Every category where a model named IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer 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
Managed file transfer	Data platform	0%	19 of 97	7%	14	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer 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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer 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	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	2	0	0	2
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0	1	1
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	1	1	0	2
Mistral Small	0	1	1	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	0	0	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	1	0	0	2
Kimi K2	0	0	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	2	0	2
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	1	0	1
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	1	0	1

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

Direct10 labels5

Paraphrase3 labels2

Comparative16 labels3not counted in share

Budget-constrained6 labels1

Scale-constrained7 labelsNone

Negative2 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative44 labels in all, every segment counted; 8 of the 11 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.

“Choose IBM Sterling if you are moving terabytes of video data or scientific data daily.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · MFT · comparative prompt · first choice

“Best if you need heavier enterprise governance / complex B2B integration: IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer” GPT-5.4 mini · MFT · direct prompt · alternative

“Big enterprise needs (massive volumes, mainframe integration, deep B2B) → IBM Sterling or Axway.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · MFT · comparative prompt · alternative

“IBM Sterling is a good choice if your mid-market company deals with large-scale, complex B2B transactions” Mistral Small · MFT · direct prompt · alternative

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.

“without the high total cost of ownership (TCO) and administrative complexity of heavyweight enterprise suites (like IBM Sterling or Axway)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · MFT · direct prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer, over the 44 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Progress MOVEit Transfer31 of 445Not among the top eight

Axway SecureTransport25 of 443Not among the top eight

Fortra GoAnywhere MFT20 of 444Not among the top eight

Cleo Integration Cloud19 of 441Not among the top eight

Files.com14 of 444Not among the top eight

GoAnywhere MFT14 of 443Not among the top eight

JSCAPE MFT Server11 of 441Not among the top eight

Kiteworks MFT11 of 441Not among the top eight

AWS Transfer Family11 of 440Not among the top eight

Globalscape EFT11 of 440Not 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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer. 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 40 of the 44 answers that named IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

sftptogo.com23

kiteworks.com20

learn.g2.com19

cleo.com18

g2.com18

dnsstuff.com16

softwarereviews.com16

expertinsights.com12

ibm.comYour site12

sourceforge.net11

153 of the 165 domain citations in answers naming IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

sftptogo.com/blog/best-mft-platforms-managed-file-transfer22

learn.g2.com/best-managed-file-transfer-software19

dnsstuff.com/managed-file-transfer15

cleo.com/blog/knowledge-base-top-mft-solutions13

kiteworks.com/managed-file-transfer/managed-file-transfer-solutions-enterprises13

expertinsights.com/data-security-and-privacy/the-top-managed-file-transfer-solutions12

softwarereviews.com/categories/managed-file-transfer-enterprise12

g2.com/categories/managed-file-transfer-mft/enterprise11

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer 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: 70 a month (“ibm sterling secure file transfer”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 0 a month
Its own site: It sits on IBM's site (ibm.com), so there are no site figures for it alone

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 19 of 97 in MFT

Segment leader

43%

Files.com

First choices: 8 across its categories
Named in: 44 answers
Its own site cited: in 40 of the answers that named it

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.

Names read as IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer; a claim can dispute any of them.

IBM Sterling 6IBM Sterling MFT 1IBM Sterling MFT (powered by Aspera) 1IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer / Sterling File Gateway 1

Follow IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer

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.

The company

IBM is the company behind IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer.

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On record

Company records

Also from IBM: IBM AI Fairness 360, IBM API Connect, IBM Apptio Cloudability, IBM Aspera, IBM Aspera Managed File Transfer, IBM Business Automation Workflow, IBM Cloud Databases, IBM Cloud Kubernetes and 98 more

In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: Move over 1 million files per day with IBM Sterling® Secure File Transfer. Share documents and files of any type in a reliable and timely way.
ibm.com/products/sterling
For: small to mid-size businesses
ibm.com/products/secure-file-transfer
Price stated: four unique pricing options ibm.com/products/secure-file-transfer
Customers named: DHL International GmbHHudson Bay/Saks Fifth AvenuePandoraEileen FisherNets
Not stated on the pages read: Starting price, free plan or trial, integrations, certifications, hosting

What IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: ibm.com/products/sterling, ibm.com/products/secure-file-transfer, ibm.com/products/file-transfer-service, ibm.com/solutions/managed-file-transfer, developer.ibm.com/blogs/learning-about-ibm-sterling-offerings. A claimed page can correct any of them.

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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer'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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer, 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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer 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 IBM Sterling Secure File Transfer, 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.