AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Network and edge › DNS filtering › Small business › September 2026 Edition

DNS filtering for small business buyers

Asked as “DNS filtering service”, and as “DNS security solution”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 57 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
51%
DNSFilter
Clear leader
51DNSFilter16Cloudflare Gateway07Quad926others

51% of first choices, clear leader.

ShowinginAll 136 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessDNSFilter51%Clear leaderThis pageMid-marketDNSFilter59%Clear leaderStanding →EnterpriseCisco Umbrella43%Clear leaderStanding →

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01DNSFilter51%6%62endorsed leader
02Cloudflare Gateway16%2%46accepted challenger
03Quad97%25%20criticized challenger
04Cisco Umbrella5%59%41criticized challenger
05Control D2%3%33accepted challenger
06SafeDNS2%30%10criticized challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08WebTitan0%13%15accepted challenger
07NextDNS0%13%31accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
W08
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01DNSFilter51%
02Cloudflare Gateway16%
03Quad97%
04Cisco Umbrella5%
05Control D2%
06SafeDNS2%
07NextDNS0%
08WebTitan0%

What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. 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.
Cisco Umbrella
59%
24 of 41 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Cisco Umbrella is usually overkill and too expensive for a small business.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
NextDNS
13%
4 of 31 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Doesn't scale well for business environments; Reddit users report it "didn't hold up" under load” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
DNSFilter
6%
4 of 62 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“Review sites for DNSFilter, Verizon DNS Safeguard, Control D, and SafeDNS show a mix of praise and recurring complaints around support, pricing, misconfigurations, and occasional outages or false positives” GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt
CleanBrowsing
33%
3 of 9 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“users frequently criticize its support as "atrocious." ... considered unreliable for business use” Mistral Small, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

74 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1005 links across 168 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

cybersecuritynews.com
52 answers · 88 citations · 12 models
controld.com
vendor site · Control D48 answers · 125 citations · 13 models
dnsfilter.com
vendor site · DNSFilter44 answers · 60 citations · 13 models
simplyit.biz
39 answers · 39 citations · 11 models
expertinsights.com
33 answers · 41 citations · 12 models
sourceforge.net
vendor site · SourceForge31 answers · 48 citations · 9 models
aimultiple.com
31 answers · 31 citations · 9 models
thectoclub.com
29 answers · 29 citations · 11 models
cyberpress.org
vendor site · CyberPress28 answers · 33 citations · 11 models
g2.com
vendor site · G227 answers · 43 citations · 13 models
geekflare.com
21 answers · 21 citations · 10 models
devopsschool.com
20 answers · 20 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

cybersecuritynews.com/best-dns-security-solutions
41 answers · 12 models
simplyit.biz/resources/best-dns-filtering-small-business-2026
39 answers · 11 models
aimultiple.com/dns-security
31 answers · 9 models
thectoclub.com/tools/best-dns-security-software
29 answers · 11 models
cybersecuritynews.com/bst-protective-dns-services
26 answers · 10 models
expertinsights.com/web-security/the-top-dns-web-filtering-platforms-for-bus…
26 answers · 11 models
controld.com/blog/best-dns-security-solutions
22 answers · 9 models
geekflare.com/cybersecurity/best-dns-filtering-software
21 answers · 10 models
devopsschool.com/blog/top-10-dns-filtering-platforms-features-pros-cons-com…
20 answers · 8 models
comparitech.com/net-admin/dns-filtering-tools
19 answers · 10 models

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best dns filtering service”, “dns filtering service”, “dns filtering services”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsGoogle ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
DNSFilter dnsfilter.com51%1714,4008312,152751
Cloudflare parent site
Cloudflare Gateway 16%, Cloudflare One 5%, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 for Families 2%		23%372550,00010,897
Quad9 quad9.net7%535,4002355,594
Cisco parent site
Cisco Umbrella 5%		5%145165,00048,352
Cloudflare cloudflare.com4%430550,00010,8974,995,4131114
Control D controld.com
Control D 2%, Control D SMB 0%		2%685,4001,65821,8523
OpenDNS opendns.com2%319,90087815,5722
TitanHQ titanhq.com
TitanHQ WebTitan 2%		2%7
SafeDNS safedns.com2%2217021,5885
Cisco Umbrella DNS Security Essentials2%

