Index › Products › Cumulus Linux · October 2026 Edition

1 category · Named, not ranked

Cumulus Linux

12Judge labels

3First choices

2Negative labels

8 / 14Models named it

1Category

October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

6 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Cumulus Linux was named 6 times in Data center networking, where Arista Networks led with 27%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business14 of 170

under the label threshold

Mid-market7 of 165

under the label threshold

Enterprise30 of 125

under the label threshold

In data center networking · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named Cumulus Linux 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	Since September 2026
Data center networking	Network and edge	5%	7 of 165	17%	6	under 10 labels · led by Arista Networks at 27%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Cumulus Linux yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Cumulus Linux across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	First choice	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	1	2	0	3
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	1	1
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	0	0
Mistral Small	1	1	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	0	0
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	0	0
Kimi K2	0	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	0	0

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

Direct1 labelNone

Paraphrase2 labelsNone

Comparative2 labelsNone

Budget-constrained3 labels3

Scale-constrained1 labelNone

Negative3 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative12 labels in all, every segment counted; 3 of the 4 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.

“Cumulus Linux on white-box hardware offers a good middle ground between cost and support” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Data center networking · budget prompt · first choice

“the best data center switching platform is white box switching with Cumulus Linux” Mistral Small · Data center networking · 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.

“NVIDIA's acquisition of Cumulus Linux shifted its licensing and target market, removing what was once a very popular, accessible enterprise open-networking choice.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Data center networking · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Cumulus Linux, over the 12 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cumulus Linux was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

VMware NSX5 of 120Not among the top eight

Arista Networks4 of 121Not among the top eight

Cisco ACI4 of 120Not among the top eight

Arista EOS3 of 120Not among the top eight

Juniper Networks2 of 121Not among the top eight

Apstra2 of 120Not among the top eight

Cisco Nexus2 of 120Not among the top eight

Dell2 of 120Not among the top eight

Edge-Core2 of 120Not among the top eight

HPE2 of 120Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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 Cumulus Linux. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 9 of the 12 answers that named Cumulus Linux and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

g2.com5

juniper.net5

us.fitgap.com5

cisco.com4

hpe.com4

peerspot.com3

reddit.com3

alibaba.com2

b2bsalescafe.wordpress.com2

brightstarsystems.com2

No domain is on file for Cumulus Linux, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

g2.com/categories/data-center-networking/enterprise3

us.fitgap.com/search/data-center-networking-solutions/small-business3

alibaba.com/product-insights/huawei-switching-platform.html2

b2bsalescafe.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-data-cent2

dell.com/en-us/shop/storage-servers-and-networking-for-business/sf/networking-data-center-2

g2.com/categories/data-center-networking2

gartner.com/reviews/market/data-center-and-cloud-networking2

juniper.net/us/en/products/data-center-networking.html2

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where Cumulus Linux stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Searches for its name, Google: 260 a month (“cumulus linux”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 52 a month
Its own site: No site of its own on file, so no site figures

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 7 of 165 in data center networking

Segment leader

27%

Arista Networks

First choices: 3 across its categories
Named in: 12 answers
Its own site cited: No site on file to match

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read October 5, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Follow Cumulus Linux

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

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 Cumulus Linux'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 Cumulus Linux, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Cumulus Linux by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Cumulus Linux is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Cumulus Linux, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.