Every category where a model named NordLayer 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
SASE platforms	Network and edge	5%	6 of 43	0%	4	under 10 labels · led by Cato SASE Cloud at 28%
Zero trust network access	Network and edge	2%	6 of 71	6%	17	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for NordLayer 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 NordLayer 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	2	0	0	2
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	0	0	1
Perplexity Sonar	1	1	0	0	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	1	1	2
Mistral Small	1	1	0	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Llama 4 Maverick	0	2	0	0	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Kimi K2	1	0	1	0	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	2	0	0	2
MiniMax M2.5	0	1	1	0	2

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 labelsNone

Paraphrase9 labels1

Comparative9 labelsNone

Budget-constrained18 labels2

Scale-constrained1 labelNone

Negative4 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative51 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.

“I'd suggest starting with Cloudflare One ($7/user/month) or NordLayer, as they offer the lowest entry points.” Kimi K2 · SASE · budget prompt · first choice

“or NordLayer if you want a simple SMB-focused paid option with low maintenance” Perplexity Sonar · SASE · budget prompt · first choice

“CloudConnexa and NordLayer are the top picks” Mistral Small · ZTNA · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“NordLayer is a cloud-based ZTNA solution designed for mid-sized organizations that want zero trust without a heavy deployment lift” Claude Haiku 4.5 · ZTNA · 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.

“No free tier; 5-user min” Grok 4.1 Fast · ZTNA · budget prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as NordLayer, over the 51 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and NordLayer was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Twingate34 of 519Not in the top three

Cloudflare One33 of 5121Not in the top three

Check Point Harmony SASE25 of 513Not in the top three

Cato Networks15 of 514Not in the top three

Zscaler Private Access14 of 515Not in the top three

Tailscale12 of 510Not in the top three

OpenVPN CloudConnexa11 of 513Not in the top three

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access11 of 511Not in the top three

Cloudflare Access10 of 510Not in the top three

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange10 of 510Not 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 NordLayer. 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 44 of the 51 answers that named NordLayer and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

cybersecuritynews.com29

petronellatech.com22

cyberpress.org17

blog.openvpn.net16

costbench.com16

aimultiple.com14

expertinsights.com14

comparitech.com11

itbusinessedge.com11

portnox.com11

161 of the 161 domain citations in answers naming NordLayer came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

cybersecuritynews.com/best-ztna-solutions25

petronellatech.com/blog/zero-trust-vendors-compared-top-10-smbs-202622

aimultiple.com/ztna-solutions14

expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-zero-trust-network-access-solutions14

cyberpress.org/ztna-solutions-by-business-size13

itbusinessedge.com/security/smb-zero-trust-solutions11

portnox.com/cybersecurity-101/zero-trust/who-are-the-best-ztna-providers9

saas-expert.com/articles/best-zero-trust-network-access-tools-small-business9

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as NordLayer

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

NordLayer ZTNA 2NordLayer (by Nord Security) 1NordLayer (formerly NordVPN Teams) 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 NordLayer'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 NordLayer, 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 nordlayer.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.