Overview Leaderboard Methodology
Industry Report

DNS Security Services

Managed and cloud-native platforms that protect DNS infrastructure and clients from phishing, malware, data exfiltration, and DNS-based attacks through filtering, threat intelligence, and recursive resolver protections.

Brands tracked: 30
Brands analyzed: 30
Last updated: 2026-04-22
Model: OpenAI GPT-5
Prompts: 245
Total responses: 1,225
Top Brand Overall?
Cloudflare
94/100

Highest overall AI Visibility Score in this industry.

LBA Leader?
Cloudflare
93

Highest score on the LBA metric in this industry.

Authority Leader?
Cisco
100

Highest score on the Authority metric in this industry.

TOM Leader?
Cisco
100

Highest score on the TOM metric in this industry.

Cloudflare is the default answer in AI responses for DNS Security Services

Cloudflare and Cisco together dominate AI responses for DNS Security Services. Both brands consistently surface unprompted, with the model treating them as the default answers for most category queries. Brands outside the top two face a structural disadvantage: users are usually given these two before the model even considers alternatives.

Brand Leaderboard All 30 DNS Security Services brands ranked

Ranked by overall AI Visibility Score (smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority, and TOM with an LBA-based floor on Authority and TOM, see methodology). Click any brand for the full report.

# Brand LBA Authority TOM Overall
1
Cloudflare
cloudflare.com
 93
93
95
94
2
Cisco
cisco.com
 77
100
100
92
3
Infoblox
infoblox.com
 78
42
74
62
4
NextDNS
nextdns.io
 93
30
46
51
5
Zscaler
zscaler.com
 77
19
57
45
6
Quad9
quad9.net
 77
16
37
37
7
Palo Alto Networks
paloaltonetworks.com
 90
11
35
34
8
Akamai
akamai.com
 76
8
39
30
9
OpenDNS
opendns.com
 88
9
27
30
10
DNSFilter
dnsfilter.com
 79
12
10
23
11
Fortinet
fortinet.com
 78
8
8
19
12
AdGuard DNS
adguard-dns.io
 73
7
7
18
13
Control D
controld.com
 58
6
13
18
14
UltraDNS
ultradns.com
 76
8
8
18
15
BlueCat
bluecatnetworks.com
 66
7
7
16
16
CleanBrowsing
cleanbrowsing.org
 60
6
6
15
17
F5
f5.com
 63
6
6
15
18
WebTitan
webtitan.com
 60
6
6
15
19
Whalebone
whalebone.io
 60
6
6
15
20
CIRA Canadian Shield
cira.ca
 54
5
5
14
21
Heimdal
heimdalsecurity.com
 56
6
6
14
22
EfficientIP
efficientip.com
 51
5
5
13
23
N-able DNS Filtering
n-able.com
 51
5
5
13
24
Webroot
webroot.com
 53
5
5
13
25
SafeDNS
safedns.com
 41
4
4
11
26
WatchGuard AuthPoint
watchguard.com
 41
4
4
11
27
Yandex Metrica
yandex.com
 36
4
4
9
28
FlashStart
flashstart.com
 32
3
3
8
29
ScoutDNS
scoutdns.com
 29
3
3
8
30
Comodo Dragon
comodo.com
 18
2
2
5

How is this calculated? Methodology

Every brand in this leaderboard is scored against the same set of 245 shared DNS Security Services prompts. The same prompts, same model, same iterations. So differences in scores reflect actual differences in AI visibility, not differences in measurement.

Overall AI Visibility Score
Smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority and TOM. Authority and TOM are floored at LBA × 0.1 before the geometric mean (the same floor used in the per-metric cards above, so brand cards and the composite tell the same story). Formula: composite = ((LBA + 5)(Authority + 5)(TOM + 5))^(1/3) - 5. The floor keeps brands the model clearly recognises but doesn't yet recommend from collapsing to zero, while a single genuinely weak metric still pulls the composite down. Full methodology.
Shared industry prompts
For Authority and TOM, all brands in the industry are scored against the same 245 category prompts (e.g. "best SEO tools for agencies"). This makes brand-to-brand comparisons valid - everyone faces identical inputs. LBA prompts are per-brand because they ask brand-specific questions.
Latent Brand Association (LBA)
5 brand probes + 1 control prompt, each run 5 times in recall mode (no web search). LBA = quality × meta × stability × share × recognition × 100. Read the full LBA methodology →
LLM Authority
50 organic category prompts (discovery, comparison, problem and transactional intents), each run once in recall mode and once in retrieval mode. Score = frequency × log-decayed prominence × intent weight, then 50/50 averaged across the two modes. Read the full Authority methodology →
Top of Mind (TOM)
15 high-volume discovery prompts (sourced from Keywords Everywhere search-volume data), each run 5 times in pure recall mode (no web). Score = frequency × (0.5 + 0.5 × log-prominence), volume-weighted. Read the full TOM methodology →