SMB ZTNA / SSE comparison. SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge (formerly Banyan Security) is compared against its top commercial plan (Advanced / Enterprise). Pricing and plan names are intentionally omitted.
Cipherscale is an AI-native Security Service Edge (SSE) platform for SMB and mid-market teams. It unifies Zero Trust access to private apps, SaaS, and the internet through customer-deployed Gateways. Its defining architecture is a customer-owned data plane: traffic stays end-to-end encrypted between devices and Gateways — Cipherscale's control plane never touches the data, delivering native data sovereignty. Administration is conversational: admins describe outcomes in the Intent Bar, and the AI Copilot plans configurations with human-in-the-loop Action Validation before bounded MCP services apply them. Continuous device posture (OS, certificates, disk encryption, antivirus, processes, geo, time of day) gates every access decision. Universal ZTNA is delivered by the same on-prem Gateways for both remote and on-premises users, eliminating hair-pinning.
SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge (CSE), formerly Banyan Security, is a cloud-native SSE that consolidates Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), VPN-as-a-Service (VPNaaS), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), and Secure Web Gateway (SWG) into a unified product. CSE is positioned strongly for SMBs and MSPs and integrates with SonicWall's Next-Generation Firewalls (Gen7) starting with SonicOS 7.1.2 via the CSE Connector, enabling ZTNA to apps hosted behind those firewalls. The platform uses a Trustscore-based continuous authorization model that evaluates user identity and device posture (managed and unmanaged devices) before brokering one-to-one connections. CSE is delivered as a multi-tenant cloud service with vendor-operated points of presence; recent 2026 updates allow administrators to edit PoP locations for their organization. Identity supports major IdPs via OIDC and SAML and SCIM provisioning is available.
Choose Cipherscale if you want a customer-owned data plane where traffic never traverses the vendor's cloud, AI-native conversational administration, and Universal ZTNA without hair-pinning — particularly when data residency, sovereignty, and a low-touch operating model are top priorities, and you do not already standardize on SonicWall firewalls.
Choose SonicWall CSE if you are an existing SonicWall firewall customer or an MSP managing many SMB tenants and want a tightly integrated SSE that complements SonicWall NGFWs, Trustscore-based continuous authorization, and a vendor-managed cloud edge with CASB and SWG. CSE is a natural extension for organizations already invested in SonicWall's ecosystem.
|
Capability |
Cipherscale |
SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge (top plan) |
|---|---|---|
|
Architecture & Data Sovereignty |
||
|
Category |
AI-native unified SSE (ZTNA + SWG + SaaS protection) |
SSE: ZTNA + VPNaaS + CASB + SWG |
|
Data plane location |
Customer-deployed Gateways. Vendor control plane never sees traffic. |
SonicWall–operated cloud PoPs; customer-deployed Connectors broker private app access |
|
Customer-owned data plane |
Yes |
Partial — Connectors are customer-side, but inspection and broker logic run in the vendor cloud |
|
Underlying tunnel protocol |
WireGuard® |
WireGuard / IPsec / TLS depending on access mode |
|
Universal ZTNA (single policy, on-prem & remote, no hair-pinning) |
Yes — local Gateways enforce policy |
Traffic typically routed to nearest vendor PoP for inspection |
|
Integration with on-prem firewalls |
Generic via deployment; not vendor-locked |
Native integration with SonicWall NGFW (Gen7, SonicOS 7.1.2+) |
|
Administration & AI |
||
|
Conversational / intent-based admin |
Yes — AI Copilot, Intent Bar, Prompt Catalysts |
No (admin via cloud management console) |
|
Human-in-the-loop change validation |
Yes — Action Validation |
Standard change workflows |
|
AI-driven cloud gateway deployment |
Yes — conversational GCP / Azure |
Not applicable (cloud PoPs are vendor-managed) |
|
Conversational Root Cause Analysis |
Yes |
No |
|
AI auditing & least-privilege recommendations |
Yes |
Trustscore-based continuous risk evaluation (not conversational) |
|
Bounded AI execution (LLM separated from deterministic services) |
Yes — MCP services |
Not applicable |
|
Zero Trust & Identity |
||
|
OIDC support (Google, Microsoft) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SAML 2.0 SSO |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Multiple IdPs active simultaneously |
Yes |
Generally one primary IdP per tenant |
|
SCIM user provisioning |
(coming soon) |
Yes |
|
RBAC roles |
Owner, Administrator, Auditor, User |
Org admin / read-only / MSP partner roles |
|
Device posture: OS & version |
Yes |
Yes (Trustscore) |
|
Device posture: disk encryption |
Yes (native) |
Yes |
|
Device posture: antivirus running |
Yes (native) |
Yes |
|
Device posture: specific application/process |
Yes (native) |
Yes (Trustscore signals) |
|
Device posture: digital certificate present |
Yes |
Yes (device certificate part of Trustscore) |
|
Location-context (geo) policies |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Time-of-day policies |
Yes |
Limited via policy conditions |
|
Identity-based microsegmentation |
Yes — dynamic firewall rules at Gateway |
Yes — per-resource brokered access |
|
Continuous re-authorization |
Yes — admission rules continuously checked |
Yes — Trustscore re-evaluated continuously |
|
Access Use Cases |
||
|
Private application access (TCP & UDP) |
Yes — via Gateways |
Yes — via Connectors / NGFW integration |
|
SaaS protection by Gateway-IP pinning |
Yes |
Yes — via dedicated egress IPs (not available in all plans) |
|
Internet access security / Secure Web Gateway |
Yes |
Yes — integrated SWG |
|
Content filtering (categories) |
(coming soon — 43+ categories) |
Yes |
|
Known malicious IP / domain blocking |
(coming soon) |
Yes — SonicWall threat intel |
|
CASB (SaaS posture) |
Not provided natively |
Yes (not available in all plans) |
|
VPN-as-a-Service |
Effectively replaced by ZTNA architecture |
Yes |
|
Clientless / agentless web app access |
Not a current capability |
Yes — agentless access for unmanaged devices |
|
Networking |
||
|
IPv4 / IPv6 dual stack |
Yes |
Yes (IPv4 primary) |
|
CGNAT IP range for internal operations |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Active-active load balancing & failover |
Yes |
Yes — multi-Connector HA |
|
Site-to-site full-mesh |
(coming soon) |
Hub-and-spoke via SonicWall NGFW integration; full-mesh evolving |
|
Distributed enforcement selected by RTT |
Yes |
Vendor PoP selection |
|
Observability & Operations |
||
|
Connection & access logs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Admin / configuration audit logs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SIEM streaming |
(coming soon) |
Yes |
|
Public API for automation |
(coming soon) |
Yes |
|
Multi-tenant MSP/partner management |
Per Space and tenant model |
Yes — explicitly designed for MSPs |
|
Email alerts for critical events |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Client platforms |
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android (Ubuntu coming soon) |
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux |
|
Enforcement-point deployment options |
AI-driven GCP/Azure, Terraform, CloudFormation, Docker, Ubuntu/Debian |
Connectors via Docker/Linux/cloud images; SonicWall NGFW (Gen7) |
"Coming soon" reflects Cipherscale's own documentation as of May 2026. SonicWall CSE feature attribution is to the highest commercial plan; features marked (not available in all plans) are reserved for higher commercial tiers.
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