# Network access control for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "network access control solution" and as "NAC system", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small 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/network-access-control/smb/

**Standing:** Portnox Cloud leads with 45% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 55 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portnox Cloud | 45% | 0% | 52 |
| 2 | PacketFence | 16% | 18% | 22 |
| 3 | Aruba ClearPass | 5% | 47% | 38 |
| 4 | OPSWAT MetaAccess | 4% | 0% | 14 |
| 5 | Cisco Meraki | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 6 | Fortinet FortiNAC | 2% | 8% | 12 |
| 7 | FortiNAC | 0% | 31% | 13 |
| 8 | Forescout | 0% | 79% | 19 |
| 9 | Cisco ISE | 0% | 82% | 34 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Aruba ClearPass, Fortinet FortiNAC; alternatives Check Point Harmony SASE, UTunnel
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cisco Access Manager / Cisco Secure Access; alternatives Cisco Duo, Fortinet
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Foxpass, JumpCloud
- Perplexity Sonar: Portnox Cloud; alternatives OPSWAT MetaAccess, SafeConnect
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Genian NAC, NordLayer, OPSWAT MetaAccess, macmon NAC
- Mistral Small: Portnox Cloud
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Cisco Meraki, Fortinet FortiNAC, macmon NAC
- Llama 4 Maverick: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Cisco
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Fortinet; alternatives Aruba ClearPass, Cisco Meraki, Ubiquiti UniFi
- Kimi K2: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Cisco Duo, Microsoft Network Policy Server
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Portnox Cloud; alternatives FortiNAC, Genian NAC, Ivanti Policy Secure, PacketFence
- MiniMax M2.5: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Aruba ClearPass
- GPT-6 Luna: Portnox Cloud; alternatives Aruba ClearPass
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Portnox CLEAR; alternatives Fortinet FortiNAC, NACVIEW, PacketFence

## Sources the answers cite

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

- cyberpress.org: 53 answers, 55 citations
- g2.com: 42 answers, 62 citations
- us.fitgap.com: 39 answers, 52 citations
- capterra.com: 38 answers, 44 citations
- portnox.com: 33 answers, 57 citations
- esecurityplanet.com: 33 answers, 36 citations
- comparitech.com: 29 answers, 30 citations
- thectoclub.com: 27 answers, 27 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cyberpress.org/nac-solutions-by-business-size (53 answers)
- https://capterra.com/network-access-control-software/s/small-businesses (36 answers)
- https://us.fitgap.com/search/network-access-control-software/small-business (36 answers)
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/network-access-control-software (29 answers)
- https://esecurityplanet.com/products/network-access-control-solutions (29 answers)
- https://g2.com/categories/network-access-control-nac/small-business (29 answers)
- https://thectoclub.com/tools/best-network-access-control-software (27 answers)
- https://geekflare.com/cybersecurity/best-nac-software (25 answers)
- https://enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/guides/network-access-control-solutions (21 answers)
- https://blog.domotz.com/all/network-access-control (20 answers)

## Warned against

- Aruba ClearPass: 18 of 38 labels negative. "Any traditional appliance-based NAC solution (including Aruba ClearPass and Fortinet FortiNAC hardware variants) carries these risks for small businesses" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Cisco ISE: 28 of 34 labels negative. "Solutions You Should Generally Avoid ... Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine): Incredibly powerful, but notoriously complex, expensive, and difficult to manage." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt)
- Forescout: 15 of 19 labels negative. "Cisco ISE, Aruba ClearPass, and Forescout are excellent but overkill in cost and complexity for a 30-person company." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, scale prompt)
- Cisco Identity Services Engine: 5 of 7 labels negative. "Small businesses should generally avoid or be very cautious about enterprise-focused NAC solutions ... Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) – While powerful, it's complex, expensive" (MiniMax M2.5, 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.