Cloudflare lands spot in 2025 Gartner SSE Magic Quadrant for third year

Cloudflare has been named a vendor in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Service Edge (SSE), marking the third consecutive year it has made the report. Gartner positions the evaluation as a resource for security and networking leaders weighing long-term vendor decisions around digital transformation. Cloudflare is one of nine vendors recognized in this year's edition.

The company traces its Zero Trust push back to 2018, when it launched Cloudflare Access, its Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) service. Since then, Cloudflare says it has released multiple products per year and delivered hundreds of features across its SSE platform, shaped in large part by customer feedback. Tens of thousands of organizations now use Cloudflare to secure people, devices, applications, networks, and data. According to the company, those customers cite faster deployment times, a more consistent user experience, and an architecture better suited for long-term modernization as key reasons for choosing the platform.

What SSE actually covers

Security Service Edge is a framework that gives teams guardrails when moving to a Zero Trust architecture. The SSE model breaks down into five functional areas:

  • Zero Trust access control: Protects applications holding sensitive data by enforcing least-privilege rules that verify identity, device posture, and other signals on every request or connection.
  • Outbound filtering: Protects users and devices from internet-borne threats by filtering and logging network traffic, DNS queries, and HTTP requests.
  • Secure SaaS usage: Inspects traffic to and from SaaS apps and scans data stored within those applications for Shadow IT violations, misconfigurations, or improper data handling.
  • Data protection: Scans outgoing data for exfiltration toward non-compliant destinations and identifies data stored in trusted internal tools that shouldn't be retained or that needs tighter access controls.
  • Employee experience: Monitors and improves end-user experience when accessing internet-hosted tools or internally hosted applications.

The SSE space itself sits inside the broader Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market. SSE covers the security half of SASE; the other half comprises the networking technologies that connect offices, data centers, and all the endpoints SSE protects. Some vendors ship only the SSE side and rely on partners for the connectivity layer. Others deliver just the network components. Cloudflare notes that although this announcement centers on its SSE capabilities, it offers both halves as a unified SASE platform.

A platform approach to Security Service Edge

Cloudflare’s SSE offering is built on the same global network that powers its other services, with points of presence in more than 330 cities. The company states that its infrastructure operates within approximately 50 milliseconds of 95% of the Internet-connected population globally. Every service runs in every data center, which means security enforcement points sit close to users, applications, and data regardless of location.

This architecture allows single-pass inspection of traffic, no matter how customers connect. Cloudflare points to its DNS resolver, serverless compute platform, Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) offering, and traffic routing capabilities as foundational elements. The company also notes that it proxies and protects approximately 20% of websites, providing real-world operational experience that feeds into its security services.

Building SSE on its own network lets Cloudflare adopt emerging standards quickly, including IPv6, WireGuard, MASQUE, and post-quantum encryption. Customers can adopt the full SSE stack or start with a single component and expand over time.

Zero Trust access control

Cloudflare positions its Zero Trust access as a replacement for traditional VPNs, which it says suffer from security vulnerabilities, performance bottlenecks, and poor user experience. The service enforces least privilege access with per-resource authorization, supports clientless deployments for employees and third parties, and applies consistent policies to SaaS applications outside a customer’s infrastructure.

Planned capabilities by mid-2026 include:

  • Identity provider (IdP) agnostic multi-factor authentication (MFA): Step-up MFA without redirecting users back to an identity provider.
  • Just-in-time access controls: Users can request time-bound access to sensitive resources via tools like Slack and Google Chat.
  • Browser-based RDP: Clientless RDP access from the browser, connecting through any Cloudflare data center without software on the user’s machine.

Secure Web Gateway and DNS filtering

Cloudflare Gateway, the company’s secure web gateway (SWG), inspects and filters DNS, network, HTTP, and egress traffic. It covers both remote and office workers, enforces acceptable use policies, encrypts traffic, and blocks unauthorized SaaS and cloud destinations. All traffic undergoes verification, filtering, and inspection in a single pass, avoiding the performance penalties associated with hardware-based firewalls and proxies.

Threat intelligence draws on visibility across the network, including 4.3 trillion DNS queries per day, which powers AI-backed threat hunting models. Browser isolation is built in, allowing organizations to isolate web browsing against unknown threats like zero-days and to restrict data sharing in applications such as AI tools.

