Gartner added Fortinet as the newest tenant in an increasingly crowded “leaders” box of its latest single-vendor secure access service edge (SASE) provider rankings, a box that continues to house last year’s new habitants Cato Networks and Netskope, and long-time resident Palo Alto Networks.

Fortinet’s ascension from the “challengers” box last year to the penthouse this year was based on Gartner finding the vendor had competitively priced and well-positioned SD-WAN and security offerings to support SASE market growth; “above average” market viability and financial health; and a robust acronym channel of new technologies like universal zero-trust network access (UZTNA), agentic AI, and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) that “are aligned with future end-user SASE platform market needs.”

Gartner also estimated that Fortinet had more than 1,500 active SASE platform enterprise customers.

Gartner did nick Fortinet for a below-average customer experience as perceived from the analyst firm’s end-user client interactions, lacking a “broker connector” proxy for agent-based ZTNA, and a confusing two-tiered points of presence (PoP) model. But those demerits were not enough to deny the location upgrade.

Gartner had previously placed Fortinet in its top box as part of the analyst firm’s recent ranking of enterprise wired and wireless LAN vendors, though could only garner “challengers” status in Gartner’s most recent security service edge (SSE) vendor ranking.

Cato Networks and Netskope accumulated similar remarks to their top rankings from last year.

Cato was lauded for its agentic AI plans, above average customer experience, and marketing strategy targeted at larger enterprise customers, while it was dinged for higher pricing, lack of some on-premises security controls, limited geographic focus. Gartner estimated Cato had approximately 2,500 active SASE platform enterprise customers.

Netskope gained notice for its product strategy, “strong” customer experience, and AI-leaning innovations, while concerns were expressed over its overall financial position, lack of historical SD-WAN experience, and complex pricing scheme. Gartner estimated Netskope served around 1,000 active SASE platform enterprise customers.

Palo Alto Networks “leaders” inclusion was backed by a strong SASE feature set and unified platform delivery, strong market understanding based on its longevity in the SASE space, and strong financial position within the market. That last point was highlighted by Gartner’s estimate that Palo Alto Networks served a market-leading 5,500 active SASE platform enterprise customers.

On the downside, Palo Alto Networks was cited for high pricing, limited need for its Prisma Access Browser, and a “weaker” integrated on-premises security posture.

Other notable “magic” vendors include Versa Networks and Cisco, both of which were labeled as market “challengers.”

Versa Networks was noted to provide a full-featured SASE offering, strong response to market needs, and competitive pricing. However, Gartner downplayed the vendor’s focus on sovereign SASE and extended detection and response (XDR), below average customer experience, and a lack of market visibility.

That last point clashed a bit with Gartner’s estimate that Versa Networks did serve approximately 4,000 active SASE platform enterprise customers, more than all of the other ranked vendors in the report save for Palo Alto Networks.

Cisco, on the other hand, was one of the ranking’s smaller participants, with Gartner estimating the networking giant served around 500 active SASE platform enterprise customers.

Single-vendor SASE set to surge

Those size estimates could be important moving forward.

Single-vendor SASE platforms tie together SD-WAN and SSE systems from a single provider. This is touted as providing a more uniformed and cohesive platform compared to multivendor architectures that can invite more complexity; however the single-vendor model does remove cost flexibility.

Gartner is predicting that 70% of SD-WAN purchases by 2028 will be part of a single-vendor SASE platform, an increase from 25% this year. The analyst firm also forecasts that 50% of new SASE deployments will be of that single-vendor variety by 2028, compared to just 30% this year.

Dell’Oro Group recently put monetary numbers to that expected growth, reporting that global SASE revenues increased 17% year-over-year during the first quarter, hitting total sales of $2.6 billion for the quarter. The growth is feeding what the analyst firm had previously predicted would be a $17 billion market by 2029.

The most recent Dell’Oro Group report found that single-vendor SASE platform deployments increased 21% year-over-year during the quarter, which the analyst firm tied to enterprises wanting “more straightforward purchasing, tighter policy management, and lower operating costs made possible by tightly integrated next-generation SD-WAN and cloud-security platforms.” This pace vastly outperformed the 3% year-over-year sales increase posted by multivendor SASE platforms.

While new entrants are expected, Dell’Oro Group had previously noted that six SASE vendors collectively controlled 72% of $2.4 billion in segment revenues collected during the third quarter of 2024. Those six vendors include Zscaler, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Broadcom-VMware, Fortinet, and Netskope.

Mauricio Sanchez, director of enterprise security and networking at Dell’Oro Group, previously explained that the top-heavy nature of the SASE market is due to growing segment maturity.

“The SASE market is entering a new maturity phase,” Sanchez wrote. “As enterprises focus on trusted, integrated solutions during economic uncertainty, the largest vendors are capturing a growing share of investments, setting the stage for continued leadership and innovation.”