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 20 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (controld.com, dnsfilter.com, sourceforge.net, thectoclub.com). The first result for “best dns filtering service” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best DNS filtering service for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which DNS security solution would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top DNS filtering services for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best DNS filtering service for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a DNS filtering service. What should we look at?”Negative“Which DNS filtering services should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5DNSFilter, TitanHQ WebTitan
Two alternativesCloudflare Gateway, SafeDNS
Cloudflare, Quad9ChangedDNSFilter
Four alternativesCloudflare Gateway, NextDNS, SafeDNS, TitanHQ WebTitan
Cloudflare, Cloudflare's free DNS service
Five alternativesCisco Umbrella, NextDNS, OpenDNS Home, Pi-hole, Quad9
no first choiceagainst: Avast Secure Internet Gateway, Cato Networks, SafeDNS
GPT-5.4 miniCloudflare Gateway
One alternativeDNSFilter
Cisco UmbrellaChanged
Four alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, NextDNS
against: Infoblox Threat DefenseCloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
One alternativeCisco Umbrella
against: NextDNSCloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare One
One alternativeCisco Umbrella
no first choiceagainst: Control D, DNSFilter, SafeDNS, Verizon DNS Safeguard
Gemini 3.5 FlashDNSFilter
Three alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Control D, NextDNS
DNSFilterHeld
Two alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Control D
against: Cloudflare, Quad9Cloudflare Gateway
Three alternativesControl D, DNSFilter, NextDNS
Cloudflare One
Four alternativesControl D, DNSFilter, NextDNS, Quad9
DNSFilter
Two alternativesCloudflare One, NextDNS
against: Cisco Umbrellaagainst: Cisco Umbrella, Cloudflare, Quad9, Webroot DNS Protection
Perplexity SonarDNSFilter
Three alternativesControl D, OpenDNS, WebTitan
Cisco Umbrella DNS Security Essentials, DNSFilterChanged
One alternativeCloudflare One
Cloudflare Gateway
Five alternativesAdGuard DNS, Control D, DNSFilter, OpenDNS, Quad9
Cloudflare One
Two alternativesControl D, DNSFilter
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastDNSFilter
Four alternativesCleanBrowsing, NextDNS, TitanHQ, WebTitan
against: OpenDNS, Quad9DNSFilterHeld
Two alternativesCloudflare Gateway, ScoutDNS
against: Cisco UmbrellaCleanBrowsing, DNSFilter, NextDNS
One alternativeControl D
against: Cisco UmbrellaCloudflare 1.1.1.1 for Families, Quad9
Four alternativesControl D, DNSFilter, ScoutDNS, TitanHQ WebTitan
against: Cisco UmbrellaCloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
One alternativeCisco Umbrella
against: Cisco Umbrella, CleanBrowsing, NextDNS, Quad9
Mistral SmallDNSFilter
One alternativeWebTitan
no first choiceChangedCloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
Three alternativesOpenDNS, TitanHQ, Webroot DNS Protection
against: Perimeter81DNSFilter
One alternativeControl D
no first choiceagainst: CleanBrowsing, Comodo (Xcitium) DNS Filtering, DNSFilter, NextDNS, WebTitan, Webroot DNS Web Filtering
DeepSeek V4 FlashDNSFilter
Three alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Control D, NextDNS
against: Cisco UmbrellaDNSFilterHeld
Two alternativesCisco Umbrella, TitanSecure
against: Cloudflare Gateway, Zscaler Internet AccessDNSFilter, NextDNS
Two alternativesControl D, WebTitan
against: AdGuard DNS, Cisco Umbrella, Quad9Cloudflare Gateway
Three alternativesCleanBrowsing, DNSFilter, NextDNS
DNSFilter
Three alternativesCisco Umbrella, Control D, NextDNS
against: Cisco Umbrella, CleanBrowsing, Comodo (Xcitium) suite, NextDNS, OpenDNS, SafeDNS
Llama 4 MaverickDNSFilterCloudflare Gateway, DNSFilterChanged
Four alternativesAkamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Cisco Umbrella, Infoblox Threat Defense, SafeDNS
no first choiceDNSFilterno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashDNSFilter
Two alternativesCleanBrowsing, NextDNS
DNSFilterHeld
One alternativeCloudflare Gateway
against: Cisco UmbrellaDNSFilter
Three alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Control D, NordLayer
DNSFilter
Three alternativesCloudflare Gateway, NxFilter, SafeDNS
against: Cisco Umbrellano first choiceagainst: Cisco Umbrella, Cloudflare's basic 1.1.1.1, DNSFilter, Google Public DNS, OpenDNS Home versions
Kimi K2DNSFilter
Two alternativesCloudflare Gateway, WebTitan
against: Cisco UmbrellaDNSFilterHeld
One alternativeCloudflare Gateway
against: Cisco UmbrellaCloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
One alternativeControl D
against: Cisco UmbrellaCloudflare Gateway
Four alternativesNextDNS, NxFilter, OpenDNS (Cisco) - Home/Free Version, Quad9
Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilteragainst: Cisco Umbrellaagainst: Cisco Umbrella, DNSFilter, OpenDNS Home
GLM 4.7 FlashXControl D, DNSFilter
One alternativeCloudflare Gateway
against: Cisco UmbrellaDNSFilterChanged
One alternativeCloudflare Gateway
Cloudflare Gateway
Two alternativesControl D, DNSFilter
against: Cisco UmbrellaQuad9
Two alternativesAdGuard DNS, Control D
no first choiceagainst: Cloudflare, Google Public DNS, ISP-Provided DNS, TitanHQ, WebTitan
MiniMax M2.5no first choiceCisco Umbrella, Cloudflare GatewayChanged
Three alternativesCleanBrowsing, NextDNS, Quad9
