Forget the Magic Quadrant. Here Is What 121 Feature Checks Actually Show.
Every year, the same analyst reports rank SASE vendors on axes that nobody can reproduce. Vendors pay for placement, cherry-pick metrics, and publish comparison tables that somehow show themselves winning every category.
We took a different approach. We tested 8 SASE vendors across 12 security topics and 121 specific feature checks. Every answer is YES, NO, or PARTIAL, backed by public documentation. No vendor paid to be listed. No vendor reviewed this before publication.
Here is what we found.
The Overall Ranking
Across all 121 checks spanning 12 security topics, here is how the 8 leading SASE vendors score:
| Rank | Vendor | YES | PARTIAL | NO | YES Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Palo Alto Networks | 103 | 15 | 3 | 85.1% |
| 2 | Zscaler | 99 | 21 | 1 | 81.8% |
| 3 | Netskope | 99 | 20 | 2 | 81.8% |
| 4 | Cato Networks | 94 | 26 | 1 | 77.7% |
| 5 | Cisco | 88 | 30 | 2 | 72.7% |
| 6 | Cloudflare | 85 | 32 | 3 | 70.2% |
| 7 | Fortinet | 83 | 33 | 4 | 68.6% |
| 8 | Check Point | 77 | 34 | 6 | 63.6% |
Before you take this table and run, context matters. A vendor that scores 85% overall might score 20% in the category that matters most to your organization. Read on for the full breakdown.
The 8 Leading SASE Vendors, Profiled
1. Palo Alto Networks (Prisma SASE) - 85.1% YES Rate
Where they lead: Palo Alto earned perfect or near-perfect marks across the most categories of any vendor. They scored 8/8 on BYOD coverage, 8/8 on Digital Experience Monitoring, 10/10 on unified management, and 12/12 on ZTNA. Their Prisma Access platform delivers a genuinely unified console with consistent policy management across all security functions.
Where they fall short: Mobile TLS inspection is a weakness across the industry, and Palo Alto is no exception at just 2/10. For organizations with heavy BYOD mobile workforces that need deep traffic inspection on phones and tablets, this is a meaningful gap.
Best for: Large enterprises that want the broadest feature coverage and are willing to pay for it. If your evaluation checklist is long, Palo Alto will check the most boxes.
2. Zscaler (Zero Trust Exchange) - 81.8% YES Rate
Where they lead: Zscaler ties for second overall and dominates in GenAI DLP (20/23), Digital Experience Monitoring (8/8), and ZTNA (11/12). They also have the best mobile TLS inspection score of any vendor at 6/10, making them the closest thing to a complete mobile security story. Their cloud-native architecture means they have only 1 NO across all 121 checks.
Where they fall short: SD-WAN (7/10) is their relative weakness. Zscaler was historically a security-first platform that added SD-WAN later, and it shows in areas like advanced branch routing and WAN optimization.
Best for: Security-first organizations that prioritize DLP, zero trust, and cloud-native architecture. Particularly strong for companies with significant GenAI adoption concerns.
3. Netskope (Netskope One) - 81.8% YES Rate
Where they lead: Netskope ties with Zscaler at #2 and leads on SD-WAN (10/10), Global PoP coverage (7/8), DEM (8/8), and threat prevention (12/12). Their Borderless SD-WAN acquisition filled what was historically a gap, and their global network backbone is among the most distributed.
Where they fall short: TLS inspection on mobile (1/10) is a serious gap. Netskope scores the lowest among all vendors for mobile deep inspection alongside Cisco. For organizations with significant unmanaged mobile traffic, this is a deal-breaker worth investigating.
Best for: Organizations that need strong SD-WAN alongside security, with global operations requiring low-latency PoP access. Particularly strong for cloud-heavy environments.
4. Cato Networks (Cato SASE Cloud) - 77.7% YES Rate
Where they lead: Cato is the poster child for single-vendor SASE, and it shows. They score 10/10 on SD-WAN, 12/12 on threat prevention, 5/5 on AI security, and 8/10 on ease of deployment. Everything runs on their proprietary cloud backbone with a single management console. No acquisitions stitched together, no separate products rebranded under one name.
Where they fall short: GenAI DLP (16/23) is below average for a platform at this price point. Mobile TLS (4/10) is middle-of-the-pack. Cato's single-vendor approach means you get consistency, but also that gaps take longer to fill since everything is built in-house.
Best for: Mid-to-large enterprises that value simplicity and a true single-vendor architecture. If your team is small and you want one platform that "just works" for networking and security, Cato is the strongest option.
5. Cisco (Cisco Secure Access / SD-WAN) - 72.7% YES Rate
Where they lead: Cisco brings enterprise networking DNA that shows in SD-WAN (10/10), DEM (8/8), IoT/OT security (5/5), and threat prevention (12/12). ThousandEyes integration gives them best-in-class network monitoring, and their IoT visibility through Cisco ISE is mature.
