Portnox Cloud vs NordLayer NAC
Ten of fourteen models named Portnox Cloud first on the direct prompt; zero named NordLayer NAC. Portnox Cloud was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and NordLayer NAC by ten and Portnox Cloud carries 48 labels and NordLayer NAC 18, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in one category this edition.
NordLayer NAC
accepted challengerNamed in one category this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the network access control page.
By framing
Portnox CloudFirst choices, of fourteen modelsNordLayer NACAcross every category in the November 2026 Edition, Portnox Cloud and NordLayer NAC were named in the same answer thirty-eight times, of the 151 answers naming Portnox Cloud and the 52 naming NordLayer NAC. In those answers NordLayer NAC took the first choice two times and Portnox Cloud twenty-three.
Every model, every framing
| Model | DirectNN | ParaphraseNN | ComparativeNN | Budget-constrainedNN | Scale-constrainedNN | NegativeNN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | |||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | ||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | ||
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | ||
| Grok 4.20 | | | NN | NN | | |
| Mistral Small | NN | | NN | NN | ||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | NN | | NN | |||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | NN | ||||
| Kimi K2 | | | NN | | ||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | NN | | NN | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | NN | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | ||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | |
Portnox CloudNN NordLayer NAC first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Portnox Cloud on the left and NordLayer NAC on the right.The direct prompt
Portnox Cloud first, NordLayer NAC an alternative
10 of 14 modelsNordLayer NAC was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
1 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Portnox Cloud41%#1 of 11Portnox Cloud46%#1 of 10Portnox Cloud18%#2 of 7What the models said about Portnox Cloud
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of five in this category shown.
“Portnox has raised several security and usability concerns... Unencrypted RADIUS traffic” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“Portnox Cloud appears to be the best overall choice based on its high rating, cloud-native architecture, strong ROI metrics” MiniMax M2.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“Portnox and OPSWAT MetaAccess are the top picks due to their cloud-native approach, ease of use, and scalability” Mistral Small · direct prompt · first choice
“Portnox Cloud — The clear front-runner for mid-market. SaaS, agentless, published pricing, deploys in days” DeepSeek V4 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
What the models said about NordLayer NAC
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of four in this category shown.
“Cloud-Native SaaS | Portnox, NordLayer, Mist (Juniper) | "Set it and forget it." Lower OpEx, easier to manage” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“For the most budget-conscious organizations, NordLayer and PacketFence are the best choices.” Mistral Small · budget prompt · first choice
“Combines NAC-like access control with VPN and threat protection in a user-friendly cloud platform” Grok 4.20 · budget prompt · alternative
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.