IBM NS1 Connect vs Quad9 comparison

IBM and Quad9 DNS are both solutions in the Managed DNS category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while Quad9 DNS is ranked #5. IBM holds a 2.0% mindshare in MDP, compared to Quad9 DNS’s 27.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Quad9 DNS users who would recommend it.

IBM NS1 Connect

Read 13 IBM NS1 Connect reviews

1,815 Views
1,761 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Quad9

Read 2 Quad9 reviews

22,072 Views
21,410 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

IBM NS1 Connect

Quad9

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

IBM NS1 Connect and Quad9 are competitors in the DNS management sector. IBM NS1 Connect leads in scalability and enterprise-grade features, while Quad9 is superior in security and ease of use.

Features: IBM NS1 Connect offers advanced traffic management, robust analytics, and high scalability, suitable for larger enterprises. Quad9 integrates threat prevention, ensures privacy, and focuses on straightforward security, ideal for businesses prioritizing cybersecurity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM NS1 Connect provides comprehensive deployment options with extensive support for complex IT environments. Quad9 offers easy deployment and quick customer support, accessible for smaller teams and allowing fast implementation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM NS1 Connect requires higher initial setup costs, reflecting its enterprise focus, with promises of long-term ROI for large organizations. Quad9 presents a cost-effective solution with low upfront costs and quick ROI, attractive to small and medium-sized businesses seeking efficient DNS security without large investments.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM NS1 Connect vs. Quad9 Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect vs. Quad9

March 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

IBM NS1 Connect

Ranking in Managed DNS

9th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Quad9

Ranking in Managed DNS

5th

Average Rating

6.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Internet Security (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quad9 is 27.5%, down from 31.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Quad9	27.5%
IBM NS1 Connect	2.0%
Other	70.5%

Managed DNS

Featured Reviews

DavidJackson1

Software Engineer at Abbott

Smart routing has improved uptime and performance and enables real-time automated traffic control

The best features IBM NS1 Connect offers, in my opinion, are real-time monitoring, intelligent traffic routing capabilities, and being API driven. The intelligent traffic routing and API-driven features of IBM NS1 Connect have helped my team by allowing routing based on user location, endpoint switching based on latency, and DNS response time. Additionally, IBM NS1 Connect has API integration. IBM NS1 Connect positively impacts my organization by making our website load faster and enhancing the user interface to be more intuitive and user-friendly. It's very economical and cost-effective. I also love it because it saves time through automation, saving around 30% to 35% of our time and also saving man-source. Our application uptime has improved by 40% to 45%. Although there have been a few outages, the service uptime has significantly improved our trust with clients. It is very cost-effective and affordable, hence providing a great return on investment.

Read full review

Louis Geoffroy

President at IDEBUG

It's easy to use and set up, but I've faced performance problems

I have experience with Quad9 and most other filtering solutions. Quad9 was working well initially, but it started slowing, so I switched to OpenDNS. I recently checked Tom's Hardware, an IT review site, and read a review of seven DNS filters. Open DNS was ranked the fastest, and Quad9 was second. Google was on there too, but they said it didn't filter enough.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We find that the low latency access to DNS queries has a direct effect on the customer experience. Visiting a site, whether it's an AdTech-based solution or marketing tech, the fact that whatever we're rendering on a page can be rendered better than the industry standard, in terms of time, ensures a better user experience."

"The Filter Chain is one of the most valuable features, for geo-load balancing and geo-fencing. The Filter Chain is the most useful because it allows us to do several things. With geo-fencing we can redirect a particular user to a particular answer. That's very valuable for us. Filter Chains with monitoring is our strategy to provide redundancy."

"Monitoring is really important for us. We really care about reliability, and we want to make sure that we can remove some points of presence in our sector and in our edge network really fast when we experience any problems. So, monitoring that NS1 provides for DNS is really important for us."

"One of the features that is non-standard and that is very useful is the filtered DNS. We have set up our external VPN, which is what all our employees connect through, to use this feature. It's geolocation-aware. In that way, for India we set it up so that these are the servers that should be supporting things, and in the UK these servers, in the U.S. these servers, and in Sweden these ones."

"Everything we download into our observability platform so that we can also track any changes in traffic behavior or things like that is also something that we use quite a lot. I'd say traffic management, the speed of updates, and observability are the top three things that we use."

"IBM NS1 Connect positively impacts my organization by making our website load faster and enhancing the user interface to be more intuitive and user-friendly, and I also love it because it saves time through automation, saving around 30% to 35% of our time and also saving man-source, while our application uptime has improved by 40% to 45%, making it very cost-effective and affordable and hence providing a great return on investment."

