# DDoS protection: 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 a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/ddos-protection/

**Standing:** Cloudflare leads with 93% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 43 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloudflare | 93% | 2% | 66 |
| 2 | AWS Shield | 0% | 12% | 59 |
| 3 | Imperva | 0% | 6% | 36 |
| 4 | Akamai Prolexic | 0% | 18% | 50 |
| 5 | Azure DDoS Protection | 0% | 14% | 35 |
| 6 | Radware | 0% | 5% | 22 |
| 7 | Fastly | 0% | 0% | 14 |
| 8 | Sucuri | 0% | 0% | 13 |
| 9 | Google Cloud Armor | 0% | 7% | 15 |
| 10 | Flowtriq | 0% | 0% | 10 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cloudflare; alternatives Flowtriq, Indusface AppTrana
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Fastly
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Fastly, Imperva
- Perplexity Sonar: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Azure/AWS-based protection, Fastly, LevelBlue
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Radware Cloud DDoS
- Mistral Small: LevelBlue; alternatives AWS Shield, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva, Radware
- Llama 4 Maverick: LevelBlue
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives Akamai Prolexic, Fastly, Imperva
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva, Radware
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Azure DDoS Protection
- MiniMax M2.5: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS Shield, Imperva, Radware

## Sources the answers cite

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

- flowtriq.com: 40 answers, 84 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 38 answers, 40 citations
- cyberpress.org: 32 answers, 36 citations
- gartner.com: 28 answers, 33 citations
- esecurityplanet.com: 27 answers, 30 citations
- cloudminister.com: 23 answers, 23 citations
- geekflare.com: 21 answers, 21 citations
- myrasecurity.com: 20 answers, 20 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cybersecuritynews.com/ddos-protection-tools (38 answers)
- https://cyberpress.org/ddos-protection-services-to-consider (31 answers)
- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/ddos-mitigation-solutions (28 answers)
- https://esecurityplanet.com/products/distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-protection-vendors (26 answers)
- https://cloudminister.com/blog/a-technical-comparison-of-ddos-protection-services-cloudflare-aws-shield-akamai-and-azure-ddos-protection (23 answers)
- https://geekflare.com/cybersecurity/ddos-protection-service (21 answers)
- https://myrasecurity.com/en/the-10-best-ddos-protection-services (20 answers)
- https://flowtriq.com/blog/best-cloud-ddos-protection (17 answers)
- https://flowtriq.com/ddos-protection-facts (17 answers)
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/best-ddos-protection-service (13 answers)

## Warned against

- DDoS-Guard: 7 of 7 labels negative. "Why to avoid: If you host your legitimate business behind DDoS-Guard, your traffic may be routed through IP addresses that are pre-blocked or blacklisted" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Akamai Prolexic: 9 of 50 labels negative. "What to Avoid on a Limited Budget- Akamai Prolexic: Starts around $5,000–$10,000+/month" (Kimi K2, budget prompt)
- AWS Shield: 7 of 59 labels negative. "What to Avoid on a Limited Budget ... AWS Shield Advanced: ~$3,000/month" (Kimi K2, budget prompt)
- Azure DDoS Protection: 5 of 35 labels negative. "What to Avoid on a Limited Budget ... Azure DDoS Network Protection: ~$2,944/month" (Kimi K2, budget 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.