# DNS filtering for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "DNS filtering service" and as "DNS security solution", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Added to the November 2026 Edition. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/dns-filtering/enterprise

**Standing:** Cisco Umbrella leads with 52% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 46 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Cisco Umbrella](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cisco-umbrella/index.md) | 52% | 16% | 69 |
| 2 | [DNSFilter](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/dnsfilter/index.md) | 22% | 9% | 53 |
| 3 | [Cloudflare Gateway](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cloudflare-gateway/index.md) | 11% | 4% | 47 |
| 4 | [Cloudflare One](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cloudflare-one/index.md) | 9% | 0% | 12 |
| 5 | [Control D](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/control-d/index.md) | 7% | 4% | 26 |
| 6 | [Infoblox Threat Defense](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/infoblox-threat-defense/index.md) | 0% | 2% | 42 |
| 7 | [Palo Alto Networks DNS Security](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/palo-alto-networks-dns-security/index.md) | 0% | 7% | 14 |
| 8 | Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector | 0% | 0% | 13 |
| 9 | [Zscaler Internet Access](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/zscaler-internet-access/index.md) | 0% | 17% | 18 |
| 65 | [Quad9](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/quad9/index.md) | 0% | 56% | 16 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 66 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: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise, Cloudflare Gateway, FortiGuard DNS Filtering
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare Gateway; alternatives Cisco Secure Access, Cisco Umbrella, Infoblox Threat Defense, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security
- Perplexity Sonar: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, Infoblox Threat Defense, Zscaler Internet Access
- Grok 4.20: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, Infoblox Threat Defense, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security
- Mistral Small: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives DNSFilter
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter; alternatives Zscaler DNS Security
- Llama 4 Maverick: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cisco Secure Access, DNSFilter
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cisco Umbrella, Cloudflare One; alternatives BlueCat Address Manager, Zscaler Internet Access
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare Gateway; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, DNSFilter, Zscaler Internet Access
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives AdGuard Enterprise DNS, Cloudflare Gateway, Control D, DNSFilter
- MiniMax M2.5: DNSFilter; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Control D, Infoblox Threat Defense, SafeDNS
- GPT-6 Luna: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, Infoblox Threat Defense
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare One, Control D, DNSFilter – Luminate

## Sources the answers cite

70 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- dnsfilter.com: 45 answers, 95 citations
- powerdmarc.com: 35 answers, 37 citations
- controld.com: 26 answers, 55 citations
- itdaily.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- umbrella.cisco.com: 20 answers, 34 citations
- adguard-dns.io: 20 answers, 21 citations
- insight.tmcnet.com: 20 answers, 20 citations
- dope.security: 18 answers, 24 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://powerdmarc.com/best-dns-security-solutions (33 answers)
- https://dnsfilter.com/ (31 answers)
- https://itdaily.com/news/network/adv-best-dns-filtering-solutions-for-enterprise-networks (21 answers)
- https://adguard-dns.io/en/enterprise.html (19 answers)
- https://insight.tmcnet.com/insight/buyers-guide/categories/dns-filtering-and-protective-dns-services (18 answers)
- https://motocms.com/blog/en/best-enterprise-dns-security-tools (15 answers)
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/dns-filtering-tools (13 answers)
- https://dnsfilter.com/industry/enterprise (11 answers)
- https://dnsfilter.com/pricing (11 answers)
- https://controld.com/resources/enterprise-dns-security (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Quad9: 9 of 16 labels negative. "Services like Quad9, CleanBrowsing (free tier), and basic Cloudflare or Google DNS should be avoided for enterprise deployments" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)
- Cisco Umbrella: 11 of 69 labels negative. "What to Avoid for Predictable Costs ... Cisco Umbrella | Quote-based, per-user | Opaque pricing; complex licensing bundles" (Kimi K2, budget prompt)
- Google Public DNS: 5 of 5 labels negative. "The biggest risk for enterprises is using "public" recursive resolvers directly... sending all DNS metadata to a US-based tech giant may violate data sovereignty rules" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- DNSFilter: 5 of 53 labels negative. "User reviews for vendors like DNSFilter and WebTitan, for example, include complaints about outages, false blocks, and unresponsive support" (GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Cisco Umbrella at 52%.

- Cloudflare Gateway: 4% to 11%, +7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 4 → 3 of 66.
- Cisco Umbrella: 47% to 52%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 1 of 66, unchanged.
- Cloudflare One: 4% to 9%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 5 → 4 of 66.
- Control D: 2% to 7%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 8 → 5 of 66.
- DNSFilter: 26% to 22%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 2 of 66, unchanged.
- Infoblox Threat Defense: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 6 of 66, unchanged.
- Zscaler Internet Access: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 7 → 9 of 66.
- Palo Alto Networks DNS Security: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 13 → 7 of 66.
- Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 12 → 8 of 66.
- OpenDNS: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 61 of 66, unchanged.
- Quad9: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 66 → 65 of 66.

## Record

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