# Segment: Mid-market # IT AI Recommendation Index, run mai-20260918-0021-calibration_b 72 prompts, 12 models, 5,011 raw judge labels, 5,055 scored labels after normalization. Published weights: first choice +3, alternative +2, mention +1, soft negative -2, hard negative -3. Scored under vendor alias table version 2026-10.8. Raw judge labels are the permanent record; the numbers below are derived from them and are regenerated for every run whenever the alias table changes, so the whole series is always scored under one table version. Resolution of raw names: 4,120 by alias or canonical name, 639 by category-scoped alias, 94 from combined answers split into their products, 19 from combined answers counted once for their first product, 0 excluded by rule, 178 unresolved and counted under the raw name. ## Paraphrase stability Share of categories where a model's first choice set on the direct prompt equals its set on the paraphrase. | Model | Same | Different | Stability | |---|---|---|---| | Claude Haiku 4.5 | 2 | 10 | 17% | | GPT-5.4 mini | 7 | 5 | 58% | | Gemini 3.5 Flash | 7 | 5 | 58% | | Perplexity Sonar | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Grok 4.1 Fast | 9 | 3 | 75% | | Mistral Small | 4 | 8 | 33% | | DeepSeek V4 Flash | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Llama 4 Maverick | 3 | 9 | 25% | | Qwen 3.7 Flash | 7 | 5 | 58% | | Kimi K2 | 5 | 7 | 42% | | GLM 4.7 FlashX | 6 | 6 | 50% | | MiniMax M2.5 | 3 | 9 | 25% | A looser measure, whether a direct first choice survives as a first choice or alternative on the paraphrase, is in the appendix. ## Standing by category First choice share across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts and all 12 models. The top product's share is published alongside the label: contested means the top share is at or below 40%, and a category just above the line is not meaningfully different from one just below it. Consensus means every model's direct-prompt first choice is the same single product. | Category | Top product | Top share | First choices | Status | |---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 71% | 41 | consensus | | api-management | Kong Gateway | 43% | 46 | clear leader | | application-performance-monitoring | New Relic | 57% | 44 | clear leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veeam Data Platform | 41% | 44 | clear leader | | business-password-managers | 1Password | 50% | 48 | clear leader | | cloud-cost-management | Vantage | 49% | 47 | clear leader | | compliance-automation | Drata | 34% | 53 | contested | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 84% | 43 | clear leader | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Auth0 | 32% | 50 | contested | | data-warehouses | Snowflake | 57% | 44 | clear leader | | etl-and-elt | Fivetran | 31% | 42 | contested | | sase-platforms | Cloudflare One | 26% | 47 | contested | **ai-coding-assistants**: GitHub Copilot 71%, Windsurf 15%, Cline 7%, Cursor 5%, Roo Code 2% **api-management**: Kong Gateway 43%, Zuplo 15%, Tyk 9%, Gravitee 7%, Azure API Management 4% **application-performance-monitoring**: New Relic 57%, Datadog APM 14%, SigNoz 7%, Honeycomb 5%, SolarWinds AppOptics 5% **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Veeam Data Platform 41%, IDrive Business 18%, Acronis Cyber Protect 11%, Druva Data Security Cloud 9%, Veeam Backup & Replication 5% **business-password-managers**: 1Password 50%, Bitwarden 40%, RoboForm 4%, Dashlane 2%, Keeper Security 2% **cloud-cost-management**: Vantage 49%, CloudZero 17%, AWS Cost Explorer 11%, Microsoft Cost Management 6%, Google Cloud Billing 4% **compliance-automation**: Drata 34%, Vanta 25%, LowerPlane 9%, CATAAM 8%, Secureframe 6% **content-delivery-networks**: Cloudflare 84%, Bunny.net 12%, Amazon CloudFront 2%, Cloudflare's free plan 2% **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Auth0 32%, Frontegg 18%, WorkOS 10%, Amazon Cognito 6%, Clerk 6% **data-warehouses**: Snowflake 57%, Google BigQuery 39%, ClickHouse Cloud 2%, Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse 2% **etl-and-elt**: Fivetran 31%, Airbyte 29%, Integrate.io 19%, Hevo Data 14%, Skyvia 5% **sase-platforms**: Cloudflare One 26%, Cato Networks 23%, Cato SASE Cloud 17%, Cisco Umbrella 13%, Check Point Harmony SASE 6% ## Anti-recommendations Products most often labeled soft or hard negative, with the number of models that did so at least once in the category, and the share of that product's labels in the category that were negative. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning; a low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment. - **ai-coding-assistants**: Cursor (7 models; 9 of 50 labels negative), GitHub Copilot (6 models, 1 hard; 7 of 67 labels negative), Amazon Q Developer (4 models; 5 of 34 labels negative), ChatGPT (3 models, 1 hard; 3 of 3 labels negative) - **api-management**: Apigee (9 models, 6 hard; 18 of 51 labels negative), MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (7 models, 5 hard; 17 of 38 labels negative), Kong Gateway (7 models, 1 hard; 10 of 61 labels negative), Amazon API Gateway (6 models, 2 hard; 8 of 48 labels negative) - **application-performance-monitoring**: Dynatrace (10 models, 3 hard; 20 of 50 labels negative), Datadog APM (9 models, 1 hard; 17 of 57 labels negative), AppDynamics (8 models, 3 hard; 9 of 26 labels negative), New Relic (8 models; 8 of 63 labels negative) - **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Dropbox (3 models, 3 hard; 4 of 4 labels negative), Acronis Cyber Protect (3 models, 1 hard; 3 of 42 labels negative), Veeam Data Platform (3 models; 4 of 41 labels negative), Google Drive (2 models, 2 hard; 3 of 3 labels negative) - **business-password-managers**: LastPass (11 models, 17 hard; 23 of 28 labels negative), Dashlane (7 models, 1 hard; 7 of 36 labels negative), Bitwarden (5 models; 5 of 64 labels negative), 1Password (4 models; 4 of 57 labels negative) - **cloud-cost-management**: VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (6 models, 7 hard; 16 of 31 labels negative), IBM Apptio Cloudability (5 models, 5 hard; 15 of 32 labels negative), Flexera One (5 models, 3 hard; 5 of 20 labels negative), CloudZero (5 models; 5 of 50 labels negative) - **compliance-automation**: Drata (9 models, 1 hard; 15 of 57 labels negative), Vanta (9 models, 1 hard; 15 of 57 labels negative), Secureframe (5 models, 1 hard; 8 of 49 labels negative), ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management (4 models, 2 hard; 4 of 5 labels negative) - **content-delivery-networks**: cdnjs (7 models, 5 hard; 7 of 8 labels negative), Akamai (7 models, 1 hard; 12 of 44 labels negative), Polyfill.io (6 models, 6 hard; 6 of 6 labels negative), Cloudflare (6 models; 6 of 63 labels negative) - **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Auth0 (6 models, 3 hard; 11 of 62 labels negative), Okta (6 models, 3 hard; 7 of 12 labels negative), Ping Identity (5 models, 2 hard; 8 of 29 labels negative), Amazon Cognito (5 models; 8 of 29 labels negative) - **data-warehouses**: Snowflake (12 models, 3 hard; 16 of 67 labels negative), Amazon Redshift (11 models, 3 hard; 16 of 61 labels negative), Google BigQuery (10 models, 1 hard; 10 of 65 labels negative), Azure Synapse Analytics (4 models, 2 hard; 4 of 20 labels negative) - **etl-and-elt**: Talend (8 models, 6 hard; 13 of 25 labels negative), Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (7 models, 4 hard; 8 of 12 labels negative), Informatica PowerCenter (6 models, 4 hard; 7 of 9 labels negative), IBM DataStage (6 models, 3 hard; 6 of 10 labels negative) - **sase-platforms**: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (7 models, 2 hard; 10 of 34 labels negative), Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (7 models, 2 hard; 14 of 47 labels negative), Cloudflare One (5 models; 6 of 47 labels negative), Fortinet FortiSASE (4 models, 1 hard; 5 of 45 labels negative) ## Leadership and criticism First-choice share and negative label rate are independent, so every product with at least 10 labels in a category is placed on both axes. Cutoffs: leader at 30% or more of first choices, criticized at 25% or more negative labels. An endorsed leader is recommended and not criticized; a criticized default is recommended while the models list its problems; a criticized challenger is named mostly to be warned against. | Category | Product | First-choice share | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 71% | 10% | 67 | endorsed leader | | ai-coding-assistants | Windsurf | 15% | 9% | 34 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Cline | 7% | 8% | 12 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Cursor | 5% | 18% | 50 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Continue | 0% | 0% | 14 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Claude Code | 0% | 4% | 24 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Tabnine | 0% | 8% | 37 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Amazon Q Developer | 0% | 15% | 34 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | JetBrains AI Assistant | 0% | 20% | 10 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Kong Gateway | 43% | 16% | 61 | endorsed leader | | api-management | Zuplo | 15% | 5% | 20 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Tyk | 9% | 3% | 38 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Gravitee | 7% | 0% | 27 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Azure API Management | 4% | 16% | 43 | accepted challenger | | api-management | IBM API Connect | 2% | 12% | 16 | accepted challenger | | api-management | WSO2 API Manager | 2% | 16% | 19 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Amazon API Gateway | 2% | 17% | 48 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Postman | 2% | 28% | 18 | criticized challenger | | api-management | Apigee | 0% | 35% | 51 | criticized challenger | | api-management | MuleSoft Anypoint Platform | 0% | 45% | 38 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | New Relic | 57% | 13% | 63 | endorsed leader | | application-performance-monitoring | Datadog APM | 14% | 30% | 57 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | SigNoz | 7% | 0% | 16 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Honeycomb | 5% | 0% | 15 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | IBM Instana | 2% | 7% | 15 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Grafana Cloud | 2% | 8% | 26 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | ManageEngine Applications Manager | 0% | 0% | 12 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | AppDynamics | 0% | 35% | 26 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Elastic APM | 0% | 35% | 17 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Dynatrace | 0% | 40% | 50 | criticized challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veeam Data Platform | 41% | 10% | 41 | endorsed leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | IDrive Business | 18% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Acronis Cyber Protect | 11% | 7% | 42 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Druva Data Security Cloud | 9% | 0% | 24 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Arcserve UDP | 2% | 0% | 17 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Datto SIRIS | 2% | 4% | 23 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Zerto | 0% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Commvault | 0% | 4% | 23 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Cohesity DataProtect | 0% | 4% | 23 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Rubrik Security Cloud | 0% | 7% | 30 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | 1Password | 50% | 7% | 57 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | Bitwarden | 40% | 8% | 64 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | RoboForm | 4% | 12% | 17 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Keeper Security | 2% | 2% | 47 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | NordPass | 2% | 12% | 32 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Dashlane | 2% | 19% | 36 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Zoho Vault | 0% | 0% | 13 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Proton Pass | 0% | 12% | 16 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | LastPass | 0% | 82% | 28 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Vantage | 49% | 0% | 52 | endorsed leader | | cloud-cost-management | CloudZero | 17% | 10% | 50 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | AWS Cost Explorer | 11% | 22% | 23 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Microsoft Cost Management | 6% | 10% | 20 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Google Cloud Billing | 4% | 18% | 11 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | nOps | 2% | 0% | 16 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Finout | 2% | 4% | 26 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | OpenCost | 2% | 13% | 15 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Harness Cloud Cost Management | 0% | 0% | 12 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Infracost | 0% | 0% | 14 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | ProsperOps | 0% | 5% | 22 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Kubecost | 0% | 6% | 33 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | CAST AI | 0% | 14% | 21 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Flexera One | 0% | 25% | 20 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | IBM Apptio Cloudability | 0% | 47% | 32 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | VMware Tanzu CloudHealth | 0% | 52% | 31 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Drata | 34% | 26% | 57 | criticized default | | compliance-automation | Vanta | 25% | 26% | 57 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | CATAAM | 8% | 0% | 11 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Sprinto | 6% | 6% | 35 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Secureframe | 6% | 16% | 49 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Scrut Automation | 4% | 13% | 15 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Hyperproof | 2% | 4% | 24 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Scytale | 0% | 7% | 15 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Thoropass | 0% | 18% | 11 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 84% | 10% | 63 | endorsed leader | | content-delivery-networks | Bunny.net | 12% | 0% | 38 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Amazon CloudFront | 2% | 14% | 51 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | KeyCDN | 0% | 8% | 13 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | CDN77 | 0% | 8% | 12 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Google Cloud CDN | 0% | 11% | 19 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Fastly | 0% | 14% | 51 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Akamai | 0% | 27% | 44 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Auth0 | 32% | 18% | 62 | endorsed leader | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Frontegg | 18% | 0% | 33 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | WorkOS | 10% | 3% | 36 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Keycloak | 6% | 7% | 15 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Clerk | 6% | 8% | 26 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Amazon Cognito | 6% | 28% | 29 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Descope | 4% | 4% | 26 