercel vs Cloudflare**](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/cloudflare-vs-vercel-botid/). 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. - [**Vercel vs Netlify**](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/vercel-botid-vs-netlify/). Vercel verifies bots by IP, reverse DNS and Web Bot Auth; Netlify's AI bot control is a User Agent Blocker extension that matches strings only and can be active on one project at a time. [Source](https://docs.netlify.com/build/build-with-ai/block-ai-crawlers), read 2026-11-04. - [**Vercel vs Kasada**](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/kasada-vs-vercel-botid/). Kasada powers Vercel BotID Deep Analysis, sold by Vercel at USD 1 per 1,000 checkBotId() calls on Pro; Kasada itself is sales-led and adds an AI agent directory and edge policies. [Source](https://vercel.com/docs/botid), read 2026-11-04. - [**Vercel vs AWS WAF Bot Control**](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/compare/vercel-botid-vs-aws-waf-bot-control/). Vercel splits AI crawlers from AI assistants on all plans for free; AWS WAF labels bots by category and name and can charge them, at USD 10 a month per web ACL plus request fees. [Source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-bot-control.html), read 2026-11-04. ## All other vendors on the rubric "Stronger" and "weaker" compare each vendor's grade with Vercel's on the five graded questions. Cost is quoted as read on 2026-11-04. | Vendor | Points | Stronger than Vercel on | Weaker on | Cost | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Akamai | 8 | charging, commerce agents | per-purpose policy | No public price; sales-led | | AWS WAF Bot Control | 8 | charging | nothing | USD 10/month per web ACL plus USD 1 or USD 10 per million requests after free allowance | | Cloudflare | 8 | charging, commerce agents | nothing | Free tier covers AI Crawl Control; Pro from USD 20/month; Bot Management and BotBase are Enterprise and sales-led | | DataDome | 8 | charging, commerce agents | per-purpose policy | From USD 3,830/month | | HUMAN Security | 7 | charging | nothing | No public price; sales-led | | Skyfire | 6 | charging, commerce agents | per-purpose policy, reporting | Not published (checked 2026-11-04) | | TollBit | 6 | charging | verifies agents, per-purpose policy | Free for publishers to start | | Kasada | 5 | nothing | per-purpose policy | No public price; sales-led | | Fastly | 4 | charging, commerce agents | verifies agents, per-purpose policy, reporting | No public price; sales-led | | Arcjet | 3 | nothing | verifies agents, per-purpose policy, reporting | From USD 25/month plus USD 5 per 1M web requests | | Auth0 for AI Agents | 3 | commerce agents | verifies agents, per-purpose policy, reporting | AI Agents add-on at 50 percent of base plan, from USD 18/month; free plan (checked 2026-11-05) | | Imperva | 3 | nothing | verifies agents, per-purpose policy | No public price; sales-led | | Stytch IsAgent | 2 | nothing | verifies agents, per-purpose policy, reporting | IsAgent free to 10,000 calls/month; fingerprints USD 0.005 each beyond 10,000 | | Netlify | 1 | nothing | verifies agents, per-purpose policy, reporting | Platform plans from USD 0; extension price not stated | ## Where Vercel is not the fit - 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). ## Sources - [vercel.com: botid](https://vercel.com/docs/botid) read 2026-11-04 - [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 - [docs.netlify.com: block ai crawlers](https://docs.netlify.com/build/build-with-ai/block-ai-crawlers) read 2026-11-04 - [docs.aws.amazon.com: waf bot control](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-bot-control.html) read 2026-11-04 - [akamai.com: akamai unveils agentic security framework to power trusted ai driven interactions and commerce](https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/akamai-unveils-agentic-security-framework-to-power-trusted-ai-driven-interactions-and-commerce) read 2026-11-04 - [aws.amazon.com: pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/waf/pricing/) read 2026-11-04 - [cloudflare.com: network cdn.md](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/network-cdn.md) read 2026-11-04 - [datadome.co: pricing](https://datadome.co/pricing/) read 2026-11-04 - [humansecurity.com: package plans](https://www.humansecurity.com/platform/package-plans) read 2026-11-04 - [skyfire.xyz: skyfire.xyz](https://skyfire.xyz/) read 2026-11-04 - [tollbit.com: tollbit.com](https://tollbit.com/) read 2026-11-04 - [kasada.io: kasada.io](https://www.kasada.io/) read 2026-11-04 Last reviewed 2026-11-04