ALKT vs FISV: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of September 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

Reading it: FISV is the cheaper of the two on forward earnings, but cheaper is not the same as better. Pair the valuation with growth (how far the forward P/E sits below the trailing P/E) and risk (beta) before you decide.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. ALKT and FISV share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined ALKT and FISV exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Alkami Technology, Inc. sells software to the part of American banking that cannot build its own. Founded in 2009 and public since April 2021, it licenses what it now calls the Digital Sales and Service Platform: a cloud-native, multi-tenant digital banking platform for retail and business account holders, an onboarding and account-opening suite acquired with Fin Technologies, Inc. (dba MANTL) in March 2025 for about $375.5 million net of cash, and a data and marketing layer built on the 2022 Segmint acquisition, plus the ACH Alert fraud products. Contracts are multi-year subscriptions priced largely per registered user against a monthly contractual minimum, which is why management reports annual recurring revenue and revenue per registered user alongside GAAP revenue. As of June 30, 2026 the platform served 313 financial institutions and more than 1,000 clients counting those buying only one acquired product, covering 23.6 million registered users at an RPU of $21.69. The target market is the roughly 2,500 largest US institutions outside the megabanks, holding between $100 million and $450 billion in assets, and almost every platform win is a displacement of an incumbent core processor rather than a greenfield sale. Headcount was 1,225 at the end of 2025, with a growing engineering presence in India.

Full ALKT guide

Fiserv is one of the largest payments and financial-technology companies in the world. It operates broadly in two areas: merchant solutions, where it processes card and digital payments for millions of businesses and runs the Clover point-of-sale and small-business platform, and financial solutions, where it provides core account processing, card issuing, digital banking, and related technology to banks and credit unions. Most of its revenue is recurring and transaction-based, tied to the volume of payments and accounts it processes, which gives the business a steady, infrastructure-like quality. Fiserv changed its listing to the Nasdaq and reinstated its original ticker symbol FISV (from FI) in November 2025.

Full FISV guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• ALKT drivers: An open sale process with no announced buyer; ARR is compounding faster than reported revenue.
• FISV drivers: Recurring, transaction-based revenue; Clover platform growth.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: The most immediate risk is the one driving the recent price: if the sale process ends without a transaction, the deal premium embedded in a stock up ~25 percent in three months has nothing holding it up, and the company returns to being valued on growth that has decelerated from 32.9 percent in fiscal 2025 (flattered by MANTL) to a guided ~19 percent this year. For FISV, the main risk is that Fiserv's growth is modest, so slowing organic revenue growth, margin pressure, or weaker free cash flow can disappoint investors, as the 2026 share weakness showed.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick ALKT if you believe its drivers more; FISV if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the ALKT and FISV guides.

ALKT. With no GAAP earnings, the usable multiples are revenue-based. At ~$2.19 billion of equity value the stock trades near ~4.5x trailing sales and, adding $345 million of convertible notes and netting ~$81 million of cash and marketable securities, close to ~5.0x enterprise value to trailing revenue or ~4.8x ARR. On the guided adjusted EBITDA midpoint of ~$97 million that is roughly 25x enterprise value to EBITDA, which is the number a private equity buyer would be working from, and it is a materially less forgiving figure than the sales multiple implies.

FISV. Figures are approximate and tied to the asOf date; verify live numbers before acting. Fiserv is a profitable, cash-generative company, so an earnings multiple is meaningful, and the 2026 share weakness left some valuation metrics looking discounted versus its history. But the market's concern is the pace of organic growth, margins, and free-cash-flow recovery, so investors should weigh those trends and execution on internal initiatives rather than the multiple alone.

Headline figures (approximate, September 2026): ALKT shows revenue (ttm) ~$489.7 million, against ~$443.6 million in fiscal 2025, annual recurring revenue ~$511.7 million at June 30, 2026, up ~20.7% year over year, q2 2026 revenue and adjusted ebitda ~$129.8 million (+15.9%) and ~$19.4 million (14.9% margin), fy2026 guidance revenue ~$528 million to ~$531 million, adjusted EBITDA ~$96 million to ~$98 million; FISV shows revenue (q1 2026) ~$5.03 billion, down about 2% year over year, adjusted eps (q1 2026) ~$1.79, beating expectations though down year over year, gaap eps (q1 2026) ~$1.07, 2026 guidance organic revenue growth ~1% to 3%; adjusted EPS ~$8.00 to $8.30 (reaffirmed).

ALKT and FISV are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined ALKT and FISV exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.