# SD-WAN: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "SD-WAN platform" and as "software-defined WAN solution", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/sd-wan/2026-11

**Standing:** Fortinet Secure SD-WAN leads with 67% 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 | [Fortinet Secure SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/fortinet-secure-sd-wan/index.md) | 67% | 3% | 66 |
| 2 | [Cisco Meraki SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cisco-meraki-sd-wan/index.md) | 9% | 18% | 44 |
| 3 | [Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cisco-catalyst-sd-wan/index.md) | 9% | 42% | 48 |
| 4 | [Cato SASE Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cato-sase-cloud/index.md) | 2% | 4% | 26 |
| 5 | [HPE Aruba EdgeConnect](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/hpe-aruba-edgeconnect/index.md) | 2% | 9% | 32 |
| 11 | [Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/palo-alto-networks-prisma-sd-wan/index.md) | 0% | 23% | 43 |
| 12 | [Versa Secure SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/versa-secure-sd-wan/index.md) | 0% | 21% | 24 |
| 58 | [VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/vmware-velocloud-sd-wan/index.md) | 0% | 38% | 37 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 78 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: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN, Versa Secure SD-WAN
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Aryaka Managed SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN
- Perplexity Sonar: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
- Grok 4.20: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN
- Mistral Small: FatPipe SD-WAN; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, Cisco vManage, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect
- Llama 4 Maverick: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Aryaka, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives AT&T Connect, Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, MetTel
- Kimi K2: Cisco Meraki SD-WAN; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, Fortinet Secure SD-WAN, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Aryaka, Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
- MiniMax M2.5: Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, FatPipe SD-WAN
- GPT-6 Luna: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, Fortinet Secure SD-WAN
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN; alternatives Cato SASE Cloud, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, FatPipe SD-WAN, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect

## Sources the answers cite

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

- reddit.com: 27 answers, 54 citations
- fortinet.com: 22 answers, 50 citations
- cisco.com: 20 answers, 34 citations
- ciopages.com: 19 answers, 19 citations
- peerspot.com: 18 answers, 24 citations
- g2.com: 17 answers, 21 citations
- interfacesystems.com: 16 answers, 18 citations
- costbench.com: 14 answers, 18 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://ciopages.com/buyer-guides/cloud-networking-sd-wan (19 answers)
- https://peerspot.com/categories/software-defined-wan-sd-wan-solutions (15 answers)
- https://gane.ai/index/it/network/sd-wan (14 answers)
- https://em360tech.com/top-10/SD-WAN-Providers (13 answers)
- https://zenarmor.com/docs/network-security-tutorials/top-sd-wan-vendors (12 answers)
- https://costbench.com/best/sd-wan-for-mid-market (11 answers)
- https://interfacesystems.com/blog/top-sd-wan-vendors (11 answers)
- https://networkdevicesinc.com/community/blog/sd-wan-is-the-future-top-5-solutions-in-2024 (11 answers)
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/best-sd-wan-vendors (10 answers)
- https://reddit.com/r/networking/comments/1j9npqo/whats_the_sdwan_vendor_of_choice_these_days (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN: 20 of 48 labels negative. "a catastrophic certificate expiration issue affected ALL legacy Viptela customers, causing widespread network outages and business disruption" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN: 14 of 37 labels negative. "Avoid: Any proprietary software from Broadcom that isn't officially supported or migrated to a new vendor (like Arista)." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN: 10 of 43 labels negative. "Multiple reports of immaturity, frequent bugs, unreliable SASE connectivity, poor knowledge base (KB), and unhelpful TAC" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Cisco Meraki SD-WAN: 8 of 44 labels negative. "criticized for weak traditional routing features... Better for smaller or cloud-heavy setups." (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Fortinet Secure SD-WAN at 67%.

- Fortinet Secure SD-WAN: 50% to 67%, +17. Cleared the floor by 6 points · rank 1 of 78, unchanged.
- Cisco Meraki SD-WAN: 19% to 9%, −10. Inside the floor by 1 point · rank 2 of 78, unchanged.
- Cato SASE Cloud: 6% to 2%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 4 of 78, unchanged.
- VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN: 4% to 0%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 6 → 58 of 78.
- HPE Aruba EdgeConnect: 4% to 2%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 5 of 78, unchanged.
- FatPipe SD-WAN: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 15 → 6 of 78.
- Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 8 → 11 of 78.
- Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN: 10% to 9%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 3 of 78, unchanged.
- Versa Secure SD-WAN: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 10 → 12 of 78.
- Cisco: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 11 → 13 of 78.

## 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.