# SASE platforms: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "SASE platform" and as "secure access service edge solution", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/sase-platforms/

**Standing:** Cato SASE Cloud leads with 28% of first choices; verdict contested. 43 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cato SASE Cloud | 28% | 0% | 16 |
| 2 | Cato Networks | 26% | 8% | 25 |
| 3 | Cloudflare One | 23% | 11% | 44 |
| 4 | Cisco Umbrella | 7% | 18% | 17 |
| 5 | Check Point Harmony SASE | 5% | 13% | 15 |
| 6 | Netskope One | 2% | 10% | 30 |
| 7 | Fortinet FortiSASE | 0% | 15% | 41 |
| 8 | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | 0% | 28% | 46 |
| 9 | Cisco Secure Access | 0% | 18% | 11 |
| 10 | Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE | 0% | 36% | 33 |
| 11 | Cisco | 0% | 31% | 13 |

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

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Check Point Harmony SASE, OpenVPN CloudConnexa
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cisco Secure Access + Meraki/SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiSASE, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cato Networks; alternatives Cloudflare One, Fortinet FortiSASE, Netskope One
- Perplexity Sonar: Cato Networks; alternatives Check Point Harmony SASE, Fortinet FortiSASE, Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cloudflare One, Fortinet FortiSASE
- Mistral Small: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Fortinet FortiSASE
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cato Networks; alternatives Cloudflare One, Fortinet FortiSASE
- Llama 4 Maverick: Cato SASE Cloud
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cato Networks; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Fortinet FortiSASE
- Kimi K2: Cato Networks; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Netskope One
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Cloudflare One, Fortinet FortiSASE, Netskope One
- MiniMax M2.5: Cato SASE Cloud; alternatives Cisco Umbrella, Fortinet FortiSASE, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange

## 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:

- gartner.com: 32 answers, 51 citations
- sase.cloud: 25 answers, 49 citations
- pickmysoft.com: 24 answers, 24 citations
- blog.openvpn.net: 22 answers, 22 citations
- fortinet.com: 21 answers, 33 citations
- costbench.com: 20 answers, 25 citations
- sasecompare.com: 20 answers, 23 citations
- techrepublic.com: 19 answers, 19 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/single-vendor-sase (27 answers)
- https://pickmysoft.com/blog/best-secure-access-service-edge-sase-platforms (24 answers)
- https://blog.openvpn.net/best-sase-solution (22 answers)
- https://costbench.com/best/sase-for-mid-market (20 answers)
- https://sasecompare.com/blog/best-sase-providers-2026-comparison-criteria (20 answers)
- https://techrepublic.com/article/secure-access-service-edge-platforms (19 answers)
- https://viewpointanalysis.com/post/sase-software-options-2026 (18 answers)
- https://macronetservices.com/sase-leaders-vendors-comparison (12 answers)
- https://fortinet.com/resources/articles/steps-to-evaluate-sase-vendors (11 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/sase-platform (11 answers)

## Warned against

- Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange: 13 of 46 labels negative. "generally not recommended for mid-sized B2B companies" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt)
- Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE: 12 of 33 labels negative. "you might want to avoid the enterprise-heavy giants like Cisco and Palo Alto" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Fortinet FortiSASE: 6 of 41 labels negative. "has historically suffered from a steep learning curve and complex setup compared to born-in-the-cloud alternatives" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Cisco: 4 of 13 labels negative. "you might want to avoid the enterprise-heavy giants like Cisco and Palo Alto" (Qwen 3.7 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, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.