SUSE a Leader in The 2025 Forrester Wave™, “a longtime open-source leader”
We’re proud to share that SUSE is a leader in the Forrester Wave™ for Multicloud Container Platforms, Q3 2025. To us, this recognition reflects our long-standing investment in customer success across edge, cloud, AI, and data center environments.
“…shared open source roots produced a strong, edge-focused Kubernetes stack — where SUSE now outperforms larger rivals like Red Hat.” –The Forrester Wave™ Q3, 2025
Why was SUSE named a leader in the Forrester Wave 2025?
On SUSE, the Forrester Wave says, “Today, its flexible packaging stands out. Backed by private equity, SUSE CEO and ex-Red Hat exec Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen is challenging his former firm through acquisitions and Linux alternatives to RHEL, contributing to SUSE’s above-par roadmap.”
We believe our focus on delivering a fully integrated platform with complete technological visibility and control are also reflected in this recognition. Furthermore, we credit our extensive 30+ years of experience in open source in enabling us to maintain a highly competitive edge and be acknowledged as a leader by industry experts like Forrester.
We see SUSE’s commitment to excellence reflected in SUSE’s “above-par roadmap,” indicating a clear and ambitious plan for future innovation that directly addresses customer needs.
Top 4 impacts to your business
SUSE’s cloud-native offerings deliver critical business outcomes and foster true resilience, serving as strategic enablers rather than just technical solutions.
The Forrester report notes, “SUSE, a longtime open-source leader […] now offers an enterprise platform that combines SUSE’s SAP hosting legacy with Rancher’s Kubernetes strengths”
1. Driving Cloud Cost Efficiency for Bottom-Line Impact
Cloud cost control isn’t just a technical priority –it’s a boardroom issue. SUSE customers are tackling these challenges with measurable results, thanks to our composable platform, flexible packaging, and workload-optimized automation. A recent IDC study estimated the total of $3.4 million in average annual benefits to SUSE Rancher Prime customers leading to a 258% ROI in three years.
Across industries and geographies, SUSE Rancher Prime delivers real bottom-line impact
- NMDP impacts tens of thousands of lives.This saved us over 50% on our AWS costs, freeing up money to be spent elsewhere toward our mission.” –Ryan Anderson Senior DevOps Engineer Learn more about NMDP
- Finexus Group, a leading fintech company, leveraged Rancher Prime’s autoscaling capabilities to achieve 20%+ efficiency gains. Learn more about Finexus Group
- Aussie Broadband “At the end of the day, SUSE has helped us achieve 20 to 30% efficiency on our day-to-day operations,” says Ben O’Shea General Manager, Transformation & Cloud, Aussie Broadband. Learn more about Aussie Broadband
- Hyundai Steel enters a new era of sustainable steel production. “Rancher Prime provided cost savings in the operation of our steel processing systems. Its ability to support multi-cluster and multi-cloud environments is essential for our scalability requirements, particularly for future expansions in MES.” –JongKyun Jeung, IT Professional Hyundai AutoEver Learn more about Hyundai Steel
2. Ensuring Digital Sovereignty
SUSE Rancher Prime gives organizations the foundation to stay compliant, competitive, and in control with full-stack open source infrastructure, built-in supply chain security, and local control. Learn more about Digital Sovereignty
Public sector organizations and enterprises in highly regulated industries rely on SUSE Rancher Prime
- AKDB advances digital government services. Major German government IT provider AKDB, runs sovereign container workloads in BSI-certified data centers. With Rancher Prime, they manage services for over 5,000 municipalities and 18 million citizens, all in self-managed, on-premises environments ensuring customers with 100% availability. Learn more about AKDB
- FIS Group builds AI solutions for SAP workloads with SUSE AI. “The combination of SUSE AI and SUSE Edge enables us to run containerized AI workloads securely and reliably in edge environments. This allows us to bring the benefits of AI-driven workflows to logistics centers, production lines or retail stores with minimal latency.” –Manuel Sammeth Managing Director, FIS-ASP GmbH Learn more about FIS Group
- T-Systems offers multi-cloud management for Open Telekom Cloud customers. T-Systems built a compliant CCE cloud with Rancher Prime, enforcing CIS Benchmarks, Pod Security Policies, FIPS 140-2, and meeting GDPR and public sector certifications. Learn more about T-Systems
3. Elevating Security & Compliance for Risk Mitigation
Security and compliance are non-negotiable. With financial penalties, operational downtime, and reputational damage on the line, SUSE delivers security that is trusted by some of the world’s most regulated organizations, integrated into every layer of our platform.
- Lumen speeds its journey to cloud. “With SUSE Security, we can impose basic ‘house rules’ from the word go. It means that everyone follows the same guidance on how they need to operate in this environment. In the end, everybody wins because we have an environment that’s more secure and certainly more stable.” –Andy Reese Director of Infrastructure Engineering ,Lumen Technologies Learn more about Lumen Technologies
- Child Rescue Coalition protects children worldwide with SUSE. “Our systems hold critical legal evidence for over a hundred countries. SUSE as a known entity and partner makes those security checks and security visits from countries into our offices a whole lot easier.” –Roberto Machorro Senior Software Developer, Child Rescue Coalition. Learn more about the Child Rescue Coalition
- Afa Insurance secures a better working life for millions with Rancher Prime. Afa reduced provisioning from weeks to under an hour while strengthening regulatory adherence with compliance-by-default infrastructure, being able to establish a compliance-by-default setup. Learn more about Afa Insurance
4. Achieving Unwavering Business Operations (The Core of Resilience)
SUSE’s strengths in “DevOps automation, service and application catalogs, integration, runtime, control plane configuration” directly translate into faster deployments, fewer errors, and highly available services. This means applications are delivered to market more quickly, with greater reliability, and fewer disruptions.
- Switch sustainably scales AI for one of North Americas most advanced data centers. Switch achieved 100 % uptime, seamless scaling, and proactive support across a cutting-edge, distributed cloud platform. Learn more about Switch
- UMB delivers SAP services ensuring 100% uptime with SUSE. UMB trust their SAP landscapes to SUSE Rancher Prime managed Kubernetes clusters. They appreciate on-demand cluster creation, low overhead, and dependable uptime for core enterprise apps. Learn more about UMB
- Hyundai Motor Company ensures resiliance. With Rancher Prime powering its All‑Connected Car platform, Hyundai achieved over 99.95 % SLA on Kubernetes services, enabling scalable, reliable infrastructure for software‑defined vehicles, with streamlined cluster management. Learn more about Hyundai Motor Company
The Forrester Evaluation’s Conclusion on SUSE?
“SUSE is a good fit for enterprise customers comfortable with cloud-native technologies and that prioritize composability and options for cloud, data center, and edge.” For us, this is a conclusion about strategic choice, a partner that provides unparalleled options, flexibility, and performance across your entire distributed IT landscape.
Need help navigating your modernization journey?
Contact our exceptional sales team to get the strategic guidance and technical support your enterprise deserves. SUSE’s global 24/7 follow-the-sun support network has been reshaped into a high-performing organization ready to serve enterprises at any scale.
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .
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