"We leverage two things from Managed DNS that we couldn't do with any other solution. One is their filter chain technology, which allows us to shift some of the intelligence we need for the traffic steering to the DNS. The second one is data sources, which enables us to manipulate multiple records simultaneously using NS1's internal message DOS. In our case, we are trying to direct the traffic in over 150,000 different NS1 records to an arbitrary set of repeating responses."

"The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS."

More IBM NS1 Connect pros

"Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall."

"The most valuable feature of Quad9 is that it is a free solution."

Cons

"The Filter Chain simulation is really good in the UI, but it would be nice to have something similar in the API so that we could simulate and test things before we deploy them."

"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."

"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that. There should also be some type of reporting that's more executive-level focused."

"To improve IBM NS1 Connect, I suggest additional monitoring services should be added in the dashboard and DNS timeout issues should be resolved."

"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide. They have a simulate-filter feature so that you can simulate how your traffic would flow, based on their Filter Chains. I believe that was shut off for quite some time. Having that as a way to test our load-balanced CDN structure would be fantastic."

"We care about monitoring and telemetry work, and NS1 provides a pretty good system for monitoring. We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world. If there are any issues, we can easily remove them from our network, but this area needs some improvement because it is not always reliable in NS1. In the past, we had a number of false-positive cases when the monitoring system told us about some problems in our infrastructure that were not true. NS1 is improving the system, and we are constantly talking about this with them. I know that they are releasing a new version of their monitoring system, which is really important for us, but this is a different area where we would expect them to improve."

"I would like to see the UI updated to allow me to do finer searches. I would also like to have the ability to get reports that can sort based on various metrics. For example, I would like to be able to say, "Show me the top 10 records by total queries" in an easy-to-digest format."

"When we first deployed, we flipped the switch, and it didn't work as well as we expected. It wasn't a complete outage, but we had issues in some places with some customers. The NS1 team went out of their way to resolve it on Thanksgiving. We have a post about it on our blog. We called it "Black Thursday.""

More IBM NS1 Connect cons

"Quad9 could improve by having more free features, such as custom DNS filtering."

"It used to work fine for all the devices, but it started to slow and become non-responsive. I would have to reload the page two or three times before all the pages loaded. With OpenDNS, I only need to load the page once."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."

"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."

"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."

"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."

"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."

"The price of Quad9 is free."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Comms Service Provider

25%

Computer Software Company

Hospitality Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	10

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with NS1 Managed DNS?

IBM NS1 Connect can be improved by providing learning materials depicting flows that can help users who are completely new to networking, which would be great. Pricing can be more transparent, espe...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NS1 Managed DNS?

My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is to improve user experience, and it offers smart routing, which helps sites to be reliable and performance gets improved. In my organization, the use case inv...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering NS1 Managed DNS?

IBM NS1 Connect is an excellent traffic management system. It helps us to route traffic based on location, latency, and many other factors. The ability to automate DNS management is a key feature t...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 29% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 21% of the time

Akamai Edge DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 14% of the time

Managed DNS Services vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 7% of the time

Constellix DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM NS1 Connect Competitors

Cloudflare vs Quad9

Compared 83% of the time

Google Cloud DNS vs Quad9

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Quad9

Compared 2% of the time

Akamai Edge DNS vs Quad9

Compared 1% of the time

Verisign Public DNS vs Quad9

Compared 1% of the time

More Quad9 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect

March 2026

Download IBM NS1 Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

Managed DNS

March 2026

Download Quad9 product report

Also Known As

NS1 Managed DNS, NS1

No data available

Overview

Why

In a 24/7 world, customers demand applications, websites, and content that load instantly and are always on. When those connections are unreliable or slow, businesses don’t meet customer expectations, causing customers to leave. When that occurs, revenue may suffer.

What

IBM NS1 Connect delivers the high-performance, reliable, secure network connectivity that businesses need to meet increasingly sophisticated customer expectations. Leveraging a global network with a 100% uptime SLA, IBM has the capacity and scale to meet the needs of any business. IBM NS1 Connect takes performance to the next level, powering the sophisticated needs of enterprises with complex network infrastructures.

