Every category where a model named Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
SD-WAN	Network and edge	9%	3 of 53	47%	32	criticized challenger
SASE platforms	Network and edge	0%	39 of 43	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by Cato SASE Cloud at 28%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	1	1	2
GPT-5.4 mini	1	1	0	0	2
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	1	2	3
Perplexity Sonar	1	2	1	1	5
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	0	2	2
Mistral Small	1	0	1	1	3
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	0	3	3
Llama 4 Maverick	1	0	0	1	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	1	1	2
Kimi K2	0	2	0	2	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	0	1	2
MiniMax M2.5	1	0	1	1	3

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct17 labels7

Paraphrase21 labels10

Comparative18 labels8not counted in share

Budget-constrained23 labels11

Scale-constrained10 labels1

Negative27 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative116 labels in all, every segment counted; 29 of the 37 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Cisco is often the default choice. - Best for complex routing, large WAN hierarchies, and Cisco-centric environments.” GPT-5.4 mini · SD-WAN · comparative prompt · first choice

“For the tightest budget with good features, Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) or Fortinet SD-WAN would be your best choices” MiniMax M2.5 · SD-WAN · budget prompt · first choice

“The best SD-WAN platform for a company with a limited budget is Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) at $20-$100 per site per month” Llama 4 Maverick · SD-WAN · budget prompt · first choice

“Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) and Fortinet SD-WAN are the most recommended options for budget-conscious companies” Mistral Small · SD-WAN · budget prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Cisco SD-WAN systems have been actively targeted by malicious cyber actors globally, with attackers exploiting an authentication bypass vulnerability” Claude Haiku 4.5 · SD-WAN · negative prompt · hard negative

“Some networking professionals actively advise avoiding Viptela in favor of alternative Cisco platforms (like Meraki) or competing vendors.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · SD-WAN · negative prompt · hard negative

“Avoid single-vendor solutions that are essentially two separate platforms (like Cisco Secure Access and Catalyst SD-WAN)” GLM 4.7 FlashX · SASE · negative prompt · hard negative

“If a partner tries to sell you traditional Viptela hardware, avoid it.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · SD-WAN · negative prompt · hard negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, over the 112 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Fortinet Secure SD-WAN99 of 11222Compare →

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN73 of 1120Not in the top three

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN57 of 11218Compare →

Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN51 of 1122Not in the top three

Versa Secure SD-WAN37 of 1121Not in the top three

HPE Aruba EdgeConnect34 of 1120Not in the top three

Cato Networks31 of 1126Not in the top three

Aryaka21 of 1120Not in the top three

Peplink19 of 1121Not in the top three

Ubiquiti UniFi7 of 1121Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 96 of the 112 answers that named Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gartner.com67

costbench.com48

reddit.com41

stlpartners.com41

interfacesystems.com40

cisco.comYour site33

g2.com32

zpesystems.com32

guideflow.com31

techtarget.com29

361 of the 394 domain citations in answers naming Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/sd-wan63

stlpartners.com/articles/network-innovation/sd-wan-providers41

interfacesystems.com/blog/top-sd-wan-vendors40

guideflow.com/blog/sd-wan-software31

reddit.com/r/networking/comments/1kuoatj/best_sdwan_providers_to_offer_small_businesses28

zpesystems.com/sd-wan-leaders-zs28

costbench.com/best/sd-wan-for-small-business27

costbench.com/best/sd-wan-for-enterprise26

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN; a claim can dispute any of them.

Cisco Viptela 7Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) 6Cisco SD-WAN 3Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (Viptela) 2Catalyst SD-WAN 1Cisco Catalyst 1Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN (and Meraki MX) 1Cisco Catalyst SD‑WAN (Viptela) 1Cisco Catalyst/Viptela 1Cisco Secure Access and Catalyst SD-WAN 1Cisco Viptela (Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN) 1Cisco Viptela (Legacy vEdge OS) 1Cisco Viptela / Meraki MX 1Cisco's Catalyst SD-WAN/Viptela 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at cisco.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.