Palo Alto Networks, Cato, Netskope Top Gartner’s SASE Magic Quadrant For 2024

Gartner recognized nine vendors in the latest edition of its Magic Quadrant ranking for single-vendor SASE.

SASE Magic Quadrant

As organizations continue to prioritize providing remote access to distributed teams in 2024, demand for security and networking capabilities to enable hybrid teams continues to surge. And increasingly, customers are looking for a unified technology platform—and from a single vendor—to help them meet their goals.

That’s according to research firm Gartner, which recently released the second edition of its Magic Quadrant ranking of single-vendor SASE vendors. SASE (secure access service edge) has been recognized as the go-to approach for modernizing secure access in the hybrid age, Gartner analysts have said. And in terms of single-vendor options for SASE, nine vendors stand out, according to the analysts.

[Related: SMBs Seeking SASE, And MSPs Are Ready To Deliver]

Three companies made it into the sought-after “leaders” quadrant for the 2024 Gartner ranking of single-vendor SASE providers: Palo Alto Networks appeared on top for the second year in a row, while Cato Networks moved up from a lower ranking and Netskope appeared for the first time.

“Single-vendor” SASE offerings must provide both networking capabilities, chiefly SD-WAN, combined on a unified platform with key security capabilities and delivered as a service using a “cloud-centric architecture,” Gartner said. The cybersecurity capabilities necessary in SASE include secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), zero trust network access (ZTNA) and network firewalls. When offered separately from SD-WAN, these capabilities are often packaged as a security service edge (SSE) offering.

Executives at SASE vendors and MSPs have reported that the interest in SASE—even among smaller organizations—is rising fast. “The demand is really alive and well,” said David Gottesman, founding principal and CEO at San Francisco-based solution and service provider Epic Machines.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant ranking is an influential and closely watched indicator of how key players compare in numerous segments of the tech industry. Vendors are ranked both on “ability to execute” as well as on “completeness of vision.”

Gartner said it assessed the single-vendor SASE vendors based on capabilities that were available as of March 1.

Looking ahead, Gartner analysts forecast that 65 percent of purchases for SD-WAN will come through a single-vendor SASE offering by 2027, up from 20 percent as of this year.

What follows are key details on the nine vendors who appeared in Gartner’s single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for 2024.

Leader: Palo Alto Networks

Gartner ranked Palo Alto Networks at No. 1 for both vision and execution in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant. On the previous year’s ranking, the cybersecurity giant had appeared as the sole member of the “leaders” quadrant.

Strengths: Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SASE offering provides “strong security and networking features, delivered via a unified platform,” Gartner analysts said. The company also offers a well-established track record in the SASE market, “strong” financial viability and a large base of customer deployments, the research firm said.

Cautions: Feedback from customers and analysis by Gartner indicates that Palo Alto Networks’ SASE offering is “expensive compared with most of the other vendors in this research,” analysts wrote.

Leader: Cato Networks

Gartner ranked Cato Networks at No. 2 for both vision and execution in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant. Cato moved up from its ranking in the “challengers” quadrant during the prior-year report.

Strengths: Cato, according to Gartner analysts, was “an early pioneer that helped drive the market, and its planned innovations are likely to continue to shape the market.” The company also provides “above-average” results on customer experience versus other single-vendor SASE vendors, the research firm said.

Cautions: Weak points reported by Gartner clients included “frustration” with Cato’s pricing model, while some of the company’s security capabilities — such as SaaS control and firewalling for on-premises environments — are “limited.”

Leader: Netskope

Gartner ranked Netskope third overall in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for vision, and fourth overall on execution. The company is making its first appearance in the Gartner ranking for this segment.

Strengths: Gartner praised Netskope for bringing a solid track record on customer experience, as well as offering “strong feature breadth and depth for both networking and security.”

Cautions: Netskope is a relatively recent entrant into the single-vendor SASE market and “thus lacks experience compared to some other vendors assessed,” analysts wrote.

Visionary: Cisco

Cisco ranked fourth overall in Gartner’s 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for vision, and sixth overall on execution.

Strengths: Cisco’s offering, Secure Connect, is managed by the “straightforward and intuitive,” Gartner analysts wrote. The company also brings a “solid” product roadmap as well as a sizable base of installed customers and “robust channels to market.”

Cautions: Product drawbacks with Cisco Secure Connect include limitations around the “ability to secure private applications, secure SaaS, and enable adaptive access,” analysts wrote.

Challenger: Fortinet

Fortinet came in at third overall in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for execution, and fifth overall on vision.

Strengths: Fortinet’s FortiSASE offering — integrated with the vendor’s FortiGate Secure SD-WAN — provides “excellent value in terms of features versus cost,” according to Gartner analysts.

Cautions: Gartner analysts believe that Fortinet’s “planned innovations are unlikely to disrupt the market and reshape customer expectations.”

Challenger: Versa Networks

Gartner ranked Versa Networks fifth overall in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for execution, and sixth overall on vision.

Strengths: Versa combines "strong feature depth,” a unified SASE platform—managed through a centralized console—with “strong price/feature value for customers,” Gartner wrote.

Cautions: Versa’s “planned product enhancements lag competitors in terms of mainstream enterprise customer value,” while its “technical product documentation is poor,” according to Gartner analysts.

Niche Player: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Gartner ranked HPE seventh overall in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for vision, and eighth overall on execution. HPE is making its first appearance on the single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant ranking.

Strengths: HPE offers “strong SD-WAN and ZTNA capabilities” and has disclosed “planned innovations that could drive the market,” Gartner said. The customer experience for HPE’s SASE offering ranks above that of competing vendors, the research firm noted.

Cautions: HPE entered the single-vendor SASE market relatively recently, which has contributed to its lag in security capabilities such as around SaaS control and data security, Gartner analysts said.

Niche Player: Cloudflare

Gartner ranked Cloudflare seventh overall in the 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant for execution, and eighth overall on vision. The company is making its first appearance on the single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant ranking.

Strengths: Cloudflare offers the “most robust geographic distribution” of points of presence among vendors in the report, “which helps to address current and future customer needs on a global basis,” Gartner said. The company’s user interface is also “simple and intuitive”, according to the research firm.

Cautions: Cloudflare’s capabilities for firewalling and local SD-WAN are “very limited” compared to competitors, while its SASE pricing is “much higher” than that of other vendors analyzed in the report, Gartner said

Niche Player: Forcepoint

Forcepoint ranked ninth for both vision and execution in Gartner’s 2024 single-vendor SASE Magic Quadrant.

Strengths: The Forcepoint ONE SASE is “strong” on security capabilities and “well-aligned with customers who prioritize data security,” Gartner said.

Cautions: Customer experience for the Forcepoint ONE SASE “lags other vendors in this research” and the company suffers from “low customer adoption and limited visibility among Gartner clients.”

Honorable Mentions

Gartner gave “honorable mentions” to Aryaka, Barracuda, Broadcom (VMware), Check Point Software Technologies, Ericsson (Cradlepoint), iboss, Juniper, SonicWall, Sophos and Zscaler.

The research firm said it excluded the vendors from the report on account of not meeting certain requirements—such as around product functionality or customer adoption—by the cutoff date for the ranking.