# Next-generation firewalls for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "next-generation firewall" and as "enterprise firewall appliance or virtual firewall", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/next-generation-firewalls/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This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since.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/next-generation-firewalls/enterprise/index.md

**Standing:** Palo Alto Networks NGFW leads with 48% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 54 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Palo Alto Networks NGFW](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/palo-alto-networks-ngfw/index.md) | 48% | 19% | 62 |
| 2 | [Fortinet FortiGate](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/fortinet-fortigate/index.md) | 41% | 8% | 62 |
| 3 | [Cisco Secure Firewall](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cisco-secure-firewall/index.md) | 4% | 17% | 53 |
| 8 | [Check Point Quantum](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/check-point-quantum/index.md) | 0% | 9% | 47 |
| 9 | [Juniper SRX Series](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/juniper-srx-series/index.md) | 0% | 9% | 11 |
| 10 | [Sophos Firewall](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/sophos-firewall/index.md) | 0% | 27% | 15 |
| 11 | [Barracuda CloudGen Firewall](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/barracuda-cloudgen-firewall/index.md) | 0% | 20% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 52 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: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Fortinet FortiGate
- GPT-5.4 mini: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Fortinet FortiGate
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall
- Perplexity Sonar: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Fortinet FortiGate
- Grok 4.20: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate
- Mistral Small: Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos Firewall
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall
- Llama 4 Maverick: Fortinet FortiGate; alternatives Palo Alto Networks NGFW
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate
- Kimi K2: Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate
- MiniMax M2.5: Palo Alto Networks NGFW; alternatives Check Point Quantum, Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate, Juniper SRX Series

## Sources the answers cite

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

- fortinet.com: 39 answers, 66 citations
- checkpoint.com: 32 answers, 53 citations
- decryptiondigest.com: 32 answers, 48 citations
- paloaltonetworks.com: 29 answers, 41 citations
- comparitech.com: 27 answers, 29 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 26 answers, 29 citations
- esecurityplanet.com: 26 answers, 29 citations
- cyberpress.org: 18 answers, 19 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/next-gen-firewalls (26 answers)
- https://esecurityplanet.com/products/top-ngfw (26 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/best-next-generation-firewall (25 answers)
- https://decryptiondigest.com/blog/enterprise-ngfw-comparison-2026 (25 answers)
- https://checkpoint.com/comparison/top-4-ngfw-compared (17 answers)
- https://cyberpress.org/best-next-generation-firewall-ngfw-solutions-for-every-business-size (15 answers)
- https://cybervendorguide.com/guides/firewall-ngfw/enterprise-ngfw (14 answers)
- https://tech-insider.org/palo-alto-vs-fortinet-vs-check-point-2026 (14 answers)
- https://expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-network-firewalls (13 answers)
- https://gbhackers.com/ngfw-solutions-compared-features-pricing (13 answers)

## Warned against

- Cisco Secure Firewall: 9 of 53 labels negative. "Challenger | Good legacy integration, but trails leaders in advanced threat protection and cloud-native scaling" (MiniMax M2.5, paraphrase prompt)
- Palo Alto Networks NGFW: 12 of 62 labels negative. "Avoid or be very cautious about Palo Alto Networks (due to critical, actively exploited bugs and frequent disruptive updates)" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Fortinet FortiGate: 5 of 62 labels negative. "Fortinet (due to very high vulnerability frequency)" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Huawei NGFW: 4 of 8 labels negative. "Verdict: Do not deploy in any Western enterprise or government-adjacent environment." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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.