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | LoginRadius | 4% | 7% | 14 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Ping Identity | 2% | 28% | 29 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Stytch | 0% | 0% | 24 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | FusionAuth | 0% | 0% | 15 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Microsoft Entra External ID | 0% | 11% | 19 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Okta | 0% | 58% | 12 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | Snowflake | 57% | 24% | 67 | endorsed leader | | data-warehouses | Google BigQuery | 39% | 15% | 65 | endorsed leader | | data-warehouses | ClickHouse Cloud | 2% | 5% | 20 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse | 2% | 13% | 23 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Databricks SQL | 0% | 9% | 35 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Azure Synapse Analytics | 0% | 20% | 20 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Amazon Redshift | 0% | 26% | 61 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Fivetran | 31% | 15% | 53 | endorsed leader | | etl-and-elt | Airbyte | 29% | 2% | 58 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Integrate.io | 19% | 0% | 24 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Hevo Data | 14% | 0% | 32 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Skyvia | 5% | 7% | 14 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Stitch | 2% | 11% | 27 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Matillion | 0% | 0% | 33 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | dbt | 0% | 0% | 37 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | AWS Glue | 0% | 0% | 14 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Azure Data Factory | 0% | 0% | 13 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Meltano | 0% | 0% | 14 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Apache Airflow | 0% | 6% | 31 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Apache NiFi | 0% | 25% | 12 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud | 0% | 27% | 15 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Talend | 0% | 52% | 25 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | IBM DataStage | 0% | 60% | 10 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services | 0% | 67% | 12 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Cloudflare One | 26% | 13% | 47 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cato Networks | 23% | 14% | 29 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cato SASE Cloud | 17% | 6% | 18 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco Umbrella | 13% | 0% | 11 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Check Point Harmony SASE | 6% | 9% | 23 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Fortinet FortiSASE | 6% | 11% | 45 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | 2% | 30% | 47 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Netskope One | 0% | 14% | 36 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco | 0% | 25% | 16 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE | 0% | 29% | 34 | criticized challenger | ## Treatment of lab-affiliated products by model Self-preference is only measurable with a control group: how the lab's own model treats its products compared with how every other model treats the same products. OpenAI have no products in the covered categories with enough labels to measure, so nothing is claimed about them. **Anthropic products** (3 products, 28 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Claude Code | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | 3/0/3 | 3/1/4 | 3/0/3 | 1/0/1 | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 2/0/2 | 3/0/3 | 1/0/1 | | Claude | 1/0/1 | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | Anthropic Claude Enterprise | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | | | Mean label weight on Anthropic products: Claude Haiku 4.5 +2.00 over 2 labels; the other 11 models +1.38 over 26 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. **Google products** (20 products, 200 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Google BigQuery | 5/1/6 | 4/1/5 | 6/0/6 | 4/1/5 | 5/1/6 | 5/1/6 | 5/1/6 | 4/1/5 | 4/1/5 | 5/1/6 | 4/0/4 | 4/1/5 | | Apigee | 3/1/4 | 3/0/3 | 1/4/5 | 1/1/2 | 4/2/6 | 3/0/3 | 3/3/6 | 2/1/3 | 5/1/6 | 2/2/4 | 2/3/5 | 4/0/4 | | Google Cloud CDN | 1/0/1 | 2/0/2 | 0/1/1 | 1/0/1 | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | 3/0/3 | 2/0/2 | | 2/0/2 | 1/1/2 | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud Billing | | 3/0/3 | 1/1/2 | 0/1/1 | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | 2/0/2 | | | 1/0/1 | | Firebase Authentication | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | 1/1/2 | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 1/0/1 | | | Google Cloud Dataflow | 1/1/2 | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | | | | | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud Backup and DR Service | 1/0/1 | | | | | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | Gemini Code Assist | | 1/0/1 | | | 2/0/2 | | 1/0/1 | | | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | Google Password Manager | | | | 0/1/1 | | 0/1/1 | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | Google Cloud | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | 0/1/1 | | 1/0/1 | | | Google Hosted Libraries | | | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | Google Cloud Cost Management | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | | Google Drive | | | 0/2/2 | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | Google Gemini | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | Google Cloud Identity | 1/0/1 | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | Firebase | | | | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | GCP Recommender | | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | Google Cloud Storage | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google Cloud Data Fusion | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google BigQuery Omni | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | Mean label weight on Google products: Gemini 3.5 Flash -0.05 over 20 labels; the other 11 models +0.76 over 180 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. ## Discontinued products recommended None in this run. ## Normalization Unresolved, 178 labels counted under the raw name, for human review: BootCDN in content-delivery-networks (5), Bootcss in content-delivery-networks (3), Prove Pinnacle in customer-identity-and-access-management (3), Staticfile in content-delivery-networks (3), ADF in etl-and-elt (2), Backblaze Computer Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (2), Built-in browser password managers in business-password-managers (2), CodeLlama in ai-coding-assistants (2), Compute Optimizer in cloud-cost-management (2), Hadoop in etl-and-elt (2), Pinot in data-warehouses (2), ZTEdge in sase-platforms (2), 11:11 Systems in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), 11:11 Systems (DRaaS) in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), 1Password Starters in business-password-managers (1), ABinitio in etl-and-elt (1), AI Code Review Bot in ai-coding-assistants (1), APC UPS in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), APTORIO/Anaplan in cloud-cost-management (1), AWS Elastic DR in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), AbInitio in etl-and-elt (1), Acronis Cyber in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Adobe Real-Time CDP in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Advanced ETL Processor in etl-and-elt (1), Aider CLI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Altaro in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Android Studio Bot in ai-coding-assistants (1), Apache Airbyte in etl-and-elt (1), Apigee Hybrid in api-management (1), Apple iCloud Keychain in business-password-managers (1), AskCodi in ai-coding-assistants (1), Azure APM Consumption Tier in api-management (1), Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool in data-warehouses (1), Azure Synapse Pipeline in etl-and-elt (1), BDRShield (formerly BDRSuite) in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Backup Exec in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Baidu CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Bareos in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Better Auth in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Blackbox AI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Blackfire in application-performance-monitoring (1), BootCDN / Bootcss / Staticfile in content-delivery-networks (1), Bootcdn in content-delivery-networks (1), Borg in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Broadcom (formerly CA Technologies) APM in application-performance-monitoring (1), Broadcom CloudHealth in cloud-cost-management (1), Broadcom DX (formerly CA APM) in application-performance-monitoring (1), Broadcom Layer7 in api-management (1), Browser Password Managers (Chrome, Edge, Safari) in business-password-managers (1), Built-In Browser Password Managers (Chrome, Safari, Edge) in business-password-managers (1), Carbonite Data Protection in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Carbonite Server Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Chrome's password manager in business-password-managers (1), Cisco ASA SSL VPN in sase-platforms (1), Citrix NetScaler Gateway in sase-platforms (1), Claude Code on Anthropic's Enterprise plan in ai-coding-assistants (1), Claude-powered tools in ai-coding-assistants (1), Clerk.dev in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Cloud Billing in cloud-cost-management (1), CloudCheckr CMx in cloud-cost-management (1), CloudFix in cloud-cost-management (1), Cloudfare Access in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Cloudflare's free plan in content-delivery-networks (1), Cloudshot in cloud-cost-management (1), CloverETL in etl-and-elt (1), CodeGPT in ai-coding-assistants (1), CodeGenie in ai-coding-assistants (1), CodeScribe in ai-coding-assistants (1), CodeT5 in ai-coding-assistants (1), CodeWP in ai-coding-assistants (1), CodeWhisperer Pro in ai-coding-assistants (1), Dashlane Personal in business-password-managers (1), Data Domain in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Databend Cloud in data-warehouses (1), Databricks Delta Live Tables in etl-and-elt (1), Datadog Cloud Cost in cloud-cost-management (1), Datto Backup & Disaster Recovery in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), DeepCode AI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Dell Avamar in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), DevAssist in ai-coding-assistants (1), DigitalOcean Apps in content-delivery-networks (1), Druva Cloud Platform in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Duplicity in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Envoy-based gateways in api-management (1), Fastly Compute@Edge in content-delivery-networks (1), FlashEdge in content-delivery-networks (1), GDS Technology in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), GPT-4o in ai-coding-assistants (1), Gcore CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Gimel in cloud-cost-management (1), Google Billing in cloud-cost-management (1), Google CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Google Data Fusion in etl-and-elt (1), Google's Gemini in ai-coding-assistants (1), Hypercomply in compliance-automation (1), IBM PureData in data-warehouses (1), IBM's Cloudability in cloud-cost-management (1), ISMS Copilot in compliance-automation (1), Ivanti Connect Secure in sase-platforms (1), JetBrains in ai-coding-assistants (1), Jimber in sase-platforms (1), Jotform Workflows in compliance-automation (1), Jottacloud in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Keeper Password Manager in business-password-managers (1), Kipware in compliance-automation (1), Klaviyo in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Kleene.ai in etl-and-elt (1), KrakenD Community Edition in api-management (1), Kusk in api-management (1), Legacy Cloudera/Hortonworks on Cloud in data-warehouses (1), Legacy Tape-Based Solutions in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Llama 3 in ai-coding-assistants (1), Lucidity in cloud-cost-management (1), Microsoft Azure’s CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), NAKIVO Free Edition in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Native tools (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, Google Cloud cost tools) in cloud-cost-management (1), Netezza in data-warehouses (1), Netezza on Cloud in data-warehouses (1), NinjaOne Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), ORY Hydra in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), ORY Kratos in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Okta CIAM in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Ollama-based in ai-coding-assistants (1), OpenAI's GPT-based code tools in ai-coding-assistants (1), Oracle Risk Management in compliance-automation (1), Palo Alto Networks SASE in sase-platforms (1), Paragon Backup Software in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Pentaho Kettle in etl-and-elt (1), PingOne Workforce Essential in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Pinpoint in application-performance-monitoring (1), Project Koku in cloud-cost-management (1), Project Koku / Red Hat (open source) in cloud-cost-management (1), Prometheus with Grafana in application-performance-monitoring (1), Prove in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Psono in business-password-managers (1), Quest One Backup for Exchange/SharePoint in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Qwen in ai-coding-assistants (1), RocketCDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Rubrik Data Security Platform in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), SAP CIAM/CDC in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), SD-Access in sase-platforms (1), SQLAI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Screenata in compliance-automation (1), ServiceNow CCM in cloud-cost-management (1), SmartCode in ai-coding-assistants (1), SnapLogic Intelligent Integration Platform in etl-and-elt (1), SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor in application-performance-monitoring (1), SpendZero in cloud-cost-management (1), Symantec Backup Exec in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), SyntaxAI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Teampass in business-password-managers (1), UrBackup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Usercentrics in compliance-automation (1), VMware VeloCloud SASE (Secured by Symantec) / Broadcom in sase-platforms (1), cidaas in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), dbt Labs in etl-and-elt (1), dltHub in etl-and-elt (1), dltHub (data load tool) in etl-and-elt (1), dltHub (dlt) in etl-and-elt (1), wso2-api-platform in api-management (1) Category-scoped resolutions, 639 labels. A bare vendor name was read as that vendor's product for the asked category, which assigns specificity the model did not write; each one is listed so the assumption is visible: Datadog in application-performance-monitoring read as Datadog APM (54), Zscaler in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (39), Databricks in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (29), Kong in api-management read as Kong Gateway (29), Keeper