Zero trust network access has become a crowded checkbox. Most big security platforms now include something they call ZTNA, often as one feature among many. AppGate is pitching the opposite: a specialist that does only ZTNA, strictly. On November 10 it announced that GigaOm placed it in the Leader ring with an Outpacing rating in the fifth edition of its ZTNA Radar, published September 8.
The scores
GigaOm gave AppGate ZTNA a 5.0 score, the top mark, for Zero Trust Architecture Integrity. AppGate says it was the only vendor to get that score. It also scored 5.0 for Policy Engine Architecture and VPN Migration Tooling, and 4.5 for Single Packet Authorization and for its automation and orchestration API. AppGate says it was one of six vendors to earn both Leader and Outpacing labels among 33 evaluated.
GigaOm describes AppGate as an architecturally orthodox software-defined perimeter and a deliberate pure play. It cites the product’s Common Criteria Security Target and a reference build at NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence as evidence for the design, and credits AppGate with an infrastructure-as-code surface that outbuilds much larger vendors.
VPN replacement is the use case
The report’s most practical line is about VPN migration: organisations replacing a VPN estate get the most from AppGate. The product watches traffic through its gateways and presents hostnames and user counts for administrators to review before turning them into access rules. That shortens the hardest part of a migration, which is working out who actually needs what.
AppGate’s architecture is direct-routed: traffic goes straight to resources instead of through the vendor’s cloud. That matters for defence and government customers that operate disconnected or classified networks. Earlier this year AppGate was selected as part of General Dynamics IT’s $120 million task order for the US Air Force Next Generation Gateway program, covering more than a million users across 187 bases.
Analyst rankings are marketing material, and every vendor finds a chart where it leads. This one is still useful, because it rates architecture rather than market share. Buyers who care about how strictly zero trust is enforced, not how many products come in the bundle, now have a third-party score to point to.