# Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 51 judge labels across 2 categories by 14 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cisco-catalyst-sd-wan

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [SD-WAN](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/sd-wan/index.md) | 9% | 3 | 42% | 48 |
| [SASE platforms](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/sase-platforms/index.md) | 2% | 10 | 0% | 3 |

## What the models said for it

- "The strongest choices for most enterprises are Cisco Catalyst, Fortinet, HPE Aruba EdgeConnect, VMware VeloCloud, Palo Alto Prisma, Versa, Cato, and Cisco Meraki." (Perplexity Sonar, SD-WAN)
- "Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN ranks as the top SD-WAN solution as of September 2026, and it's an excellent choice for mid-market companies." (Claude Haiku 4.5, SD-WAN)
- "Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (formerly Viptela) is my top recommendation for a mid-sized B2B company." (Grok 4.20, SD-WAN)
- "Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN for the fifth consecutive year" (Muse Glimmer 30B, SD-WAN)

## And against it

- "a catastrophic certificate expiration issue affected ALL legacy Viptela customers, causing widespread network outages and business disruption" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, SD-WAN)
- "A maximum-severity flaw in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller has been exploited in the wild for years." (Claude Haiku 4.5, SD-WAN)
- "Strongly advised against by some in recent threads. It's seen as outdated or problematic" (Grok 4.20, SD-WAN)
- "Avoid or be cautious about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (Viptela)" (Mistral Small, SD-WAN)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| Grok 4.20 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, from 147 of the 156 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- g2.com: 58
- fortinet.com: 56
- cisco.com: 49 (its own site)
- reddit.com: 47
- gane.ai/index: 46
- netify.co.uk: 42
- interfacesystems.com: 36
- peerspot.com: 36
- costbench.com: 32
- guideflow.com: 30

### Pages cited

- https://ciopages.com/buyer-guides/cloud-networking-sd-wan: 29
- https://guideflow.com/blog/sd-wan-software: 29
- https://peerspot.com/categories/software-defined-wan-sd-wan-solutions: 27
- https://interfacesystems.com/blog/top-sd-wan-vendors: 26
- https://networkdevicesinc.com/community/blog/sd-wan-is-the-future-top-5-solutions-in-2024: 23
- https://g2.com/categories/sd-wan/small-business: 22
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/best-sd-wan-vendors: 21
- https://thectoclub.com/tools/best-sd-wan-solutions: 21

## In its own words

What Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's own pages state, read 2026-09-28. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: We are urgently seeking a Cisco SD WAN Engineer to lead a mission-critical Viptela to IOS-XE SD WAN migration for a Fortune 500 client. (https://talentbridge.cisco.com/job/cisco-sd-wan-engineer-56524)
- For: Fortune 500 client (https://talentbridge.cisco.com/job/cisco-sd-wan-engineer-56524)

## 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.