in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (28), Netskope in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (27), Rubrik in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Rubrik Security Cloud (27), Veeam in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veeam Data Platform (25), Cohesity in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Cohesity DataProtect (23), Druva in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Druva Data Security Cloud (16), Fortinet in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (16), Microsoft Fabric in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (15), Keeper Business in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (14), Informatica in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (13), Cloudflare in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (12), Hevo in etl-and-elt read as Hevo Data (12), MuleSoft in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (12), Acronis in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Acronis Cyber Protect (11), Cato Networks SASE Cloud in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (10), Datto in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (9), Flexera in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (9), Harness in cloud-cost-management read as Harness Cloud Cost Management (8), Palo Alto Networks in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (8), Scrut in compliance-automation read as Scrut Automation (8), OneTrust in compliance-automation read as OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance (7), Cato in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (6), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (6), WSO2 in api-management read as WSO2 API Manager (6), Check Point in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (5), Databricks in etl-and-elt read as Databricks Lakeflow (5), Grafana in application-performance-monitoring read as Grafana Cloud (5), JetBrains AI in ai-coding-assistants read as JetBrains AI Assistant (5), Palo Alto in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (5), Splunk APM in application-performance-monitoring read as Splunk Observability Cloud (5), Spot by NetApp in cloud-cost-management read as Spot by NetApp (5), Amazon Q in ai-coding-assistants read as Amazon Q Developer (4), Datadog in cloud-cost-management read as Datadog Cloud Cost Management (4), Estuary in etl-and-elt read as Estuary Flow (4), Flexera One FinOps in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (4), SolarWinds in application-performance-monitoring read as SolarWinds Observability (4), Arcserve in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Arcserve UDP (3), Azure Synapse in data-warehouses read as Azure Synapse Analytics (3), Carbonite in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Carbonite Safe (3), Fortinet (FortiSASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (3), Pentaho in etl-and-elt read as Pentaho Data Integration (3), Veritas in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veritas Alta Data Protection (3), Versa in sase-platforms read as Versa SASE (3), Arcserve Unified Data Protection in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Arcserve UDP (2), Cisco AppDynamics in application-performance-monitoring read as AppDynamics (2), Databricks SQL / Lakehouse in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (2), Datto (by Kaseya) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (2), DoiT in cloud-cost-management read as DoiT Cloud Intelligence (2), Forcepoint in sase-platforms read as Forcepoint ONE (2), IBM in api-management read as IBM API Connect (2), Keeper Enterprise in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (2), Kong Enterprise in api-management read as Kong Gateway (2), ManageEngine in application-performance-monitoring read as ManageEngine Applications Manager (2), MuleSoft (Salesforce) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (2), Nakivo in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as NAKIVO Backup & Replication (2), Scout Monitoring in application-performance-monitoring read as Scout APM (2), Securden in business-password-managers read as Securden Password Vault (2), VMware in sase-platforms read as VMware SASE (2), Zscaler (Zero Trust Exchange) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (2), AWS in api-management read as Amazon API Gateway (1), AWS in content-delivery-networks read as Amazon CloudFront (1), AWS Budgets in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (1), AWS Cost Management in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (1), Acronis Cyber Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Acronis Cyber Protect (1), Amazon Q (formerly CodeWhisperer) in ai-coding-assistants read as Amazon Q Developer (1), Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Arcserve UDP (1), Axcient in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Axcient x360Recover (1), Axway in api-management read as Axway Amplify API Management (1), Axway Amplify in api-management read as Axway Amplify API Management (1), Azure in api-management read as Azure API Management (1), Azure Synapse (Microsoft) in data-warehouses read as Azure Synapse Analytics (1), Check Point Harmony in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (1), Cloudflare in api-management read as Cloudflare API Gateway (1), Cloudflare (Cloudflare One) in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (1), Copilot in ai-coding-assistants read as GitHub Copilot (1), DataDog in application-performance-monitoring read as Datadog APM (1), Databricks Data Intelligence Platform in etl-and-elt read as Databricks Lakeflow (1), Datto (Kaseya) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Datto (Siris/Alto/NAS) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Dell EMC PowerProtect in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Dell PowerProtect (1), Elastic in application-performance-monitoring read as Elastic APM (1), Flexera (incl. Spot/ProperOps) in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (1), Fortinet (SASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), Fortinet (Unified SASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), Google Cloud Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Google Cloud Backup and DR Service (1), Grafana (LGTM) in application-performance-monitoring read as Grafana Cloud (1), HPE in sase-platforms read as HPE Aruba (1), Harness (formerly Spot.io) in cloud-cost-management read as Harness Cloud Cost Management (1), Kong (Kong Gateway / Kong Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Kong Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Konnect/Gateway) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Open Source) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), MSP360 in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as MSP360 Managed Backup (1), Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (1), Netskope (Netskope One) in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (1), Oracle in api-management read as Oracle API Management (1), Palo Alto (Prisma) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma Access) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Palo Alto Networks (Strata) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Ping in customer-identity-and-access-management read as Ping Identity (1), Ping Identity / PingOne for Customers in customer-identity-and-access-management read as Ping Identity (1), Proton in business-password-managers read as Proton Pass (1), Replit in ai-coding-assistants read as Replit AI (1), ServiceNow in compliance-automation read as ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management (1), SolarWinds (AppOptics or SEM) in application-performance-monitoring read as SolarWinds Observability (1), Teradata in data-warehouses read as Teradata Vantage (1), VMware (formerly ZTunnel) in sase-platforms read as VMware SASE (1), VMware Aria Cost in cloud-cost-management read as VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (1), Zscaler (Zero Trust SASE) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1) Combined answers split into one label per product: AWS Backup / Azure Backup, AWS Cost Explorer / AWS Compute Optimizer, AWS Cost Explorer / AWS Cost Management, AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Management, AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Management / GCP Billing, Anecdotes / Thoropass, Apptio Cloudability/CloudHealth, Arcserve UDP / Axcient x360Recover, Arcserve/Axcient, AuditBoard / Optro, Azure AD B2C / Microsoft Entra External ID, Azure SQL Database / Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse / Microsoft Fabric, CDNSun / CDN77, ChatGPT / Codex, Cline / Roo Code, CloudHealth / VMware Tanzu CloudHealth, Cursor/Claude Code, Datto / Cove (N-able), Delinea/Thycotic, Duplicacy/Duplicati, Elastic APM / ELK, Elastic/ELK, ForgeRock / Ping Identity, Gcore/CDN77, Google Gemini / Codey, Google/Firebase, Grafana Tempo / Prometheus, HPE Aruba/Silver Peak, Jaeger / Zipkin, KeePass / KeePassXC, Keepass/KeepassXC, KeyCDN/BunnyCDN, Kong / Kong Konnect, Kong Konnect/Kong, Kubecost / IBM Kubecost, McAfee / Oracle, Microsoft Azure Synapse / Fabric, Microsoft Fabric/Azure Synapse, Microsoft Synapse/Fabric, Palo Alto Prisma Access / Prisma SASE, Pentaho PDI / Apache Hop / Singer, Prefect/Dagster, Qodo/CodiumAI, SigNoz / OpenObserve, Tyk/Gravitee, VMware CloudHealth/CloudHealth, VMware Tanzu CloudHealth/Broadcom, Windsurf/Devin, Zoho Vault / ManageEngine ## Appendix: loose paraphrase stability - Claude Haiku 4.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 4 of 12 categories (33%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GPT-5.4 mini: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 9 of 12 categories (75%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Gemini 3.5 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 12 of 12 categories (100%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management - Perplexity Sonar: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Grok 4.1 Fast: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: business-password-managers, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt - Mistral Small: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 8 of 12 categories (67%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - DeepSeek V4 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: business-password-managers, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Llama 4 Maverick: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 6 of 12 categories (50%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, sase-platforms - Qwen 3.7 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, sase-platforms - Kimi K2: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GLM 4.7 FlashX: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - MiniMax M2.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 6 of 12 categories (50%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms # Segment: Enterprise # IT AI Recommendation Index, run mai-20260918-0021-calibration_b 72 prompts, 12 models, 4,640 raw judge labels, 4,692 scored labels after normalization. Published weights: first choice +3, alternative +2, mention +1, soft negative -2, hard negative -3. Scored under vendor alias table version 2026-10.8. Raw judge labels are the permanent record; the numbers below are derived from them and are regenerated for every run whenever the alias table changes, so the whole series is always scored under one table version. Resolution of raw names: 3,699 by alias or canonical name, 673 by category-scoped alias, 117 from combined answers split into their products, 35 from combined answers counted once for their first product, 1 excluded by rule, 151 unresolved and counted under the raw name. ## Paraphrase stability Share of categories where a model's first choice set on the direct prompt equals its set on the paraphrase. | Model | Same | Different | Stability | |---|---|---|---| | Claude Haiku 4.5 | 2 | 10 | 17% | | GPT-5.4 mini | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Gemini 3.5 Flash | 5 | 7 | 42% | | Perplexity Sonar | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Grok 4.1 Fast | 3 | 9 | 25% | | Mistral Small | 2 | 10 | 17% | | DeepSeek V4 Flash | 7 | 5 | 58% | | Llama 4 Maverick | 2 | 8 | 20% | | Qwen 3.7 Flash | 5 | 7 | 42% | | Kimi K2 | 6 | 6 | 50% | | GLM 4.7 FlashX | 8 | 4 | 67% | | MiniMax M2.5 | 4 | 8 | 33% | A looser measure, whether a direct first choice survives as a first choice or alternative on the paraphrase, is in the appendix. ## Standing by category First choice share across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts and all 12 models. The top product's share is published alongside the label: contested means the top share is at or below 40%, and a category just above the line is not meaningfully different from one just below it. Consensus means every model's direct-prompt first choice is the same single product. | Category | Top product | Top share | First choices | Status | |---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 81% | 42 | clear leader | | api-management | Apigee | 36% | 53 | contested | | application-performance-monitoring | Dynatrace | 43% | 47 | clear leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veeam Data Platform | 45% | 51 | clear leader | | business-password-managers | Bitwarden | 42% | 50 | clear leader | | cloud-cost-management | IBM Apptio Cloudability | 58% | 45 | clear leader | | compliance-automation | Vanta | 41% | 46 | clear leader | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 52% | 44 | clear leader | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Auth0 | 39% | 51 | contested | | data-warehouses | Snowflake | 70% | 44 | clear leader | | etl-and-elt | Fivetran | 40% | 40 | contested | | sase-platforms | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | 27% | 45 | contested | **ai-coding-assistants**: GitHub Copilot 81%, Tabnine 5%, Augment Code 2%, Claude Code 2%, Cursor 2% **api-management**: Apigee 36%, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform 25%, Kong Gateway 11%, Azure API Management 8%, Tyk 6% **application-performance-monitoring**: Dynatrace 43%, Datadog APM 23%, New Relic 15%, CubeAPM 9%, Dotcom-Monitor 2% **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Veeam Data Platform 45%, Rubrik Security Cloud 22%, Commvault 6%, Druva Data Resiliency Cloud 4%, Druva Data Security Cloud 4% **business-password-managers**: Bitwarden 42%, 1Password 32%, Keeper Security 20%, Keeper Password Manager 2%, Safeguard 2% **cloud-cost-management**: IBM Apptio Cloudability 58%, CloudZero 18%, Vantage 13%, Flexera One 4%, Cloudaware 2% **compliance-automation**: Vanta 41%, Drata 26%, Hyperproof 11%, Secureframe 7%, AuditBoard 4% **content-delivery-networks**: Cloudflare 52%, Akamai 39%, BlazingCDN 7%, Amazon CloudFront 2% **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Auth0 39%, FusionAuth 12%, LoginRadius 8%, Microsoft Entra External ID 8%, WorkOS 8% **data-warehouses**: Snowflake 70%, Amazon Redshift 11%, Google BigQuery 11%, Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse 5%, Databricks SQL 2% **etl-and-elt**: Fivetran 40%, Integrate.io 30%, Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud 10%, Informatica PowerCenter 5%, Airbyte 2% **sase-platforms**: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE 27%, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange 27%, Cato Networks 22%, Cato SASE Cloud 9%, Cloudflare One 4% ## Anti-recommendations Products most often labeled soft or hard negative, with the number of models that did so at least once in the category, and the share of that product's labels in the category that were negative. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning; a low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment. - **ai-coding-assistants**: Cursor (9 models, 3 hard; 18 of 42 labels negative), GitHub Copilot (7 models, 6 hard; 10 of 67 labels negative), Claude Code (6 models, 2 hard; 7 of 23 labels negative), Tabnine (4 models, 2 hard; 6 of 37 labels negative) - **api-management**: Amazon API Gateway (10 models, 7 hard; 21 of 45 labels negative), Apigee (9 models, 5 hard; 14 of 64 labels negative), Azure API Management (9 models; 9 of 50 labels negative), Kong Gateway (7 models, 2 hard; 10 of 65 labels negative) - **application-performance-monitoring**: Datadog APM (11 models, 2 hard; 20 of 61 labels negative), Dynatrace (11 models, 1 hard; 17 of 63 labels negative), New Relic (8 models, 1 hard; 11 of 61 labels negative), AppDynamics (8 models; 12 of 42 labels negative) - **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Commvault (4 models; 5 of 46 labels negative), Acronis Cyber Protect (3 models, 1 hard; 3 of 10 labels negative), Arcserve UDP (3 models, 1 hard; 3 of 4 labels negative), AWS Backup (3 models; 3 of 6 labels negative) - **business-password-managers**: LastPass (11 models, 12 hard; 22 of 25 labels negative), Dashlane (8 models; 9 of 40 labels negative), Bitwarden (7 models; 7 of 64 labels negative), 1Password (6 models; 7 of 59 labels negative) - **cloud-cost-management**: VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (8 models, 6 hard; 11 of 38 labels negative), AWS Cost Explorer (7 models, 3 hard; 9 of 11 labels negative), IBM Apptio Cloudability (7 models, 2 hard; 7 of 60 labels negative), Microsoft Cost Management (7 models, 2 hard; 7 of 8 labels negative) - **compliance-automation**: Vanta (9 models, 2 hard; 13 of 60 labels negative), Secureframe (7 models, 3 hard; 10 of 37 labels negative), Drata (7 models, 1 hard; 10 of 51 labels negative), Sprinto (5 models, 3 hard; 6 of 23 labels negative) - **content-delivery-networks**: Cloudflare (7 models; 7 of 60 labels negative), Fastly (7 models; 10 of 50 labels negative), Akamai (5 models; 5 of 56 labels negative), Amazon CloudFront (4 models, 1 hard; 5 of 48 labels negative) - **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Amazon Cognito (7 models, 5 hard; 12 of 21 labels negative), Auth0 (6 models; 10 of 67 labels negative), Descope (5 models, 1 hard; 5 of 14 labels negative), Keycloak (4 models, 1 hard; 5 of 12 labels negative) - **data-warehouses**: Amazon Redshift (9 models; 13 of 65 labels negative), Google BigQuery (9 models; 12 of 68 labels negative), Snowflake (8 models; 9 of 66 labels negative), Azure Synapse Analytics (5 models, 1 hard; 5 of 26 labels negative) - **etl-and-elt**: Talend (11 models, 5 hard; 15 of 47 labels negative), Fivetran (9 models, 2 hard; 17 of 56 labels negative), Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (8 models, 2 hard; 10 of 39 labels negative), Stitch (7 models, 2 hard; 8 of 15 labels negative) - **sase-platforms**: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (8 models, 1 hard; 11 of 48 labels negative), Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (6 models, 2 hard; 9 of 54 labels negative), Fortinet FortiSASE (6 models; 6 of 36 labels negative), Cato Networks (5 models; 5 of 33 labels negative) ## Leadership and criticism First-choice share and negative label rate are independent, so every product with at least 10 labels in a category is placed on both axes. Cutoffs: leader at 30% or more of first choices, criticized at 25% or more negative labels. An endorsed leader is recommended and not criticized; a criticized default is recommended while the models list its problems; a criticized challenger is named mostly to be warned against. | Category | Product | First-choice share | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 81% | 15% | 67 | endorsed leader | | ai-coding-assistants | Tabnine | 5% | 16% | 37 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Augment Code | 2% | 0% | 15 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Windsurf | 2% | 8% | 13 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | JetBrains AI Assistant | 2% | 8% | 12 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Claude Code | 2% | 30% | 23 | criticized challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Cursor | 2% | 43% | 42 | criticized challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Sourcegraph Cody | 0% | 7% | 14 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Gemini Code Assist | 0% | 9% | 11 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Amazon Q Developer | 0% | 9% | 43 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Apigee | 36% | 22% | 64 | endorsed leader | | api-management | MuleSoft Anypoint Platform | 25% | 16% | 58 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Kong Gateway | 11% | 15% | 65 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Azure API Management | 8% | 18% | 50 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Tyk | 6% | 18% | 17 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Zuplo | 4% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | api-management | IBM API Connect | 4% | 12% | 32 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Gravitee | 2% | 8% | 13 | accepted challenger | | api-management | WSO2 API Manager | 0% | 9% | 11 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Amazon API Gateway | 0% | 47% | 45 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Dynatrace | 43% | 27% | 63 | criticized default | | application-performance-monitoring | Datadog APM | 23% | 33% | 61 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | New Relic | 15% | 18% | 61 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | CubeAPM | 9% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Grafana Cloud | 2% | 24% | 17 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | SigNoz | 0% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | IBM Instana | 0% | 11% | 18 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | AppDynamics | 0% | 29% | 42 | criticized challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veeam Data Platform | 45% | 2% | 50 | endorsed leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Rubrik Security Cloud | 22% | 5% | 43 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Commvault | 6% | 11% | 46 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Druva Data Security Cloud | 4% | 7% | 30 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Zerto | 0% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Cohesity DataProtect | 0% | 6% | 36 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veritas Alta Data Protection | 0% | 10% | 10 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Acronis Cyber Protect | 0% | 30% | 10 | criticized challenger | | business-password-managers | Bitwarden | 42% | 11% | 64 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | 1Password | 32% | 12% | 59 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | Keeper Security | 20% | 9% | 54 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Zoho Vault | 0% | 0% | 11 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | ManageEngine Password Manager Pro | 0% | 10% | 10 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | NordPass | 0% | 21% | 19 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Dashlane | 0% | 22% | 40 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | LastPass | 0% | 88% | 25 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | IBM Apptio Cloudability | 58% | 12% | 60 | endorsed leader | | cloud-cost-management | CloudZero | 18% | 8% | 37 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Vantage | 13% | 8% | 39 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Flexera One | 4% | 0% | 33 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | IBM Turbonomic | 2% | 10% | 10 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Cloudaware | 2% | 17% | 12 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Harness Cloud Cost Management | 0% | 0% | 11 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Finout | 0% | 0% | 22 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | nOps | 0% | 0% | 12 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | ProsperOps | 0% | 10% | 21 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Kubecost | 0% | 10% | 20 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | CAST AI | 0% | 25% | 16 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Spot by NetApp | 0% | 27% | 11 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | VMware Tanzu CloudHealth | 0% | 29% | 38 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | AWS Cost Explorer | 0% | 82% | 11 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Vanta | 41% | 22% | 60 | endorsed leader | | compliance-automation | Drata | 26% | 20% | 51 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Hyperproof | 11% | 7% | 29 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Secureframe | 7% | 27% | 37 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | AuditBoard | 4% | 7% | 29 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | LogicGate | 2% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | MetricStream | 0% | 15% | 13 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management | 0% | 18% | 22 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance | 0% | 19% | 21 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Scrut Automation | 0% | 20% | 10 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Sprinto | 0% | 26% | 23 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Archer | 0% | 31% | 16 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Thoropass | 0% | 40% | 10 | criticized challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 52% | 12% | 60 | endorsed leader | | content-delivery-networks | Akamai | 39% | 9% | 56 | endorsed leader | | content-delivery-networks | BlazingCDN | 7% | 20% | 10 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Amazon CloudFront | 2% | 10% | 48 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Google Cloud CDN | 0% | 12% | 25 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Azure CDN | 0% | 17% | 12 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Fastly | 0% | 20% | 50 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Auth0 | 39% | 15% | 67 | endorsed leader | | customer-identity-and-access-management | FusionAuth | 12% | 18% | 11 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | LoginRadius | 8% | 0% | 17 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Microsoft Entra External ID | 8% | 6% | 47 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | WorkOS | 8% | 6% | 31 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Ping Identity | 4% | 7% | 41 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Frontegg | 2% | 8% | 13 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Keycloak | 2% | 42% | 12 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | IBM Verify | 0% | 0% | 14 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | WSO2 Identity Server | 0% | 14% | 14 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Stytch | 0% | 25% | 12 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | ForgeRock | 0% | 25% | 16 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Descope | 0% | 36% | 14 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Amazon Cognito | 0% | 57% | 21 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | Snowflake | 70% | 14% | 66 | endorsed leader | | data-warehouses | Google BigQuery | 11% | 18% | 68 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Amazon Redshift | 11% | 20% | 65 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse | 5% | 14% | 22 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Databricks SQL | 2% | 11% | 47 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Azure Synapse Analytics | 0% | 19% | 26 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | ClickHouse Cloud | 0% | 27% | 11 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Fivetran | 40% | 30% | 56 | criticized default | | etl-and-elt | Integrate.io | 30% | 0% | 24 | endorsed leader | | etl-and-elt | Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud | 10% | 26% | 39 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Informatica PowerCenter | 5% | 58% | 12 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Matillion | 2% | 11% | 38 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Airbyte | 2% | 15% | 47 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Talend | 2% | 32% | 47 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | dbt | 0% | 8% | 26 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Apache Airflow | 0% | 10% | 20 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Azure Data Factory | 0% | 12% | 17 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | AWS Glue | 0% | 13% | 23 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Hevo Data | 0% | 16% | 19 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Apache NiFi | 0% | 40% | 10 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | IBM DataStage | 0% | 50% | 14 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Stitch | 0% | 53% | 15 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services | 0% | 70% | 10 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | 27% | 17% | 54 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE | 27% | 23% | 48 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cato Networks | 22% | 15% | 33 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cato SASE Cloud | 9% | 13% | 15 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cloudflare One | 4% | 19% | 32 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Netskope One | 2% | 7% | 41 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Versa SASE | 0% | 6% | 17 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco Secure Access | 0% | 8% | 13 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Fortinet FortiSASE | 0% | 17% | 36 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco | 0% | 25% | 16 | criticized challenger | ## Treatment of lab-affiliated products by model Self-preference is only measurable with a control group: how the lab's own model treats its products compared with how every other model treats the same products. OpenAI have no products in the covered categories with enough labels to measure, so nothing is claimed about them. **Anthropic products** (3 products, 27 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Claude Code | 1/0/1 | | 1/1/2 | 2/1/3 | 0/2/2 | 1/0/1 | 3/1/4 | 4/0/4 | 1/0/1 | 0/1/1 | | 3/1/4 | | Claude | 1/0/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | | | Anthropic | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | Mean label weight on Anthropic products: Claude Haiku 4.5 +1.00 over 2 labels; the other 11 models +0.12 over 25 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. **Google products** (16 products, 201 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Google BigQuery | 4/1/5 | 6/0/6 | 6/0/6 | 4/1/5 | 5/1/6 | 5/2/7 | 5/1/6 | 5/0/5 | 5/1/6 | 4/2/6 | 4/2/6 | 5/1/6 | | Apigee | 3/2/5 | 5/0/5 | 4/2/6 | 3/2/5 | 5/1/6 | 3/1/4 | 4/2/6 | 6/0/6 | 5/0/5 | 5/1/6 | 4/2/6 | 3/1/4 | | Google Cloud CDN | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | 1/1/2 | 1/0/1 | 3/1/4 | 3/0/3 | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 3/0/3 | 1/0/1 | 3/1/4 | 2/0/2 | | Gemini Code Assist | | 4/0/4 | | 1/0/1 | 2/1/3 | | 2/0/2 | | | 1/0/1 | | | | Google Cloud Dataflow | 1/0/1 | | 0/1/1 | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud | | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | | | 1/1/2 | | | | | Google Cloud Billing | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 1/0/1 | | 0/1/1 | | | | | 0/1/1 | | Firebase Authentication | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | | | Google Cloud Identity | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | | Google Identity Platform | | | | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud Cost Management | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | Google Password Manager | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | | | Google Cloud Backup and DR Service | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google Drive | | | | | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | Google Cloud Composer | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | | Google Vertex AI | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | Mean label weight on Google products: Gemini 3.5 Flash +0.20 over 20 labels; the other 11 models +1.04 over 181 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. ## Discontinued products recommended None in this run. ## Normalization Unresolved, 151 labels counted under the raw name, for human review: AWS Elastic DR in backup-and-disaster-recovery (2), Broadcom CloudHealth in cloud-cost-management (2), Debezium in etl-and-elt (2), NudgeBee in cloud-cost-management (2), ScalePad ControlMap in compliance-automation (2), 11:11 Systems in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), 1Kosmos BlockID in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), AWS API management stacks in api-management (1), AWS CloudFront with Reserved Capacity in content-delivery-networks (1), Acronis Advanced DR in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Agentcode in ai-coding-assistants (1), Akamai API Gateway in api-management (1), Aleph in data-warehouses (1), Amazon Redshift - Provisioned in data-warehouses (1), Amazon Redshift Spectrum (legacy) in data-warehouses (1), Apache Iceberg in data-warehouses (1), Apache Sqoop in etl-and-elt (1), Apimatic in api-management (1), Apptio One in cloud-cost-management (1), Azure CDN Standard from Verizon (Edgecast) in content-delivery-networks (1), Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools in data-warehouses (1), Backup Exec in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Barracuda Cloud Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Broadcom CA Single Sign-On / SiteMinder in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Broadcom CloudHealth (VMware Tanzu CloudHealth) in cloud-cost-management (1), Broadcom CloudHealth (VMware/Broadcom) in cloud-cost-management (1), Broadcom Layer7 (formerly CA API Management) in api-management (1), Broadcom Layer7 / CA API Management in api-management (1), Broadcom Tanzu CloudHealth in cloud-cost-management (1), Broadcom VMware Aria Cost in cloud-cost-management (1), Browser-native password stores in business-password-managers (1), BytePlus/EdgeNext in content-delivery-networks (1), CA API Gateway (Broadcom / formerly Layer7) in api-management (1), CBackup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), ChatGPT Business with Codex in ai-coding-assistants (1), Chef Automate in compliance-automation (1), Cloud Operations (formerly Stackdriver) in application-performance-monitoring (1), Cloudera CDP in data-warehouses (1), Cloudera Data Platform - CDP in data-warehouses (1), Cloudshot in cloud-cost-management (1), Commvault Complete Backup & Recovery in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), ComplyDo in compliance-automation (1), Concord in compliance-automation (1), ConnectWise's Axcient x360Recover in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Costory in cloud-cost-management (1), Curity Identity Server in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Cursor for Business in ai-coding-assistants (1), D23 in data-warehouses (1), Data Domain in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Databricks Lakehouse Platform in etl-and-elt (1), Datadog Cost Management in cloud-cost-management (1), Dataform in etl-and-elt (1), Delta Lake in data-warehouses (1), Druva Data Resiliency Security Cloud in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Dynatrace APM in application-performance-monitoring (1), ETL Works in etl-and-elt (1), Enterprise in ai-coding-assistants (1), Enterprise Backup Solutions in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Fastly Compute in content-delivery-networks (1), Firefox Lockwise in business-password-managers (1), Fortinet's Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) in sase-platforms (1), GCP Cloud Dataflow in etl-and-elt (1), GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise in ai-coding-assistants (1), GitHub Copilot for Enterprise in ai-coding-assistants (1), GitLab's assistant in ai-coding-assistants (1), Google Chrome Autofill in business-password-managers (1), Google Cloud API management in api-management (1), Google Cloud Billing tools in cloud-cost-management (1), Google Cloud Dataform in etl-and-elt (1), Google Cloud Trace/Monitoring in application-performance-monitoring (1), Grouper in compliance-automation (1), G‑Core Labs in content-delivery-networks (1), Hideez in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), IBM Confluent (Kafka) in etl-and-elt (1), IBM Information Server in etl-and-elt (1), IBM webMethods in api-management (1), IO River in content-delivery-networks (1), Improvado in etl-and-elt (1), In-House/Custom-Built CIAM Systems in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA AI Assistant in ai-coding-assistants (1), Jimber in sase-platforms (1), Jundago in api-management (1), Keeper Password Manager in business-password-managers (1), Kong Open in api-management (1), LLaMA in ai-coding-assistants (1), Layer3 in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), LeadJourney in etl-and-elt (1), Legacy MuleSoft (Pre-CDC) in api-management (1), Legacy Oracle Web Services Manager in api-management (1), Lucidity in cloud-cost-management (1), Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery Services by Discover Cyber Solutions in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Microsoft Access in etl-and-elt (1), Microsoft Azure Monitor / Application Insights in application-performance-monitoring (1), MuleSoft Anypoint "Unlimited" Tier in api-management (1), MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform in api-management (1), Nakivo Site Recovery in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Netezza in data-warehouses (1), ORY Hydra in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Observe, Inc. in application-performance-monitoring (1), Okta CIAM in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Okta CIAM/Auth0 in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Okta Customer Identity (formerly Auth0 in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), OpenAI Codex for teams in ai-coding-assistants (1), Oracle Exadata on Cloud (legacy) in data-warehouses (1), Oracle Integration Cloud in api-management (1), Palo Alto Networks' Prisma SASE in sase-platforms (1), Palo Alto Networks' SASE (Prisma SASE) in sase-platforms (1), Polytomic in etl-and-elt (1), Postman Governance & Security in api-management (1), ProBackup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Qlik Replicate (formerly Attunity) in etl-and-elt (1), Rubrik SaaS in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), SAP BW/4HANA in data-warehouses (1), SAP Business Warehouse (BW) 7.5 in data-warehouses (1), SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (legacy) in data-warehouses (1), Salesforce Headless 360 Platform in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Salesforce MuleSoft Anypoint Platform in api-management (1), Single-node Nginx/OpenResty Proxies in api-management (1), Skycloak in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Skyhigh in sase-platforms (1), Snowflake Enterprise Edition in data-warehouses (1), SolarWinds SAM / Observability in application-performance-monitoring (1), Splunk AppDynamics On-Premises in application-performance-monitoring (1), StarCoder in ai-coding-assistants (1), Talix in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Tangoe in cloud-cost-management (1), Tembo.io in ai-coding-assistants (1), Tibco EMS / Adapter Suites in api-management (1), Tyk Self-Managed in api-management (1), Tyk.io in api-management (1), VMware VeloCloud SASE (Broadcom) in sase-platforms (1), Varnish Enterprise in content-delivery-networks (1), Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Veeam's VUL in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Verizon Digital Media Services (Edgecast) in content-delivery-networks (1), Verizon's Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Security Solutions in sase-platforms (1), Vertica in data-warehouses (1), Vitria in cloud-cost-management (1), WSO2 Open Source in api-management (1), Whale in compliance-automation (1), Whif in compliance-automation (1), Yellowbrick in data-warehouses (1), YewSafe CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Zscaler's Security Service Edge (SSE) in sase-platforms (1), dbt Labs in etl-and-elt (1), yewsafe in content-delivery-networks (1) Excluded by rule, 1 label not scored: Expert Insights (1; a publisher of software roundups and rankings, cited as a source and named as if it were a product; it sells nothing it ranks) Category-scoped resolutions, 673 labels. A bare vendor name was read as that vendor's product for the asked category, which assigns specificity the model did not write; each one is listed so the assumption is visible: Datadog in application-performance-monitoring read as Datadog APM (60), Databricks in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (35), Rubrik in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Rubrik Security Cloud (33), Zscaler in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (33), Keeper in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (32), Netskope in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (30), Cohesity in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Cohesity DataProtect (28), Veeam in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veeam Data Platform (28), Druva in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Druva Data Security Cloud (26), Informatica in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (25), OneTrust in compliance-automation read as OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance (21), Kong in api-management read as Kong Gateway (19), Fortinet in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (14), Hevo in etl-and-elt read as Hevo Data (14), Microsoft Fabric in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (14), Kong Enterprise in api-management read as Kong Gateway (12), Flexera in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (11), Cloudflare in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (10), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (10), MuleSoft in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (9), Cato Networks SASE Cloud in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (8), Fortinet (FortiSASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (8), Grafana in application-performance-monitoring read as Grafana Cloud (7), Veritas in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veritas Alta Data Protection (7), Versa in sase-platforms read as Versa SASE (7), Databricks in etl-and-elt read as Databricks Lakeflow (6), HYCU in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as HYCU R-Cloud (6), Harness in cloud-cost-management read as Harness Cloud Cost Management (6), Spot by NetApp in cloud-cost-management read as Spot by NetApp (6), WSO2 in api-management read as WSO2 API Manager (6), Acronis in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Acronis Cyber Protect (5), Axway Amplify in api-management read as Axway Amplify API Management (5), Keeper Business in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (5), Keeper Enterprise in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (5), Palo Alto Networks in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (5), Zscaler (Zero Trust Exchange) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (5), Cisco AppDynamics in application-performance-monitoring read as AppDynamics (4), Palo Alto in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (4), Amazon Q in ai-coding-assistants read as Amazon Q Developer (3), Axway in api-management read as Axway Amplify API Management (3), Azure Synapse in data-warehouses read as Azure Synapse Analytics (3), Cato in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (3), Datadog in cloud-cost-management read as Datadog Cloud Cost Management (3), Kong (Kong Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (3), MuleSoft (Salesforce) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (3), Netskope (Netskope One) in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (3), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma Access) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (3), ServiceNow in compliance-automation read as ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management (3), Arcserve in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Arcserve UDP (2), Cohesity Data Cloud in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Cohesity DataProtect (2), Delinea in business-password-managers read as Delinea Secret Server (2), Estuary in etl-and-elt read as Estuary Flow (2), HPE in sase-platforms read as HPE Aruba (2), JetBrains AI in ai-coding-assistants read as JetBrains AI Assistant (2), Microsoft Edge in business-password-managers read as Microsoft Edge Password Manager (2), MuleSoft (Anypoint Platform) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (2), Scrut in compliance-automation read as Scrut Automation (2), SolarWinds in application-performance-monitoring read as SolarWinds Observability (2), Splunk APM in application-performance-monitoring read as Splunk Observability Cloud (2), Teradata in data-warehouses read as Teradata Vantage (2), AWS in api-management read as Amazon API Gateway (1), Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Arcserve UDP (1), Barracuda in sase-platforms read as Barracuda SecureEdge (1), Carbonite in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Carbonite Safe (1), Cato SASE Networks in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (1), Check Point in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (1), Check Point (Harmony SASE) in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (1), Check Point Software Technologies in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (1), Cloudflare (Cloudflare One / Zero Trust) in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (1), Cloudflare (Cloudflare One) in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (1), Cohesity (DataProtect) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Cohesity DataProtect (1), Databricks (Delta Lake / Lakehouse) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Databricks (Delta Lake) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Databricks (Lakehouse) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Databricks (SQL Warehouse / Lakehouse) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Databricks