Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| Meta Platforms | Applied Digital | Nebius Group | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow The FY2025 10-K shows a real moat — 3.58 billion Family daily active people (December 2025 average, +7% YoY) and a 52% Family of Apps operating margin — but the same filing qualifies its durability on three fronts it discloses itself: it says "We face significant competition in every aspect of our business"; it names "competitive products and services, such as TikTok, that have reduced some users' engagement with our products and services"; and it discloses that since 2020 it has been "subject to a lawsuit by the FTC alleging that we violated antitrust laws" that "seeks ... divestiture or reconstruction of Instagram and WhatsApp." A moat a regulator is actively litigating to break up, and whose ad targeting depends on iOS/Android policies Meta does not set, reads narrow rather than wide. | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-07-29) shows contracted revenue, not a demonstrated competitive edge. About 1,410 MW is leased under 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable base terms worth about $36.2 billion, but only about 100 MW of the roughly 1.5 GW that is contracted and either operating or under construction was operating and earning revenue at May 31, 2026, and Item 1A says "lessees may have the right to terminate applicable leases if there are significant delays in construction." Item 1A also concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time," and the Competition section names 13 power-advantaged developers the company competes with. Signed leases give revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable advantage. | narrow The FY2025 20-F positions Nebius as 'one of the few global, at scale, multi-tenant clouds purpose built for AI,' but the same filing names its central dependency plainly: 'We currently rely on Nvidia for the GPU chips we use' — a purpose-built neocloud renting a supply the hyperscalers it competes with also control, which is a real but narrow position. |
| Moat type | network effects The 10-K Competition section describes a three-sided network in Meta's own words: it competes "to attract, engage, and retain people who use our products, to attract and retain businesses that use our free or paid business and advertising services, and to attract and retain developers who build compelling applications that integrate with our products," and elsewhere cites "the scale of our user, advertiser, and developer base." The same filing rules out an IP-based moat: "We do not believe that our proprietary technology is dependent on any single patent or copyright or groups of related patents or copyrights." | none The 10-K claims three advantages: power-advantaged sites (it believes securing power and interconnection ahead of demand is 'the principal constraint on new HPC capacity and a core differentiator for us from many of our competitors'), a standardized 'franchise-style' design, and hyperscaler master service and master telecom service agreements 'that are difficult to obtain.' The filing does not show any of them to be durable. Its Competition section says competition 'centers on securing and developing sites with access to large-scale, reliable, and cost-competitive power and interconnection' and names 13 power-advantaged developers going after the same leases, and Item 1A concedes it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases are take-or-pay and non-cancellable, so a tenant leaving for convenience owes 'the full remaining contractual value,' but that is contractual lock-in on each lease rather than a moat source, so no moat type is assigned. | cost scale The moat the filing describes is engineering: designs that 'optimize power and cooling efficiency, lower latency' plus 'a consistent track record of being one of the first-to-deploy the latest generation of NVIDIA GPU chips' — density and time-to-deploy at scale, not a switching lock. |
| Leadership | co leader Top-tier but shared: the 10-K reports 3.58 billion Family daily active people and $196.18 billion of 2025 advertising revenue, yet also states that TikTok has "reduced some users' engagement," that "each of Apple and Google have integrated competitive products with iOS and Android," and that Meta competes "with companies in the development and application of AI, particularly with respect to the development of frontier AI models." | behind The 10-K makes no leadership claim and gives no ranking or share figure. Item 1A concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time" and that some rivals have "substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than we do." Its Competition section places APLD against established operators (Digital Realty, Equinix), hyperscalers that build their own capacity, independent developers and 13 named power-advantaged developers (IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, Riot, CleanSpark, HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Galaxy Digital, Fermi, Keel Infrastructure, MARA). | fast follower The 20-F's own claim is 'one of the FEW global, at scale' AI clouds — a differentiated challenger to the hyperscalers it names as the competitive field, not a claimed leader of it; the first-to-deploy record is a follower's speed advantage, not category leadership. |
