Zscaler, Netskope, Palo Alto Networks Lead Gartner’s SSE Magic Quadrant For 2025

Gartner recognizes nine security service edge (SSE) vendors in its latest Magic Quadrant ranking for the cybersecurity category.

Gartner once again ranked Zscaler, Netskope and Palo Alto Networks as the “leaders” in security service edge (SSE) in its 2025 Magic Quadrant, according to the report released Friday.

Netskope and Zscaler have been ranked as SSE “leaders” during all four years that Gartner has issued a Magic Quadrant ranking for the category, while Palo Alto Networks has joined the two vendors in getting the top ranking for the past three years.

The closely watched Magic Quadrant report rates vendors on “completeness of vision” and “ability to execute”—and in both areas Gartner found that Zscaler had moved up from the 2024 ranking, including to the No. 1 position on execution for SSE.

Meanwhile, Gartner ranked Netskope at No. 1 for vision around SSE for the third year in a row.

In total, Gartner recognized nine vendors in its 2025 Magic Quadrant ranking for SSE.

One notable shift in this year’s SSE Magic Quadrant report is the nearly exclusive focus by Gartner on evaluating platform offerings rather than assessing individual capabilities within SSE, Netskope’s Robert Arandjelovic told CRN Friday.

For instance, with just a few exceptions, Gartner avoids focusing on specific SSE components such as secure web gateway (SWG) or cloud access security broker (CASB) in the report.

“They really have shown the evolution of this [category]—that we’re no longer talking about stitched-together products,” said Arandjelovic, senior director and head of global product and solutions marketing at Netskope. “For the most part, we’re talking about a single SSE solution that governs access to web, cloud and private applications. And whatever technologies are inside of that, to make that happen, are secondary to the use cases themselves.”

Key recent moves by Netskope have included extending its digital experience management capabilities within its SSE offering, including through a deeper integration of technology from the vendor’s acquisition of Kadiska in 2023, Gartner analysts wrote in the report. Netskope has also brought AI support to its customer enablement functionality, the analysts wrote.

Netskope, which unlike the other two SSE “leaders” is privately held, is on track for an initial public offering during the second half of 2025, Netskope CEO Sanjay Beri told CRN in March.

Zscaler, meanwhile, has made moves since 2024 that have included unifying its consoles and debuting a “simplified” pricing model, according to the Gartner report. The acquisitions of microsegmentation provider Airgap Networks and “data fabric” provider Avalor have also boosted the Zscaler platform, Gartner analysts wrote.

The Gartner ranking moved Zscaler from its No. 3 position on both vision and execution in the 2024 SSE Magic Quadrant to the No. 1 position on execution and No. 2 position on vision in the 2025 report.

In terms of other changes from the previous year’s SSE Magic Quadrant report, the 2025 rankings saw one vendor dropped—Lookout—because it “did not satisfy the requirements for customers in this market,” Gartner said. The research firm also moved Skyhigh Security down to the “niche players” category from its previous ranking in the “visionaries” segment.

Other vendors included in 2025 SSE Magic Quadrant were Fortinet, which remained a “challenger,” as well as five vendors that were ranked as “niche players.” In addition to Skyhigh Security, the other “niche players” in the Gartner report were Cloudflare, iboss, Versa Networks and Broadcom.

SSE is a set of integrated, cloud-delivered technologies that can provide a modern way to secure access to applications, the web and cloud services across hybrid and distributed workforces.

Gartner has previously released a separate Magic Quadrant ranking for secure access service edge (SASE), a category that includes SSE capabilities as well as SD-WAN networking functionality. For the 2024 Magic Quadrant on single-vendor SASE, Gartner had ranked Palo Alto Networks, Netskope and Cato Networks as the “leaders” in the category.