SQL / Lakehouse in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Elastic in application-performance-monitoring read as Elastic APM (1), Elastic (Elasticsearch & APM) in application-performance-monitoring read as Elastic APM (1), Fabric in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (1), Flexera (CloudHealth) in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (1), Flexera One FinOps in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (1), Forcepoint in sase-platforms read as Forcepoint ONE (1), Fortinet (FortiSASE / Unified SASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), Fortinet (Unified SASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), Google Cloud Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Google Cloud Backup and DR Service (1), Informatica (Enterprise) in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (1), Informatica (IDMC / PowerCenter) in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (1), Informatica (PowerCenter / IDMC) in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (1), Informatica (PowerCenter or Intelligent Cloud Services) in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (1), Informatica (PowerCenter/IDMC) in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (1), JetBrains AI Enterprise in ai-coding-assistants read as JetBrains AI Assistant (1), Kong (Enterprise) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Gateway / Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong Enterprise (Kong Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), MSP360 in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as MSP360 Managed Backup (1), ManageEngine in business-password-managers read as ManageEngine Password Manager Pro (1), Microsoft Fabric (including Synapse) in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (1), Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (1), NAKIVO in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as NAKIVO Backup & Replication (1), Netskope (Netskope SASE) in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (1), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE / Prisma Access) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Pentaho in etl-and-elt read as Pentaho Data Integration (1), Ping in customer-identity-and-access-management read as Ping Identity (1), Proton in business-password-managers read as Proton Pass (1), Spot in cloud-cost-management read as Spot by NetApp (1), Thycotic (now Delinea) in business-password-managers read as Delinea Secret Server (1), VMware (by Broadcom) in sase-platforms read as VMware SASE (1), VMware Aria Cost (CloudHealth) in cloud-cost-management read as VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (1), Veritas Technologies in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veritas Alta Data Protection (1), Zscaler (Zero Trust Exchange / Zscaler SASE) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1) Combined answers split into one label per product: AWS Backup / Azure Backup, AWS CloudWatch / X-Ray, AWS Cost Management / Cost Explorer, AWS Glue / Azure Data Factory, AWS/Azure Backup, Airflow/Dagster, Amazon CloudFront / AWS WAF, Apache Airflow / NiFi, Apigee/Google, Apptio/Cloudability, Azure / AWS, Azure Backup / Azure Site Recovery, Azure Synapse / Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics / Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics/Microsoft Fabric, Broadcom / VMware, Cisco Secure Access + Cisco SD-WAN, Cisco Secure Access / Cisco SASE, Cisco Umbrella + Duo, Cisco/AppDynamics, Claude Code/Anthropic, CloudHealth / VMware Aria Cost by Broadcom, CloudHealth by VMware/Broadcom, CloudHealth/Apptio, CloudHealth/VMware, CloudHealth/VMware Aria Cost, Cloudaware / ServiceNow, Firebase Authentication / Google Cloud Identity Platform, ForgeRock / Ping Identity (Post-Merger), Fortinet/Versa, Gcore/CDN77, IBM DataStage + Confluent, IBM Turbonomic / Kubecost, KeePass / KeePassXC, Kong Enterprise/Kong Konnect, Kong/Kong Konnect, Limelight/Edgecast, McAfee Enterprise / Trellix (MVision UEB), Microsoft Azure AD B2C / Entra External ID, Microsoft Azure CDN / Azure Front Door, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics / Fabric, Microsoft Entra External ID / Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Fabric/Azure Synapse, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) / Azure Data Factory (ADF), Microsoft SSIS / Azure Data Factory, MuleSoft/Salesforce, Ping Identity/ForgeRock, PingOne for Customers / Ping Identity, PointFive / Spot.io (NetApp), Postman / Swagger, Postman/Swagger, Prometheus/Grafana/Jaeger, SSIS/SQL Server Integration Services, Securden/ManageEngine Password Manager Pro, Snowflake/BigQuery, Spark/Databricks, Stitch/Meltano, Talend / Qlik Talend Cloud, Veritas Alta / NetBackup, Vertex AI/Cody, Windsurf/Codeium, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange / Zscaler SASE ## Appendix: loose paraphrase stability - Claude Haiku 4.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 5 of 12 categories (42%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GPT-5.4 mini: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt - Gemini 3.5 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 12 of 12 categories (100%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Perplexity Sonar: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, sase-platforms - Grok 4.1 Fast: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Mistral Small: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 9 of 12 categories (75%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - DeepSeek V4 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 12 of 12 categories (100%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management - Llama 4 Maverick: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 4 of 10 categories (40%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Qwen 3.7 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 9 of 12 categories (75%); differing under the strict rule: backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Kimi K2: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 12 of 12 categories (100%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, business-password-managers, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GLM 4.7 FlashX: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: business-password-managers, content-delivery-networks, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - MiniMax M2.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms # Segment: Small business # IT AI Recommendation Index, run mai-20260918-0021-calibration_b 72 prompts, 12 models, 4,626 raw judge labels, 4,662 scored labels after normalization. Published weights: first choice +3, alternative +2, mention +1, soft negative -2, hard negative -3. Scored under vendor alias table version 2026-10.8. Raw judge labels are the permanent record; the numbers below are derived from them and are regenerated for every run whenever the alias table changes, so the whole series is always scored under one table version. Resolution of raw names: 3,947 by alias or canonical name, 450 by category-scoped alias, 75 from combined answers split into their products, 22 from combined answers counted once for their first product, 0 excluded by rule, 156 unresolved and counted under the raw name. ## Paraphrase stability Share of categories where a model's first choice set on the direct prompt equals its set on the paraphrase. | Model | Same | Different | Stability | |---|---|---|---| | Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 11 | 8% | | GPT-5.4 mini | 5 | 7 | 42% | | Gemini 3.5 Flash | 7 | 5 | 58% | | Perplexity Sonar | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Grok 4.1 Fast | 5 | 7 | 42% | | Mistral Small | 3 | 9 | 25% | | DeepSeek V4 Flash | 6 | 6 | 50% | | Llama 4 Maverick | 1 | 10 | 9% | | Qwen 3.7 Flash | 4 | 8 | 33% | | Kimi K2 | 6 | 6 | 50% | | GLM 4.7 FlashX | 6 | 6 | 50% | | MiniMax M2.5 | 4 | 8 | 33% | A looser measure, whether a direct first choice survives as a first choice or alternative on the paraphrase, is in the appendix. ## Standing by category First choice share across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts and all 12 models. The top product's share is published alongside the label: contested means the top share is at or below 40%, and a category just above the line is not meaningfully different from one just below it. Consensus means every model's direct-prompt first choice is the same single product. | Category | Top product | Top share | First choices | Status | |---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 55% | 53 | clear leader | | api-management | Zuplo | 25% | 56 | contested | | application-performance-monitoring | New Relic | 47% | 47 | clear leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Acronis Cyber Protect | 36% | 45 | contested | | business-password-managers | Bitwarden | 40% | 47 | clear leader | | cloud-cost-management | Vantage | 47% | 60 | clear leader | | compliance-automation | Vanta | 46% | 41 | clear leader | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 85% | 47 | clear leader | | customer-identity-and-access-management | WorkOS | 22% | 51 | contested | | data-warehouses | Google BigQuery | 76% | 51 | clear leader | | etl-and-elt | Airbyte | 36% | 50 | contested | | sase-platforms | Cloudflare One | 40% | 47 | clear leader | **ai-coding-assistants**: GitHub Copilot 55%, Windsurf 21%, Cursor 15%, Tabnine 4%, Cline 2% **api-management**: Zuplo 25%, Kong Gateway 21%, Postman 16%, Amazon API Gateway 11%, Tyk 11% **application-performance-monitoring**: New Relic 47%, Datadog APM 13%, Sentry 11%, AppSignal 6%, Elastic APM 6% **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Acronis Cyber Protect 36%, IDrive Business 20%, Cove Data Protection 16%, Datto SIRIS 4%, Veeam Data Platform 4% **business-password-managers**: 1Password 40%, Bitwarden 40%, NordPass 9%, RoboForm 6%, Dashlane 4% **cloud-cost-management**: Vantage 47%, AWS Cost Explorer 20%, Azure Advisor 5%, CloudZero 5%, Azure Cost Management + Advisor 3% **compliance-automation**: Vanta 46%, Sprinto 29%, CATAAM 7%, Scytale 5%, Drata 2% **content-delivery-networks**: Cloudflare 85%, Bunny.net 11%, BlazingCDN 2%, Cloudflare Free Plan 2% **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Auth0 22%, WorkOS 22%, Clerk 20%, Descope 8%, Frontegg 8% **data-warehouses**: Google BigQuery 76%, Snowflake 16%, Amazon Redshift 2%, DuckDB 2%, Firebolt 2% **etl-and-elt**: Airbyte 36%, Fivetran 18%, Hevo Data 14%, Skyvia 10%, Stitch 8% **sase-platforms**: Cloudflare One 40%, Cato Networks 15%, Check Point Harmony SASE 9%, Cisco Umbrella 6%, NordLayer 6% ## Anti-recommendations Products most often labeled soft or hard negative, with the number of models that did so at least once in the category, and the share of that product's labels in the category that were negative. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning; a low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment. - **ai-coding-assistants**: GitHub Copilot (8 models, 1 hard; 8 of 68 labels negative), Cursor (7 models; 11 of 56 labels negative), Windsurf (4 models; 4 of 51 labels negative), ChatGPT (2 models, 2 hard; 2 of 2 labels negative) - **api-management**: Apigee (12 models, 15 hard; 30 of 42 labels negative), MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (11 models, 12 hard; 18 of 23 labels negative), IBM API Connect (9 models, 9 hard; 10 of 10 labels negative), Kong Gateway (9 models, 3 hard; 16 of 63 labels negative) - **application-performance-monitoring**: Dynatrace (11 models, 13 hard; 21 of 26 labels negative), AppDynamics (10 models, 11 hard; 15 of 17 labels negative), Datadog APM (10 models, 10 hard; 31 of 54 labels negative), New Relic (6 models, 1 hard; 6 of 61 labels negative) - **backup-and-disaster-recovery**: Google Drive (7 models, 7 hard; 7 of 8 labels negative), Dropbox (6 models, 6 hard; 6 of 7 labels negative), Microsoft OneDrive (6 models, 6 hard; 6 of 7 labels negative), Google Workspace (5 models, 2 hard; 5 of 5 labels negative) - **business-password-managers**: LastPass (11 models, 13 hard; 17 of 20 labels negative), Dashlane (4 models, 1 hard; 4 of 25 labels negative), 1Password (4 models; 4 of 58 labels negative), Apple Passwords (3 models, 4 hard; 4 of 4 labels negative) - **cloud-cost-management**: IBM Apptio Cloudability (11 models, 15 hard; 21 of 25 labels negative), VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (10 models, 16 hard; 18 of 24 labels negative), Flexera One (8 models, 8 hard; 11 of 14 labels negative), CloudZero (7 models, 3 hard; 13 of 44 labels negative) - **compliance-automation**: Drata (11 models, 1 hard; 15 of 54 labels negative), Vanta (9 models, 1 hard; 14 of 59 labels negative), Secureframe (5 models; 6 of 38 labels negative), OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance (3 models, 3 hard; 3 of 5 labels negative) - **content-delivery-networks**: Fastly (10 models, 3 hard; 19 of 44 labels negative), Akamai (9 models, 7 hard; 24 of 28 labels negative), Amazon CloudFront (7 models, 2 hard; 16 of 48 labels negative), Google Cloud CDN (5 models, 1 hard; 5 of 13 labels negative) - **customer-identity-and-access-management**: Ping Identity (8 models, 7 hard; 11 of 13 labels negative), Amazon Cognito (8 models; 10 of 20 labels negative), Auth0 (7 models, 5 hard; 19 of 57 labels negative), Okta (7 models, 4 hard; 9 of 9 labels negative) - **data-warehouses**: Snowflake (11 models, 4 hard; 18 of 62 labels negative), Databricks SQL (10 models, 5 hard; 14 of 28 labels negative), Amazon Redshift (10 models, 3 hard; 19 of 63 labels negative), Google BigQuery (7 models; 7 of 67 labels negative) - **etl-and-elt**: Talend (8 models, 4 hard; 8 of 16 labels negative), Fivetran (8 models, 3 hard; 18 of 45 labels negative), Matillion (6 models, 4 hard; 6 of 16 labels negative), Stitch (6 models, 2 hard; 8 of 49 labels negative) - **sase-platforms**: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (10 models, 7 hard; 14 of 21 labels negative), Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (9 models, 7 hard; 22 of 37 labels negative), Netskope One (8 models, 2 hard; 11 of 23 labels negative), Cisco Secure Access (5 models, 2 hard; 5 of 12 labels negative) ## Leadership and criticism First-choice share and negative label rate are independent, so every product with at least 10 labels in a category is placed on both axes. Cutoffs: leader at 30% or more of first choices, criticized at 25% or more negative labels. An endorsed leader is recommended and not criticized; a criticized default is recommended while the models list its problems; a criticized challenger is named mostly to be warned against. | Category | Product | First-choice share | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | ai-coding-assistants | GitHub Copilot | 55% | 12% | 68 | endorsed leader | | ai-coding-assistants | Windsurf | 21% | 8% | 51 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Cursor | 15% | 20% | 56 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Tabnine | 4% | 6% | 31 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Aider | 0% | 0% | 11 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Claude Code | 0% | 4% | 23 | accepted challenger | | ai-coding-assistants | Amazon Q Developer | 0% | 12% | 17 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Zuplo | 25% | 0% | 38 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Kong Gateway | 21% | 25% | 63 | criticized challenger | | api-management | Postman | 16% | 15% | 34 