| Pricing power | strong Ad-auction pricing, not list prices: the 10-K reports "the average price per ad increased by 9%" in 2025 after "an increase of 10% in 2024," driven by "an increase in advertising demand," alongside worldwide ARPP of $57.03 (+15%) and a 52% Family of Apps operating margin. The filing notes the gain was "partially offset by a higher number of ad impressions delivered ... in products, such as Reels, that monetize at lower rates." | weak Item 1A says "Due to the limited number of hyperscalers, we expect that a limited number of customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenue for the foreseeable future," and that if customers' equipment usage declines or they discontinue use of its facilities, APLD "may be compelled to lower our lease prices in some instances or risk losing a significant customer." One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. Take-or-pay, non-cancellable terms protect contracted revenue over the base term, and Note 19 reports a $39.1M HPC Hosting segment profit on $385.3M of segment revenue in FY2026, but those terms are agreed with a small group of concentrated buyers. | weak The filing frames a 'highly competitive' market with 'frequent introduction of new or improved solutions' and a GPU cost base set by a single supplier (NVIDIA) — a renter of compute competing on efficiency has little list-price control. |
| Summary | Meta's advantage is the size of the user-advertiser-developer network it monetizes, not proprietary technology: 3.58 billion daily active people across the Family of Apps produced $196.18 billion of 2025 advertising revenue at a 52% segment operating margin, and the 10-K attributes 2025's 9% rise in average price per ad to "an increase in advertising demand, which we believe is mostly due to ongoing improvements to our ad performance from our ad targeting and measurement tools." The filing is equally explicit about what limits that network: TikTok has "reduced some users' engagement," Apple's iOS changes "limit our ability ... to target and measure ads effectively," the April 2025 European Commission decision against its "subscription for no ads" model pushed EU users onto less personalized ads that are "less relevant and effective," and the FTC is seeking divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp. Reality Labs, the intended next platform, lost $19.19 billion in 2025 on $2.21 billion of revenue and is expected "to continue to operate at a loss for the foreseeable future." | Applied Digital designs, builds and operates purpose-built, liquid-cooled HPC data centers, which it calls 'AI factories', and leases the capacity to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. At May 31, 2026 its 10-K lists five campuses (Polaris Forge 1-3 and Delta Forge 1-2) with about 1,410 MW contracted under roughly 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable leases worth about $36.2 billion over the base terms. The filing claims three sources of advantage: it controls power-advantaged sites, it uses a standardized 'franchise-style' design built to deliver about 150 MW in about 14 to 18 months, and it holds hyperscaler master agreements that are 'difficult to obtain.' The same document shows how early the company is. About 100 MW was operating and earning revenue. One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. It competes with Digital Realty, Equinix, hyperscalers that build their own capacity and 13 named power-advantaged developers, and it concedes that it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases give long-dated revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable competitive advantage. | Nebius sells a 'unified full-stack AI cloud that spans the complete AI journey – from compute capacity to software and services,' with hardware and software built in-house — the neocloud pitch of hyperscaler reliability at purpose-built efficiency, and a first-to-deploy record on new NVIDIA silicon. Two things bound the moat, both from the filing: it 'currently rel[ies] on Nvidia for the GPU chips,' the same constraint every neocloud shares, and it is a Nasdaq 'Controlled Company' whose founding shareholder holds concentrated voting power. The three non-core segments (Toloka, Avride, TripleTen) are separate businesses, not the cloud moat. |
| Chain position | Demand-side anchor of the AI build-out: the 10-K reports $72.22 billion of 2025 capital expenditures and says Meta has "designed and built our own data centers and key portions of our technical infrastructure," funded entirely by the advertising business. | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Layer-8 neocloud — a purpose-built AI compute provider reselling NVIDIA silicon at scale. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.17 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.01 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |