Overview
WAF dominates; antibot and CAPTCHA lead the active-defence stack
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.4% |
| Antibot | 21% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.5% |
| JavaScript | 42.2% |
| Rate Limiting | 14% |
| TLS | 17.8% |
Near-universal WAF coverage reflects CDN-bundled defaults rather than deliberate configuration. The active-defence layers that require operator intent — antibot and CAPTCHA — are the region's standout barriers, pointing to deliberate investment in bot control concentrated in the region's large e-commerce, financial, and media verticals.
Mean recommended tier: 2.7 — between Easy and Moderate
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 2.7 |
The regional mean sits between tier 2 (headless browser) and tier 3 (fingerprint management), pulled toward the upper end by a sizeable share of sites requiring advanced evasion. Finance, media, and retail verticals — well-represented in the region's URL sample — are the main driver, as these sectors attract high volumes of automated access and respond with commensurately stronger defences.
US and Canadian sites employ more barriers than anywhere else in the region
| Mean barriers per site | |
|---|---|
| Anguilla | 2.04 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | 2.16 |
| Aruba | 2.13 |
| Bahamas | 2.16 |
| Barbados | 2.14 |
| Belize | 2.12 |
| Bermuda | 2.08 |
| British Virgin Islands | 2.15 |
| Canada | 2.14 |
| Cayman Islands | 2.20 |
| Costa Rica | 2.14 |
| Curaçao | 2.14 |
| Dominica | 2.04 |
| Dominican Republic | 2.14 |
| El Salvador | 2.11 |
| Greenland | 2.09 |
| Grenada | 2.11 |
| Guatemala | 2.13 |
| Haiti | 2.06 |
| Honduras | 2.09 |
| Jamaica | 2.13 |
| Mexico | 2.09 |
| Montserrat | 2.07 |
| Nicaragua | 2.11 |
| Panama | 2.15 |
| Puerto Rico | 2.15 |
| Saint Barthélemy | 2.01 |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | 2.14 |
| Saint Lucia | 2.15 |
| Saint Martin | 2.04 |
| Saint Pierre-Miquelon | 2.08 |
| Saint Vincent | 2.09 |
| Sint Maarten | 2.15 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 2.16 |
| Turks and Caicos | 2.18 |
| United States | 2.16 |
| US Virgin Islands | 2.14 |
The North American commercial web shows wider variation in mean barrier count than the regional figure alone suggests. Large English-language markets in the US and Canada host high proportions of bot-targeted verticals — retail, finance, news — pulling their mean barrier count well above the regional mid-point. Central American and Caribbean markets trend lighter, reflecting a web with fewer large-scale commercial deployments relative to their survey sample.
Just over half of North American sites are accessible at tier 2 or below
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 17.4% |
| 2 - Easy | 33.9% |
| 3 - Moderate | 20.7% |
| 4 - Complex | 17.4% |
| 5 - Advanced | 10.6% |
On recommended infrastructure — whichever of HTTP-only or headless browser demands more — just over half of North American sites resolve at tier 2 or below. The remaining sites require moderate to advanced evasion. The combined tier 4 and tier 5 share is notable — around one in four sites requires complex or advanced access techniques, driven by the concentration of high-value, bot-targeted platforms in the US market.
Barrier Adoption
Antibot and rate limiting are the standout active-defence layers in the region
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.4% |
| Antibot | 21% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.5% |
| JavaScript | 42.2% |
| Rate Limiting | 14% |
| TLS | 17.8% |
| robots.txt | 84.2% |
| Blocks AI | 14.6% |
WAF coverage and robots.txt publication are near-universal — both delivered passively through CDN and hosting defaults. The active-defence layers that require deliberate operator configuration tell a different story: antibot and rate limiting are both notably higher than the region's passive baseline would imply, pointing to significant investment in explicit bot-control tooling. AI crawler blocking at 15% reflects the region's concentration of media and content platforms that have adopted explicit AI training-data restrictions in their access policies.
Country Detail
Central American and Caribbean markets show sparser active-defence deployment
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anguilla | 93.6% | 21.6% | 24.1% | 40.8% | 11.3% | 16.4% | 85.8% | 15.4% | Tier 2 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | 94.1% | 20.2% | 24.2% | 46.1% | 14.7% | 19.6% | 84.6% | 15.4% | Tier 2 |
| Aruba | 93.1% | 21.7% | 25.7% | 43.2% | 14.3% | 18.2% | 84.9% | 15.1% | Tier 2 |
| Bahamas | 92.9% | 22.5% | 22.5% | 47.5% | 16.2% | 18.1% | 82.6% | 13.6% | Tier 2 |
| Barbados | 92.7% | 23.2% | 24.9% | 43.5% | 14.3% | 18.9% | 84.7% | 14.1% | Tier 2 |
| Belize | 91.7% | 21.5% | 25.1% | 45.9% | 14.7% | 17.5% | 81.9% | 15.1% | Tier 2 |
| Bermuda | 93% | 18.8% | 23.6% | 44.2% | 14.6% | 17.5% | 83% | 14.8% | Tier 2 |
| British Virgin Islands | 93% | 22.6% | 23.9% | 47.2% | 15.3% | 17.2% | 86.2% | 15% | Tier 2 |
| Canada | 92.9% | 22.7% | 21.8% | 47.8% | 13.9% | 18.9% | 82.8% | 14% | Tier 2 |
| Caribbean Netherlands | 94.2% | — | — | — | — | — | 84.7% | 14.4% | Tier 2 |
| Cayman Islands | 94.5% | 23.3% | 26.3% | 45% | 14.4% | 19.4% | 85.8% | 14.5% | Tier 2 |
| Costa Rica | 93% | 22% | 22.6% | 48.2% | 14.1% | 18.3% | 82.3% | 13.9% | Tier 2 |
| Curaçao | 95.1% | 21% | 23.3% | 46% | 14.7% | 17% | 84.7% | 15.2% | Tier 2 |
| Dominica | 93.3% | 19.9% | 21.6% | 42.5% | 13% | 16.7% | 86.8% | 14.2% | Tier 2 |
| Dominican Republic | 93.5% | 21.8% | 21.8% | 48.1% | 14.3% | 18.5% | 84% | 14% | Tier 2 |
| El Salvador | 93.9% | 19.4% | 23% | 47.5% | 12.5% | 18.5% | 85.7% | 15.3% | Tier 2 |
| Greenland | 94.5% | 16.5% | 25.3% | 48.7% | 12.4% | 15.2% | 87.1% | 15.9% | Tier 1 |
| Grenada | 92.8% | 20.9% | 23.8% | 44.5% | 13.7% | 19% | 85.8% | 14.6% | Tier 2 |
| Guadeloupe | 93.6% | — | — | — | — | — | 83.7% | 12% | Tier 2 |
| Guatemala | 93.4% | 21.3% | 22.8% | 48.1% | 13.9% | 17.9% | 83.2% | 14% | Tier 2 |
| Haiti | 92.7% | 19.6% | 22.6% | 43% | 13.8% | 17.4% | 83.9% | 16.1% | Tier 2 |
| Honduras | 92.8% | 20.6% | 22.7% | 45.9% | 13.7% | 17.3% | 83.4% | 14% | Tier 2 |
| Jamaica | 92% | 22.6% | 22.8% | 46.9% | 14.7% | 18% | 82.1% | 13% | Tier 2 |
| Martinique | 92.3% | — | — | — | — | — | 82.9% | 13.6% | Tier 2 |
| Mexico | 92.5% | 20.7% | 20.6% | 47.5% | 13.9% | 18.3% | 82% | 13.4% | Tier 2 |
| Montserrat | 93.6% | 16.2% | 23% | 48.9% | 11.3% | 18.6% | 86.8% | 20.6% | Tier 2 |
| Nicaragua | 93.9% | 20.3% | 22.1% | 46% | 14.4% | 17.8% | 84.3% | 15% | Tier 2 |
| Panama | 93.1% | 21.9% | 23.8% | 47.4% | 14.1% | 18.4% | 83.4% | 14% | Tier 2 |
| Puerto Rico | 92.7% | 22.7% | 22.9% | 47.5% | 16% | 17.8% | 81.7% | 13.7% | Tier 2 |
| Saint Barthélemy | 92.4% | 16.6% | 28.9% | 41.2% | 10.5% | 15.2% | 83.8% | 14.4% | Tier 1 |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | 94.7% | 22.6% | 24.3% | 44% | 14% | 16.9% | 86.2% | 14.5% | Tier 2 |
| Saint Lucia | 93.8% | 21.9% | 25% | 46.3% | 13.9% | 18.9% | 86% | 14.6% | Tier 2 |
| Saint Martin | 93.6% | 18.6% | 21.7% | 42.9% | 14.6% | 15.5% | 84.5% | 16.1% | Tier 2 |
| Saint Pierre-Miquelon | 96.6% | 17.3% | 28.2% | 46.2% | 10.2% | 12.9% | 85% | 22.1% | Tier 2 |
| Saint Vincent | 94.4% | 20.8% | 25.6% | 42.2% | 13.2% | 15.8% | 86.8% | 15.9% | Tier 2 |
| Sint Maarten | 94.5% | 21.1% | 23.5% | 47.5% | 14.8% | 16.5% | 86% | 15.5% | Tier 2 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 94.2% | 21.7% | 23.5% | 46.2% | 13.8% | 19.9% | 85.3% | 14.3% | Tier 2 |
| Turks and Caicos | 93.6% | 23.6% | 25.7% | 44.4% | 15.8% | 18.9% | 83.4% | 16.3% | Tier 2 |
| United States | 93.2% | 23% | 22.3% | 47.5% | 14.9% | 18.9% | 83.1% | 13.2% | Tier 2 |
| US Virgin Islands | 93.7% | 20.6% | 24.8% | 45.3% | 15.1% | 18.3% | 83.5% | 14.2% | Tier 2 |
Each row is one country; each column is one access barrier or policy metric. Colour intensity reflects adoption rate — darker means higher. The Tier column shows the median recommended Zyte tier for sites in that country: green circles indicate tier 1 (HTTP-only access typically sufficient), blue circles tier 2 (headless browser generally required).