# DDoS protection for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "DDoS protection service" and as "DDoS mitigation provider", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/ddos-protection/enterprise/

**Standing:** Cloudflare leads with 80% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 45 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloudflare | 80% | 3% | 59 |
| 2 | Akamai Prolexic | 13% | 5% | 57 |
| 3 | Imperva | 2% | 8% | 38 |
| 4 | AWS Shield | 0% | 10% | 49 |
| 5 | Azure DDoS Protection | 0% | 9% | 32 |
| 6 | Radware | 0% | 7% | 29 |
| 7 | NETSCOUT Arbor | 0% | 0% | 10 |
| 8 | Google Cloud Armor | 0% | 10% | 10 |
| 9 | Fastly | 0% | 10% | 10 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Cloudflare Magic Transit
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva
- Perplexity Sonar: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Imperva
- Mistral Small: Cloudflare, Nexusguard; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, NETSCOUT Arbor, Radware
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Google Cloud Armor
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Amazon Web Services, Azure DDoS Protection, F5
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Imperva
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Imperva
- MiniMax M2.5: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, F5

## Sources the answers cite

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

- cyberpress.org: 49 answers, 55 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 44 answers, 44 citations
- flowtriq.com: 36 answers, 66 citations
- gartner.com: 25 answers, 34 citations
- best-ddos-protection-tools.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- esecurityplanet.com: 20 answers, 21 citations
- cloudflare.com: 19 answers, 32 citations
- radware.com: 17 answers, 30 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cyberpress.org/ddos-protection-services-to-consider (45 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/ddos-protection-tools (44 answers)
- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/ddos-mitigation-solutions (25 answers)
- https://best-ddos-protection-tools.com/ (21 answers)
- https://esecurityplanet.com/products/distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-protection-vendors (20 answers)
- https://edgeone.ai/blog/details/best-ddos-mitigation-services (17 answers)
- https://eastbaycyber.com/content/compare-best-ddos-protection-services-2026 (15 answers)
- https://cloudminister.com/blog/a-technical-comparison-of-ddos-protection-services-cloudflare-aws-shield-akamai-and-azure-ddos-protection (14 answers)
- https://expertinsights.com/web-security/top-distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-defense-solutions (14 answers)
- https://flowtriq.com/blog/best-cloud-ddos-protection (14 answers)

## Warned against

- AWS Shield: 5 of 49 labels negative. ""Only works with AWS" (e.g., AWS Shield) ... If you rely solely on a single cloud's DDoS service, a cloud-region problem can knock out both your application and its protection" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)
- Nexusguard: 3 of 6 labels negative. "Ranked lower in capacity, speed, and cost clarity, making it less suitable for large-scale enterprise needs" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Akamai Prolexic: 3 of 57 labels negative. "Has experienced significant incidents, including a Prolexic Routed 3.0 routing table failure (2021) and Bot Manager false positives" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)
- Azure DDoS Protection: 3 of 32 labels negative. "Native Cloud DDoS Tools Without Advanced Add-Ons (e.g., AWS Shield Standard, Azure DDoS Basic)" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.