# DDoS protection for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "DDoS protection service" and as "DDoS mitigation provider", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/ddos-protection/2026-09/enterprise

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/ddos-protection/enterprise/index.md

**Standing:** Cloudflare leads with 80% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 45 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Cloudflare](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cloudflare/index.md) | 80% | 3% | 59 |
| 2 | [Akamai Prolexic](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/akamai-prolexic/index.md) | 13% | 5% | 57 |
| 3 | [Imperva DDoS Protection](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/imperva-ddos-protection/index.md) | 2% | 8% | 39 |
| 6 | [AWS Shield](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-shield/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 50 |
| 7 | [Azure DDoS Protection](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-ddos-protection/index.md) | 0% | 9% | 32 |
| 8 | [Radware Cloud DDoS Protection](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/radware-cloud-ddos-protection/index.md) | 0% | 7% | 30 |
| 9 | [NETSCOUT Arbor](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/netscout-arbor/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 10 |
| 10 | [Google Cloud Armor](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/google-cloud-armor/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 10 |
| 12 | [Fastly DDoS Protection](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/fastly-ddos-protection/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 27 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Cloudflare Magic Transit
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection
- Perplexity Sonar: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection
- Grok 4.20: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Imperva DDoS Protection
- Mistral Small: Cloudflare, Nexusguard; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, NETSCOUT Arbor, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Google Cloud Armor
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, F5
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Imperva DDoS Protection
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Imperva DDoS Protection
- MiniMax M2.5: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, F5

## Sources the answers cite

63 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- cyberpress.org: 51 answers, 57 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 44 answers, 44 citations
- flowtriq.com: 41 answers, 73 citations
- gartner.com: 28 answers, 37 citations
- cloudflare.com: 22 answers, 35 citations
- esecurityplanet.com: 21 answers, 22 citations
- best-ddos-protection-tools.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- radware.com: 20 answers, 34 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cyberpress.org/ddos-protection-services-to-consider (45 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/ddos-protection-tools (44 answers)
- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/ddos-mitigation-solutions (25 answers)
- https://best-ddos-protection-tools.com/ (21 answers)
- https://esecurityplanet.com/products/distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-protection-vendors (20 answers)
- https://flowtriq.com/blog/best-cloud-ddos-protection (18 answers)
- https://edgeone.ai/blog/details/best-ddos-mitigation-services (17 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/ddos-protection-software (17 answers)
- https://eastbaycyber.com/content/compare-best-ddos-protection-services-2026 (15 answers)
- https://cloudminister.com/blog/a-technical-comparison-of-ddos-protection-services-cloudflare-aws-shield-akamai-and-azure-ddos-protection (14 answers)

## Warned against

- AWS Shield: 5 of 50 labels negative. ""Only works with AWS" (e.g., AWS Shield) ... If you rely solely on a single cloud's DDoS service, a cloud-region problem can knock out both your application and its protection" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)
- Gcore DDoS Protection: 3 of 8 labels negative. "Providers to Avoid: ... Gcore DDoS Protection: Poor support is a recurring theme in G2 reviews" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Nexusguard: 3 of 6 labels negative. "Ranked lower in capacity, speed, and cost clarity, making it less suitable for large-scale enterprise needs" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Akamai Prolexic: 3 of 57 labels negative. "Has experienced significant incidents, including a Prolexic Routed 3.0 routing table failure (2021) and Bot Manager false positives" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.