How

IBM NS1 Connect provides network connectivity solutions that give networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect also enables IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

Details

IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service that provides authoritative, premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience. Revenue-generating applications require authoritative DNS resolution to keep critical applications and websites online. Unless your DNS infrastructure is always-on and resilient, network reliability and user experience will suffer, your network reliability may suffer, resulting in poor user experiences if revenue-generating critical applications and websites are not online. IBM NS1 Connect’s always-on, API-first architecture provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world with premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering. It also enables your IT teams to efficiently monitor networks, deploy changes and conduct routine maintenance.

IBM NS1 Connect uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that websites and applications are:

Online, all the time: Global network with 100% uptime SLA and DDoS protection
Fast: Top tier response and propagation times, custom traffic steering to optimize connections
Cheaper to run: Far less expensive than self-hosting
Automation friendly: API-first platform with Ansible/Terraform integrations and support for Pliant rapid network automation
Easier to troubleshoot: Unique DNS data insights offering

Designed for enterprises looking to optimize their DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service delivering authoritative DNS and advanced traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience and provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world. NS1 Connect streamlines DNS management by automating both simple and complex DNS configuration tasks via API and preconfigured integrations, so you can spend more time on higher-value work.

IBM NS1 Connect is delivered through our unified delivery platform. The cloud-based platform gives networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect solutions also enable IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

For enterprises looking to further optimize DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect offers rich DNS data analytics to streamline the identification of the root cause of anomalies within traffic.

IBM NS1 Connect Features

Global anycast DNS network: Enjoy fast connections to consumers around the globe through an anycast network with 26 points of presence (PoPs).
100% uptime SLA on DNS resolution: Maximize uptime and revenue generation with resilient, always-on, authoritative DNS.
API-first architecture: Integrate and automate workflows with NS1 Connect's well-documented API; every line of code starts as an API call, all functionality is available through the API.
Real-time user monitoring (RUM)-based traffic steering: Uses real-time intelligence on network performance and availability to direct DNS connections to the best available application resource; the widest range of filter options and data sources in the industry, not data that is extrapolated from sampling; the most flexible, granular controls for your network.
Built-in resilience: Add a single-tenant, redundant DNS layer and manage it from a single control plane as your primary DNS.
Managed DNS for China: Improve performance for the Chinese mainland by segmenting traffic with NS1 Connect’s Managed DNS for China.
DNS insights: Get a better understanding of DNS traffic patterns by mining your DNS data to identify security issues, misconfigurations and performance issues.
DDoS protection: Cap your query-based spending with protection against unexpected surges in traffic from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Uptime monitor: Quickly identify issues and automatically adjust DNS traffic steering configurations with native health check alerts.
DevOps tool integrations: Preconfigured integrations with leading DevOps tools including Ansible and Terraform to help automate routine maintenance, manage data sources and feeds.
Propagation speed: fastest propagation in the industry, measured in seconds not minutes; worldwide propagation in under five seconds.
Independence: neutral arbiter between infrastructure services (CDNs, clouds).

IBM NS1 Connect helps enterprises modernize and optimize networking infrastructure to provide customers with faster connections to websites, applications, services and content.

IBM

Quad9 is a DNS service offering robust security and privacy features. It blocks access to malicious sites by analyzing and correlating threat intelligence from multiple sources. Suitable for tech-savvy users, it focuses on enhancing online safety while maintaining user privacy.

Quad9 serves as a critical tool in safeguarding users from online threats. By providing DNS resolution, it helps prevent access to phishing sites, malware, and other harmful content by utilizing threat intelligence feeds from reputable cybersecurity organizations. Its focus is on delivering an efficient, secure browsing experience without compromising user privacy. With ease of use and reliability, Quad9 effectively reduces the risk of digital threats while keeping user data secure and anonymous.

What features make Quad9 valuable?

Blocking Malicious Domains: Quad9 prevents accessing harmful sites by leveraging diverse threat intelligence sources.
Privacy Protection: It does not store, sell, or use personal data, ensuring complete anonymity.
Global Threat Intelligence: The DNS service aggregates threat data from various security organizations.
DNS over TLS/HTTPS: Offers encrypted DNS queries for added privacy and security.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Security: Users experience fewer online threats and safer browsing.
Privacy Assurance: Complete data anonymity and protection from unwarranted data tracking.
Reliable Performance: Fast and consistent DNS resolution across different networks.
Ease of Use: Simple to set up with minimal configuration required.

In industries like finance and healthcare where data security and privacy are critical, Quad9 is a useful tool in mitigating cyber threats. Its robust framework is deployed to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, providing a secure browsing environment without sacrificing speed or reliability.

Quad9 DNS

Sample Customers

Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday

CISCO, Netlab, proofpoint

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect vs. Quad9

March 2026

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