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Kandji vs Microsoft Defender for Endpoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Kandji
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
61st
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (85th), Mobile Device Management (MDM) (10th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (21st)
Microsoft Defender for Endp...
Ranking in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) category, the mindshare of Kandji is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.3%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint7.3%
Kandji0.5%
Other92.2%
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
 

Featured Reviews

Amit-Sarkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Apple Mobility Service Manager at ZONES PVT LTD
An easy-to-manage and deploy solution, but it should provide open customization
You don't need a certification or great knowledge to manage and deploy the solution because it's not complex. It's a very easy plug-and-play solution where you can just enroll the devices and choose the features you want. Kandji doesn't require much customization because it has built-in features that we have to create manually otherwise.
Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's a very easy plug-and-play solution where you can just enroll the devices and choose the features you want."
"It can reach our applications and PC activities in the cloud."
"The attack surface reduction rules are the most valuable. We're able to have unattended remediation actions when the solution works side by side with a local antivirus like Microsoft Defender or Kaspersky. The attack surface reduction rules help us to proactively block and stop threats."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has helped reduce our mean time to remediation significantly."
"Because it has been integrated with the OS, we get the entire software inventories, and we even get access to the registries. Those are the primary features."
"The solution's latest features for threat analysis are updated to provide us with future protection against the latest threats worldwide."
"Attack surface reduction and limiting attack surface vectors are valuable features. It's helpful to isolate specific devices and get super granular with the features they offer."
"The main features of this solution are that it handles everything by itself and is well integrated."
"We like that it has a free version available."
 

Cons

"Kandji should give open customization."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can have more options and more AI capabilities in the future, because everything keeps changing."
"I would like to have additional features such as DNS lookup, which would help for detecting malicious sites."
"I would like to see improvements made to how it secures activities on web pages."
"The GUI is very complex and could be more user friendly."
"Initially, I experienced performance issues that hampered our servers. However, after setting appropriate exclusions, everything seemed to work fine."
"If there were more template queries in the library, that would make it much easier. They could have basic things, like, "Where's the IP for this user?" or, "What file was downloaded from this user?" If there were more of those basic queries that would help."
"The price, in general, could always be a little bit cheaper."
"The solution has minimal customization options, especially compared to Mandiant, so we want to see more scope for customization. A single portal for customization would also be a welcome addition."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Kandji, which is expensive."
"I recently switched from education to private business, and all I can say is that private business licensing from Microsoft is not cheap until you hit certain quantities or scale. That does not mean that it is not comparable to other industries. It is similar pricing, but it is still crazy to me how much you pay for a client. I feel it is high, but it is in line with other vendors."
"It is affordable and comes in the Office 365 bundle."
"The license cost is around $35 per machine, which is not expensive compared to other products."
"The solution is free."
"I do not have to purchase antivirus solutions anymore because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is integrated into Windows and comes free."
"I pay for it through the Windows Professional or Standard license. It is a one-time cost for me, and I use the same license."
"There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5."
"There is not a license required for this particular solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise92
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
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