# DNS filtering for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "DNS filtering service" and as "DNS security solution", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/dns-filtering/enterprise/

**Standing:** Cisco Umbrella leads with 43% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 53 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cisco Umbrella | 43% | 17% | 59 |
| 2 | DNSFilter | 26% | 6% | 53 |
| 3 | Cloudflare Gateway | 4% | 6% | 47 |
| 4 | Infoblox Threat Defense | 2% | 11% | 27 |
| 5 | Zscaler Internet Access | 2% | 0% | 17 |
| 6 | Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector | 0% | 21% | 14 |
| 7 | OpenDNS | 0% | 50% | 10 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, WebTitan
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cisco Secure Access; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, Zscaler DNS Security
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cisco Umbrella, Cloudflare One, DNSFilter; alternatives Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense
- Perplexity Sonar: DNSFilter; alternatives Broadcom Symantec WebFilter, Zscaler Internet Access
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, Zscaler Internet Access
- Mistral Small: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter
- Llama 4 Maverick: Cloudflare
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare One, DNSFilter
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Akamai DNS‑Shield, Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter, Infoblox DNS Security
- MiniMax M2.5: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare One, DNSFilter, Zscaler Internet Access
- GPT-6 Luna: Cisco Secure Access – DNS Defense, Cloudflare Gateway; alternatives DNSFilter, Infoblox Threat Defense
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Cisco Umbrella; alternatives Cloudflare Gateway, DNSFilter

## Sources the answers cite

77 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- controld.com: 51 answers, 112 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 45 answers, 75 citations
- aimultiple.com: 38 answers, 38 citations
- dnsfilter.com: 37 answers, 59 citations
- expertinsights.com: 30 answers, 35 citations
- cyberpress.org: 28 answers, 39 citations
- thectoclub.com: 26 answers, 26 citations
- sourceforge.net: 24 answers, 30 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://aimultiple.com/dns-security (38 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/best-dns-security-solutions (26 answers)
- https://thectoclub.com/tools/best-dns-security-software (26 answers)
- https://cyberpress.org/best-dns-filtering-solutions (24 answers)
- https://devopsschool.com/blog/top-10-dns-filtering-platforms-features-pros-cons-comparison (23 answers)
- https://expertinsights.com/web-security/the-top-dns-web-filtering-platforms-for-businesses (22 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/bst-protective-dns-services (16 answers)
- https://sourceforge.net/software/dns-filtering/for-enterprise (16 answers)
- https://controld.com/resources/enterprise-dns-security (14 answers)
- https://controld.com/blog/best-dns-security-solutions (13 answers)

## Warned against

- Cisco Umbrella: 10 of 59 labels negative. "Umbrella sales are scheduled to end on January 31, 2027, with renewals ending January 31, 2028" (GPT-6 Luna, paraphrase prompt)
- Google Public DNS: 5 of 5 labels negative. "Consumer/SMB-Focused Free/Public Resolvers like Quad9, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 (Family/Security Modes), or Google Public DNS ... Why avoid" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- Quad9: 5 of 7 labels negative. "Single-Purpose, Non-Scalable Resolvers (Quad9, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1, Google Public DNS) ... unsuitable as *primary enterprise* filtering services" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- NextDNS: 5 of 9 labels negative. "While services like NextDNS, AdGuard DNS, Pi-hole, or basic tiers of other tools are outstanding for home users... they should be avoided in an enterprise environment." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, 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, October 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.