against: Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Palo Alto Networks DNS SecurityControl D, DNSFilter
Three alternativesCisco Umbrella, CleanBrowsing, Quad9
against: CloudflareSafeDNS
Three alternativesCloudflare Gateway, Control D, DNSFilter
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:42yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:02yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:38yes620 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:04yes194 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 01:54yes239 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:33yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:48yes2340 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:44yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:31yes530 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:47yes1421 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 01:55yes2092 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 23:55yes531 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:26no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:35no04 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:47yes1624 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 22:49yes164 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 22:23yes239 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:01no01 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:05yes2345 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:52yes54 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 01:33yes838 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:54yes1526 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 01:32yes1045 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:01no059 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:37yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:12yes49 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:51yes2838 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:51yes254 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 01:33yes258 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 22:28yes1411 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:32yes22128 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:15yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:45yes731 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:52yes1525 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:58yes2243 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:41yes2029 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:45no05 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:34yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:14yes1726 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:22yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:18yes199 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:13yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:52yes2425 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:32yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:50yes937 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 23:17yes1019 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:53yes2417 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:29yes920 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:43no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 23:55no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:32no014 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:17yes267 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 22:45yes1610 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:14no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:33yes2098 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:18yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:51yes531 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:52yes1235 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 23:52yes1392 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:24no056 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:03yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:46yes58 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:13yes1726 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:25yes203 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:29yes2410 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:32yes1214 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 22:44yes2433 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:15yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:44yes1826 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 23:03yes2023 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:16yes2445 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:15yes1848 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Akamai read as Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector
Infoblox read as Infoblox Threat Defense
TitanHQ's WebTitan read as TitanHQ WebTitan
Zscaler read as Zscaler Internet Access
Unresolved, counted raw
Avast Secure Internet Gateway
Axion Networks
Cisco Umbrella DNS Security Essentials
Cisco Umbrella DNS/SIG
CleanBrowsing Family
Cloudflare's basic 1.1.1.1
Cloudflare's free DNS service
Comodo (Xcitium) DNS Filtering
Comodo (Xcitium) suite
FortiGuard
ISP-Provided DNS
NextDNS for Business
OpenDNS (Cisco) - Home/Free Version
OpenDNS Home versions
Simply IT
Surfshark
Verizon DNS Safeguard
Webroot DNS Web Filtering
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in network and edge

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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