Deployment options include device agents, network locations, PAC files, and DNS over HTTPS (DoH) endpoints. Logging is available through the dashboard, a SQL-based Log Explorer, or third-party tools via LogPush.

Planned filtering and traffic handling capabilities by mid-2026 include:

  • Deep packet inspection for non-standard ports used by protocols like HTTP and SSH.
  • Filtering by Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) instead of destination IP addresses in egress and network policies.
  • Identity-based filtering with PAC files, without requiring a device client.

Cloud firewall

Cloudflare’s cloud firewall provides firewall-as-a-service protection, evaluating all traffic against firewall policies first as an initial layer of defense. Configuration changes apply globally within seconds, and the company says its network capacity provides virtually limitless firewall capacity without the constraints of traditional hardware. It is designed as a component of Zero Trust and defense-in-depth architectures.

Inline and API-based CASB

Shadow IT — users adopting applications outside those vetted by IT — can lead to surprise fees, compliance violations, and data loss. Cloudflare’s CASB offering scans for unapproved tool usage and lets administrators block those tools or restrict how they can be used. Policies can, for example, allow downloads from Google Drive but block uploads, or let users read from an application while preventing text input.

For sanctioned applications, Cloudflare’s Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) routinely scans SaaS tools for improper usage, missing controls, or misconfigurations. Planned capabilities by mid-2026 include:

  • Remediation capabilities: Resolve detected issues from the dashboard, either automatically or on-demand.
  • Advanced workflows: Configure automated responses to newly detected issues, including custom alerts and business justification prompts.
  • User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) and suspicious activity monitoring: Detect anomalous activity across SaaS applications that could indicate compromise.

Data security

Data protection is a top concern for CIOs and CISOs, particularly around artificial intelligence and large language models. Cloudflare’s data security capabilities provide visibility and control over data movement and data at rest, with granular policies that protect sensitive information without fully blocking access to productivity tools.

Planned data protection capabilities by mid-2026 include AI-based DLP detections, forensics via LogPush for HTTP requests, classification of sensitive data in public cloud environments, and preventative cloud security controls stemming from Cloudflare’s acquisition of Kivera.

Digital experience monitoring

Organizations often lack visibility into whether performance issues originate in the first, middle, or last mile. Cloudflare’s monitoring toolkit, built on the systems used to manage its own network, collects on-demand diagnostic information, gathers telemetry, and analyzes patterns to anticipate issues.

Planned digital experience monitoring capabilities by mid-2026 include:

  • Real user monitoring (RUM) measuring the performance of every user request.
  • Advanced monitoring for communication applications like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
  • Contextualization of user performance against global Internet performance data.

Convergence with networking

Cloudflare argues that many SASE vendors enter the market by acquiring products with different architectures, resulting in separate security controls for internal and cloud traffic. In contrast, Cloudflare delivers networking and security services from the same global data centers and backbone, with a composable architecture where services work together in any order.

The company has received additional analyst recognition for its broader platform, including positions in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Application Platforms, Email Security Platforms, and Single-Vendor SASE. Cloudflare says this underscores its position as a platform that extends beyond SSE to address a wider range of networking and security requirements for both public and private resources.

Why customers are paying attention

Cloudflare says the recognition reflects feedback from the tens of thousands of organizations that use its platform daily. In conversations with CIOs and CISOs, the company hears a few recurring themes. Some buyers are looking to replace a patchwork of point products with something more cost-effective. Others find the low barrier to entry appealing — many practitioners have the solution running before they ever talk to Cloudflare's team.

Performance is another factor. Cloudflare cites third-party testing showing its Zero Trust network is 46% faster than Zscaler, 56% faster than Netskope, and 10% faster than Palo Alto Networks, arguing that speed is a key consideration when security products sit in the request path.

What Cloudflare has planned

The company started 2025 with a dedicated Security Week focused on features that teams can adopt immediately. Looking ahead, Cloudflare says to expect updates across its Secure Web Gateway, data protection capabilities, digital experience monitoring, and its inline and API CASB tools. AI-driven analytics and monitoring are also on the roadmap.

The stated goal for 2025 is unchanged from 2024: help teams solve more security problems so they can focus on their core mission.

Trying it at no cost

Cloudflare is leaning into a differentiator in the SSE market — nearly every feature in its platform is available for free. Teams of up to 50 users can start a proof of concept without a sales conversation. The company's position is that organizations of any size should be able to begin modernizing their security stack quickly and without friction.

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