Where they fall short: Global PoP coverage (2/8) is their biggest weakness, and unified management (5/10) reflects the reality of multiple acquired products that have not fully converged. You may find yourself toggling between dashboards. TLS mobile (1/10) is also near the bottom.
Best for: Existing Cisco shops with heavy branch office and IoT requirements. The integration advantage with existing Cisco infrastructure (switches, routers, ISE) is real and hard to replicate.
6. Cloudflare (Cloudflare One) - 70.2% YES Rate
Where they lead: Cloudflare wins on ease of deployment (9/10, best of all 8 vendors) and Global PoP coverage (7/8, tied for first). Their network spans 300+ cities and they offer the fastest time-to-value of any platform we tested. They also score well on unified management (8/10) with a clean, developer-friendly console.
Where they fall short: IoT/OT security (1/5, worst of all vendors) and SD-WAN (6/10) reveal their origin as a security/CDN company that is still building out networking capabilities. If you have factory floors, OT networks, or complex branch routing needs, look elsewhere.
Best for: Cloud-native organizations that want fast deployment, strong global coverage, and a modern developer experience. Particularly appealing for companies without legacy networking complexity.
See all Cloudflare comparisons
7. Fortinet (FortiSASE) - 68.6% YES Rate
Where they lead: Fortinet dominates SD-WAN (10/10), IoT/OT (5/5), threat prevention (12/12), and AI security (5/5). Their FortiGuard threat intelligence and ASIC-accelerated hardware give them strong performance at the edge. For organizations with significant branch and OT infrastructure, Fortinet's networking depth is hard to beat.
Where they fall short: BYOD coverage (2/8, worst of all vendors) and ease of deployment (4/10) are significant weaknesses. Fortinet's strength has always been appliance-based security, and the cloud-native SASE experience still shows friction. Their console can feel complex compared to cloud-born competitors.
Best for: Organizations with heavy OT/IoT requirements and existing FortiGate infrastructure. Strong for branch-heavy retail, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure environments.
8. Check Point (Harmony SASE / Perimeter 81) - 63.6% YES Rate
Where they lead: Check Point scores well on SD-WAN (9/10), IoT/OT (5/5), threat prevention (11/12), and BYOD (7/8). Their threat intelligence from ThreatCloud AI is extensive, and the Harmony suite provides good endpoint-to-cloud coverage.
Where they fall short: Digital Experience Monitoring (0/8, the only vendor scoring zero) and Global PoP coverage (1/8) are critical gaps. Check Point's SASE offering is built on their Perimeter 81 acquisition, and the integration is still maturing. If DEM or global coverage matter to your evaluation, Check Point has significant ground to make up.
Best for: Organizations already invested in Check Point's security ecosystem (SmartConsole, ThreatCloud) who want to extend to SASE without ripping out existing infrastructure.
See all Check Point comparisons
Key Takeaways Across All 8 Vendors
No Vendor Wins Everything
The highest overall score is 85.1%. Every vendor has at least one category where they score below 50%. If a vendor tells you they do everything, ask them about mobile TLS inspection and watch the conversation change.
Mobile TLS Inspection Is the Industry's Blind Spot
Across all 8 vendors, the average YES rate for TLS inspection on mobile is just 31%. Even the best vendor (Zscaler at 6/10) only passes 60% of mobile-specific checks. If your workforce uses phones and tablets for sensitive work, this is the gap most evaluations miss.
The "True Single-Vendor" Question Still Matters
Vendors that grew through acquisitions (Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point) tend to have broader feature sets but lower scores on unified management. Vendors that built from scratch (Cato, Cloudflare) have cleaner consoles but narrower capabilities. There is no free lunch.
SD-WAN Is Table Stakes, DEM Is the Differentiator
Six of 8 vendors score 9/10 or higher on SD-WAN. The real differentiation has moved to Digital Experience Monitoring, where the gap between leaders (Zscaler, Netskope, Palo Alto, Cisco at 8/8) and laggards (Check Point at 0/8) is enormous.
How to Use This Data
If you are starting a SASE evaluation, don't pick a vendor based on overall rankings. Identify which of the 12 comparison topics matter most to your organization, then look at per-topic scores.
If you need an RFP template, our SASE RFP generator lets you select the specific topics that matter and produces a structured document with all 121+ requirements ready to send to vendors.
If you want to compare specific vendors, use our head-to-head comparison tool to see how any two vendors stack up across all topics.
All data on SASECompare is free, independent, and updated as vendors release new capabilities. Click any comparison to see the evidence behind every YES, NO, and PARTIAL.
Methodology: All scores are based on publicly available vendor documentation, knowledge base articles, and verified user reports. Testing covers 12 security and networking topics with 121 total checks. Vendors are not notified before testing and do not pay for inclusion. See individual [comparison pages](/comparisons) for full source citations. Data current as of March 2026.