Netskope Client Resource Utilization - Netskope Technical Documentation

The Netskope Client is designed as a lightweight agent providing operability across a diverse set of operating systems (OS). Its core functionality encompassing traffic interception and processing, necessitates the utilization of system resources, including CPU, memory, disk space, and device power (battery).

The following table provides general guidance on the resource utilization of Netskope Client on supported operating systems:

The values in the following table are for guidance and the actual results might vary.

Operating System	CPU Utilization (Range)	Battery Utilization (Range)	Disk Space	Memory	Notes
Windows and macOS	0 - 5 %	Not Applicable	~100 MB for installation ~50 MB for Log and Configuration	Between 100 - 150 MB	Log retention space might vary depending on the level of logging. CPU utilization can vary with the traffic processing.
Linux	0 - 5 %	Not Applicable	~45 MB for installation, log and configuration storage	~0.5 %
Android, iOS, and ChromeOS	Not Applicable	10 - 20 %	iOS and Android: ~20 MB for installation ChromeOS: ~35 MB for installation Between 4 - 12 MB for Log and configuration storage.	-	Log retention space might vary depending on the level of logging. Battery utilization can increase intermittently when the Client is processing traffic. It is important to note that other external factors can affect battery life of mobile devices. For example, battery drain due to poor cellular network. For mobile devices, Netskope Client uses cellular data when the device is not connected to Wifi.

Performance Troubleshooting Guidelines

Troubleshooting performance and end-to-end network capacity issues is inherently complex for any network architecture. Several factors make this especially true when Netskope is part of the data path:

SSL Inspection Architecture: As a security solution, Netskope Security Cloud performs SSL inspection using an optimized single-pass architecture. Rather than forwarding packets, Netskope terminates the client session and establishes a second session to reach the destination.
Intermittent Issues: Network issues are often intermittent, which makes them harder to diagnose and reproduce.
Multi-Party Data Path: The data path can involve dozens of network devices owned by different parties, any of which can affect performance.
Geolocation Mismatches: A CDN vendor might receive an incorrect geolocation that doesn’t match the actual physical location of the data plane (DP).
Unmanaged or Restricted Paths: Some network paths are unmanaged, provider-restricted, or fall outside your enterprise SLA.
Blocked Non-Standard Protocols and Ports: Netskope or other entities in the path might block non-standard protocols and ports for security or data sovereignty purposes.

Because of these factors, comparing network performance with and without Netskope using popular speed test tools—such as speedtest.net, fast.com, Google Internet Speed Test, or Cloudflare Speed Test—doesn’t produce comparable or accurate results.

To learn more: Netskope Performance Troubleshooting Guide.