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Tyk | 11% | 5% | 44 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Amazon API Gateway | 11% | 13% | 53 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Gravitee | 4% | 5% | 19 | accepted challenger | | api-management | Azure API Management | 2% | 25% | 28 | criticized challenger | | api-management | Apigee | 0% | 71% | 42 | criticized challenger | | api-management | MuleSoft Anypoint Platform | 0% | 78% | 23 | criticized challenger | | api-management | IBM API Connect | 0% | 100% | 10 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | New Relic | 47% | 10% | 61 | endorsed leader | | application-performance-monitoring | Datadog APM | 13% | 57% | 54 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Sentry | 11% | 14% | 37 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | AppSignal | 6% | 0% | 18 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Site24x7 | 6% | 0% | 18 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Elastic APM | 6% | 14% | 14 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | SigNoz | 4% | 4% | 25 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Scout APM | 2% | 5% | 22 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Honeycomb | 2% | 17% | 12 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Grafana Cloud | 0% | 21% | 24 | accepted challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | Dynatrace | 0% | 81% | 26 | criticized challenger | | application-performance-monitoring | AppDynamics | 0% | 88% | 17 | criticized challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Acronis Cyber Protect | 36% | 2% | 53 | endorsed leader | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | IDrive Business | 20% | 3% | 38 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Cove Data Protection | 16% | 5% | 21 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Datto SIRIS | 4% | 5% | 19 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Veeam Data Platform | 4% | 6% | 35 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Carbonite Safe | 2% | 18% | 11 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Backblaze | 2% | 23% | 13 | accepted challenger | | backup-and-disaster-recovery | Axcient x360Recover | 0% | 7% | 15 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Bitwarden | 40% | 3% | 67 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | 1Password | 40% | 7% | 58 | endorsed leader | | business-password-managers | NordPass | 9% | 2% | 43 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | RoboForm | 6% | 0% | 28 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Dashlane | 4% | 16% | 25 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Proton Pass | 0% | 0% | 12 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | Keeper Security | 0% | 2% | 42 | accepted challenger | | business-password-managers | LastPass | 0% | 85% | 20 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Vantage | 47% | 0% | 57 | endorsed leader | | cloud-cost-management | AWS Cost Explorer | 20% | 2% | 53 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | CloudZero | 5% | 30% | 44 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Microsoft Cost Management | 3% | 0% | 30 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Infracost | 2% | 3% | 36 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Kubecost | 2% | 12% | 25 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | SpendArk | 0% | 0% | 20 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Google Cloud Billing | 0% | 0% | 16 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | CAST AI | 0% | 13% | 15 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | OpenCost | 0% | 14% | 14 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | ProsperOps | 0% | 19% | 16 | accepted challenger | | cloud-cost-management | VMware Tanzu CloudHealth | 0% | 75% | 24 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | Flexera One | 0% | 79% | 14 | criticized challenger | | cloud-cost-management | IBM Apptio Cloudability | 0% | 84% | 25 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Vanta | 46% | 24% | 59 | endorsed leader | | compliance-automation | Sprinto | 29% | 4% | 50 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Scytale | 5% | 7% | 14 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Secureframe | 2% | 16% | 38 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Drata | 2% | 28% | 54 | criticized challenger | | compliance-automation | Thoropass | 0% | 11% | 19 | accepted challenger | | compliance-automation | Hyperproof | 0% | 25% | 12 | criticized challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Cloudflare | 85% | 0% | 64 | endorsed leader | | content-delivery-networks | Bunny.net | 11% | 2% | 61 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | KeyCDN | 0% | 0% | 34 | accepted challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Amazon CloudFront | 0% | 33% | 48 | criticized challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Google Cloud CDN | 0% | 38% | 13 | criticized challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Fastly | 0% | 43% | 44 | criticized challenger | | content-delivery-networks | Akamai | 0% | 86% | 28 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | WorkOS | 22% | 0% | 29 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Auth0 | 22% | 33% | 57 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Clerk | 20% | 5% | 37 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Frontegg | 8% | 0% | 18 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Descope | 8% | 4% | 25 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | LoginRadius | 6% | 4% | 23 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Microsoft Entra External ID | 4% | 31% | 13 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Kinde | 2% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Amazon Cognito | 2% | 50% | 20 | criticized challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Supabase Auth | 0% | 0% | 15 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Stytch | 0% | 4% | 24 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Firebase Authentication | 0% | 21% | 14 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Keycloak | 0% | 23% | 13 | accepted challenger | | customer-identity-and-access-management | Ping Identity | 0% | 85% | 13 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | Google BigQuery | 76% | 10% | 67 | endorsed leader | | data-warehouses | Snowflake | 16% | 29% | 62 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | MotherDuck | 2% | 0% | 26 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Firebolt | 2% | 0% | 10 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Amazon Redshift | 2% | 30% | 63 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | ClickHouse Cloud | 0% | 16% | 19 | accepted challenger | | data-warehouses | Azure Synapse Analytics | 0% | 29% | 14 | criticized challenger | | data-warehouses | Databricks SQL | 0% | 50% | 28 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Airbyte | 36% | 7% | 58 | endorsed leader | | etl-and-elt | Fivetran | 18% | 40% | 45 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Hevo Data | 14% | 2% | 42 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Skyvia | 10% | 0% | 37 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Stitch | 8% | 16% | 49 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Coupler.io | 4% | 0% | 24 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Integrate.io | 2% | 20% | 10 | accepted challenger | | etl-and-elt | Apache Airflow | 2% | 30% | 10 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Matillion | 2% | 38% | 16 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | Talend | 2% | 50% | 16 | criticized challenger | | etl-and-elt | dbt | 0% | 0% | 26 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cloudflare One | 40% | 0% | 51 | endorsed leader | | sase-platforms | Cato Networks | 15% | 0% | 29 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Check Point Harmony SASE | 9% | 10% | 31 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | NordLayer | 6% | 12% | 16 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco Umbrella | 6% | 18% | 11 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cato SASE Cloud | 4% | 15% | 13 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Fortinet FortiSASE | 2% | 17% | 35 | accepted challenger | | sase-platforms | Cisco Secure Access | 2% | 42% | 12 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Netskope One | 2% | 48% | 23 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | 2% | 59% | 37 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE | 2% | 67% | 21 | criticized challenger | | sase-platforms | Twingate | 0% | 0% | 12 | accepted challenger | ## Treatment of lab-affiliated products by model Self-preference is only measurable with a control group: how the lab's own model treats its products compared with how every other model treats the same products. OpenAI have no products in the covered categories with enough labels to measure, so nothing is claimed about them. **Anthropic products** (2 products, 25 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Claude Code | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 2/1/3 | 2/0/2 | 4/0/4 | | 3/0/3 | | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 4/0/4 | 1/0/1 | | Claude | | | 0/1/1 | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | Mean label weight on Anthropic products: Claude Haiku 4.5 +2.50 over 2 labels; the other 11 models +1.13 over 23 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. **Google products** (18 products, 195 labels). Cells are positive/negative/all labels. | Product | Claude Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.4 mini | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Perplexity Sonar | Grok 4.1 Fast | Mistral Small | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Llama 4 Maverick | Qwen 3.7 Flash | Kimi K2 | GLM 4.7 FlashX | MiniMax M2.5 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Google BigQuery | 6/0/6 | 6/1/7 | 5/1/6 | 4/1/5 | 6/0/6 | 5/1/6 | 6/0/6 | 3/0/3 | 6/0/6 | 6/1/7 | 4/1/5 | 5/1/6 | | Apigee | 2/3/5 | 0/3/3 | 1/3/4 | 1/2/3 | 1/2/3 | 3/1/4 | 2/3/5 | 0/1/1 | 0/3/3 | 0/3/3 | 0/4/4 | 2/2/4 | | Google Cloud Billing | 1/0/1 | | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | 2/0/2 | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | 3/0/3 | | Firebase Authentication | 1/0/1 | | | 1/0/1 | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 0/2/2 | | 2/1/3 | 3/0/3 | | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud CDN | | 2/0/2 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | 1/1/2 | | 1/0/1 | 2/1/3 | | Google Cloud Cost Management | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | | 2/0/2 | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | Google Drive | 1/0/1 | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | GCP Recommender | | | | | | 2/0/2 | | 1/0/1 | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | | Google Workspace | 0/1/1 | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | Google Password Manager | | | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | Google Cloud | 2/0/2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google Cloud Dataflow | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | Gemini Code Assist | | | | | 1/0/1 | | 1/0/1 | | | | | | | Google Gemini | | | 0/1/1 | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | Google Identity Platform | | | | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | Google Cloud Identity | | | | | | | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | Google Hosted Libraries | | | 0/1/1 | | | | | | | | | | | Google Cloud API Gateway | | | | | | | | | 1/0/1 | | | | Mean label weight on Google products: Gemini 3.5 Flash -0.24 over 17 labels; the other 11 models +0.74 over 178 labels. Weights run from +3 (first choice) to -3 (hard negative). A gap under about half a point on this few labels is not a finding. ## Discontinued products recommended None in this run. ## Normalization Unresolved, 156 labels counted under the raw name, for human review: Alooma in etl-and-elt (2), Clerk.dev in customer-identity-and-access-management (2), CodeLlama in ai-coding-assistants (2), Datto Secure Edge in sase-platforms (2), Definite in data-warehouses (2), Hyper Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (2), RocketCDN in content-delivery-networks (2), Salesforce Headless 360 Platform in customer-identity-and-access-management (2), APC SMT1500C in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Acronis Cyber Protect for Small Business in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Amazon S3 Glacier in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Apimatic in api-management (1), Axcient or Datto in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools in data-warehouses (1), Azure: Cost Management + Azure Advisor in cloud-cost-management (1), Backblaze Business Class in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Backlight (formerly 3scale) in api-management (1), BackupAssist Classic in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Barracuda's cloud-first SASE platform in sase-platforms (1), Better Auth in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Browser-based password storage (Chrome, Edge, Safari) in business-password-managers (1), Built-in browser password managers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox) in business-password-managers (1), ChatGPT extensions in ai-coding-assistants (1), Cisco Secure Cloud Experience in sase-platforms (1), Cisco Umbrella SASE in sase-platforms (1), Cloud PostgreSQL / Managed SQL in data-warehouses (1), Cloud-Based Postgres (e.g., Supabase) in data-warehouses (1), Cloudflare Application Services (CDN) in content-delivery-networks (1), Cloudflare Free Plan in content-delivery-networks (1), Cloudflare’s free plan in content-delivery-networks (1), Compliancy Group in compliance-automation (1), Cookiebot in compliance-automation (1), Custom/In-house Gateway Solutions in api-management (1), DIY (Google Workspace + Sheets) in compliance-automation (1), DIY Approach in compliance-automation (1), Databend Cloud in data-warehouses (1), Datto-style platforms in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Deck in api-management (1), DeepSeek API in ai-coding-assistants (1), Definite in etl-and-elt (1), Digitas in content-delivery-networks (1), Dremio in data-warehouses (1), Druva Phoenix in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Duckle in etl-and-elt (1), Evidr in compliance-automation (1), ExpertInsights in compliance-automation (1), Fastly Inc. in content-delivery-networks (1), FauxPilot in ai-coding-assistants (1), Fortinet Small & Midsize Business in sase-platforms (1), GCP: Billing Reports + Recommender in cloud-cost-management (1), GPT-4o in ai-coding-assistants (1), GitHub Pages in content-delivery-networks (1), Google CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Google Cloud's built-in cost management tools in cloud-cost-management (1), Google Cloud’s cost tools in cloud-cost-management (1), Google Identity in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Google's Native Tools in cloud-cost-management (1), Graphana Cloud in application-performance-monitoring (1), Hadoop in etl-and-elt (1), Harmony SASE in sase-platforms (1), Hideez in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Holori in cloud-cost-management (1), Hostinger CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), IBM API Manager in api-management (1), Improvado in etl-and-elt (1), Intel True Key in business-password-managers (1), Invert.io in cloud-cost-management (1), JetBrains in ai-coding-assistants (1), Karpenter in cloud-cost-management (1), Keboola in etl-and-elt (1), Keeper for Business in business-password-managers (1), LightCDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Limelight Technologies in content-delivery-networks (1), Limpid in content-delivery-networks (1), LocalAI in ai-coding-assistants (1), Mailchimp in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Matej/Celigo in etl-and-elt (1), McAfee True Key in business-password-managers (1), Media CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Microsoft Azure Arc / Microsoft Cloud Optimization in cloud-cost-management (1), Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) in sase-platforms (1), Microsoft FinOps Toolkit in cloud-cost-management (1), Microsoft Global Secure Access (GSA) in sase-platforms (1), Native Provider Tools (AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Mgmt) in cloud-cost-management (1), Native Tools (AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Management / GCP Billing) in cloud-cost-management (1), Native Tools (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, GCP Billing) in cloud-cost-management (1), Native Tools built into AWS/Azure/GCP (Cost Explorer/Cost Management) in cloud-cost-management (1), Netskope full SASE in sase-platforms (1), NextAuth.js in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), NinjaOne Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), OpenAI Codex for teams in ai-coding-assistants (1), OpenOps in cloud-cost-management (1), OptScale (by Hystax) in cloud-cost-management (1), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Governance in compliance-automation (1), Oracle Identity in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Palo Alto Networks' Prisma Access in sase-platforms (1), Panda Dome Passwords in business-password-managers (1), Parabola in etl-and-elt (1), Passport in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Paycor in compliance-automation (1), PerfectScale in cloud-cost-management (1), Pexo in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Pinpoint in application-performance-monitoring (1), Pivotal in api-management (1), Portable in etl-and-elt (1), PostgreSQL Read Replica in data-warehouses (1), Postman Publisher in api-management (1), PowerDMS in compliance-automation (1), Prove Pinnacle in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), RightScale Optima in cloud-cost-management (1), Salesforce Classic in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Salesforce Headless 360 in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), SimpleBackups in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), SpendArk Calculator in cloud-cost-management (1), SpendArk's Free Calculator in cloud-cost-management (1), Sprinklr in compliance-automation (1), Stackpoint in sase-platforms (1), StarCoder in ai-coding-assistants (1), Stoplight Studio in api-management (1), Stytch B2B in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), Sucuri CDN in content-delivery-networks (1), Supermaven in ai-coding-assistants (1), Supermetrics in etl-and-elt (1), Synology DS223+ in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), TIBCO Cloud Mashery in api-management (1), Tealium AudienceStream in customer-identity-and-access-management (1), TermsFeed in compliance-automation (1), Tintri in cloud-cost-management (1), Todyl Security Platform in sase-platforms (1), Trae in ai-coding-assistants (1), TrustArc in compliance-automation (1), TrustCloud's Free Starter tier in compliance-automation (1), TrustRadius in data-warehouses (1), Veeam Agent in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows Free in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Verizon Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) in sase-platforms (1), Versio in sase-platforms (1), Visual Studio IntelliCode in ai-coding-assistants (1), Windows Backup in backup-and-disaster-recovery (1), Yotascale in cloud-cost-management (1), Zenefits in compliance-automation (1), `dlt` (data load tool) in etl-and-elt (1), cloud provider's native cost tools in cloud-cost-management (1), cloud provider's native tools in cloud-cost-management (1), enterprise Talend/Qlik suites in etl-and-elt (1), iubenda in compliance-automation (1), native AWS Billing and Cost Management in cloud-cost-management (1), native cloud billing tools in cloud-cost-management (1) Category-scoped resolutions, 450 labels. A bare vendor name was read as that vendor's product for the asked category, which assigns specificity the model did not write; each one is listed so the assumption is visible: Datadog in application-performance-monitoring read as Datadog APM (53), Kong in api-management read as Kong Gateway (35), Zscaler in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (27), Keeper in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (25), Netskope in sase-platforms read as Netskope One (20), Veeam in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Veeam Data Platform (18), Databricks in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (16), Acronis in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Acronis Cyber Protect (13), MuleSoft in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (13), Keeper Business in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (12), Hevo in etl-and-elt read as Hevo Data (10), Scout Monitoring in application-performance-monitoring read as Scout APM (10), Cato Networks SASE Cloud in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (9), Flexera in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (9), Carbonite in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Carbonite Safe (8), Databricks in etl-and-elt read as Databricks Lakeflow (8), Datto in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (7), Fortinet in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (7), WSO2 in api-management read as WSO2 API Manager (6), Azure Synapse in data-warehouses read as Azure Synapse Analytics (5), Informatica in etl-and-elt read as Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (5), OneTrust in compliance-automation read as OneTrust Tech Risk & Compliance (5), Palo Alto Networks in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (5), Amazon Q in ai-coding-assistants read as Amazon Q Developer (4), Axcient in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Axcient x360Recover (4), Druva in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Druva Data Security Cloud (4), Grafana in application-performance-monitoring read as Grafana Cloud (4), Palo Alto in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (4), AWS Cost Explorer + AWS Budgets in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (3), AWS Cost Explorer + Budgets in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (3), Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup (3), Estuary in etl-and-elt read as Estuary Flow (3), Microsoft Fabric in data-warehouses read as Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (3), Replit in ai-coding-assistants read as Replit AI (3), Scrut in compliance-automation read as Scrut Automation (3), Supabase in customer-identity-and-access-management read as Supabase Auth (3), AWS Budgets in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (2), Cato in sase-platforms read as Cato SASE Cloud (2), Cisco AppDynamics in application-performance-monitoring read as AppDynamics (2), Cloudflare in sase-platforms read as Cloudflare One (2), Copilot in ai-coding-assistants read as GitHub Copilot (2), Databricks SQL / Lakehouse in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (2), Datadog in cloud-cost-management read as Datadog Cloud Cost Management (2), Datto (by Kaseya) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (2), Harness in cloud-cost-management read as Harness Cloud Cost Management (2), Keeper Business Starter in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (2), Kong (Kong Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (2), Kong Enterprise in api-management read as Kong Gateway (2), Microsoft Edge in business-password-managers read as Microsoft Edge Password Manager (2), MuleSoft (Anypoint Platform) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (2), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (2), Ping in customer-identity-and-access-management read as Ping Identity (2), Rubrik in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Rubrik Security Cloud (2), Scout in application-performance-monitoring read as Scout APM (2), Splunk APM in application-performance-monitoring read as Splunk Observability Cloud (2), Spot by NetApp in cloud-cost-management read as Spot by NetApp (2), AWS Cost Management in cloud-cost-management read as AWS Cost Explorer (1), Azure Blob in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Azure Blob Storage (1), Carbonite (now part of Webroot) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Carbonite Safe (1), Check Point in sase-platforms read as Check Point Harmony SASE (1), Cloudflare in api-management read as Cloudflare API Gateway (1), Databricks (Delta Lake / Lakehouse) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Databricks (Lakehouse) in data-warehouses read as Databricks SQL (1), Datadog (cloud cost insights) in cloud-cost-management read as Datadog Cloud Cost Management (1), Datto (Autotask) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Datto (Fortinet) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Datto (Kaseya) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Datto (now Kaseya) in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as Datto SIRIS (1), Flexera (ProsperOps, Turbonomic, Vantage) in cloud-cost-management read as Flexera One (1), Forcepoint in sase-platforms read as Forcepoint ONE (1), Fortinet (FortiSASE / FortiGate SD-WAN) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), Fortinet (FortiSASE) in sase-platforms read as Fortinet FortiSASE (1), HPE in sase-platforms read as HPE Aruba (1), IBM Apptio in cloud-cost-management read as IBM Apptio Cloudability (1), Keeper Enterprise in business-password-managers read as Keeper Security (1), Kong (Cloud / Hybrid) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Konnect / OSS) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (OSS + Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (Open Source) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (open-source / Konnect) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong (open-source) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), Kong Enterprise (or Kong Mesh) in api-management read as Kong Gateway (1), MSP360 in backup-and-disaster-recovery read as MSP360 Managed Backup (1), MuleSoft (Salesforce) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (1), MuleSoft (by Salesforce) in api-management read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (1), Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE / Prisma Access) in sase-platforms read as Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE (1), Pentaho in etl-and-elt read as Pentaho Data Integration (1), Pentaho (Kettle / PDI) in etl-and-elt read as Pentaho Data Integration (1), Spot by Flexera in cloud-cost-management read as Spot by NetApp (1), Teradata in data-warehouses read as Teradata Vantage (1), VMware in sase-platforms read as VMware SASE (1), VMware Aria Cost (formerly CloudHealth) in cloud-cost-management read as VMware Tanzu CloudHealth (1), Zscaler (Essentials Tier) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1), Zscaler (SSE essentials) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1), Zscaler (ZIA/ZPA) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1), Zscaler (Zscaler Internet Access / Private Access) in sase-platforms read as Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (1) Combined answers split into one label per product: AWS Cost Explorer / AWS Cloud Financial Management, AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Advisor / GCP Recommender, AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Management / GCP Billing, Azure SQL/PostgreSQL, Azure Synapse / Microsoft Fabric, Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare R2, Bill.com / BILL, Cisco Secure Access / Cisco Secure Connect, Cisco Umbrella / Cisco Secure Access, CloudHealth / Tanzu CloudHealth, Coupler.io / Zapier, DuckDB / MotherDuck, DuckDB/MotherDuck, Fivetran / Stitch (by Talend), Flexera / VMware Tanzu CloudHealth, Gloo Edge / Envoy, Google Chrome password manager / Google Account sync, Grafana Cloud + Prometheus, Hevo Data / Skyvia, Informatica PowerCenter / Integrate.io (Enterprise Tiers), KeePass/KeePassXC, Limelight/Edgecast (rebranded as Edgio), MotherDuck / DuckDB, Okta Customer Identity Cloud/ Auth0, OpenObserve / Grafana Tempo, OpenTelemetry + Jaeger/Tempo, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE / Prisma Access, PingOne for Customers / Ping Identity, Prometheus + Grafana + Elastic APM, Safari/Apple Keychain, Stytch/Supabase Auth, VMware/Cisco/Broadcom, Veeam Data Platform / Veeam Data Cloud, WSO2 API Platform / WSO2 API Manager, Windsurf / Devin Desktop ## Appendix: loose paraphrase stability - Claude Haiku 4.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 6 of 12 categories (50%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GPT-5.4 mini: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 7 of 12 categories (58%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, backup-and-disaster-recovery, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Gemini 3.5 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 12 of 12 categories (100%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt - Perplexity Sonar: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 9 of 12 categories (75%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, cloud-cost-management, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Grok 4.1 Fast: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management - Mistral Small: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 6 of 12 categories (50%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - DeepSeek V4 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, backup-and-disaster-recovery, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt - Llama 4 Maverick: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 4 of 11 categories (36%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, cloud-cost-management, compliance-automation, content-delivery-networks, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - Qwen 3.7 Flash: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, sase-platforms - Kimi K2: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 11 of 12 categories (92%); differing under the strict rule: api-management, application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms - GLM 4.7 FlashX: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 10 of 12 categories (83%); differing under the strict rule: application-performance-monitoring, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, customer-identity-and-access-management, data-warehouses, sase-platforms - MiniMax M2.5: a direct first choice kept as first choice or alternative in 9 of 12 categories (75%); differing under the strict rule: ai-coding-assistants, api-management, backup-and-disaster-recovery, business-password-managers, compliance-automation, customer-identity-and-access-management, etl-and-elt, sase-platforms