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Kandji vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management 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 Vulnerability Management
43rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Device Management (MDM) (7th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (14th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (31st)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Microsoft Security Suite (19th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Kandji is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 2.2%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.2%
Kandji0.3%
Other97.5%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2795433 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automated updates have strengthened security and save me time on daily device management
In my opinion, the best features Kandji offers are its UI, which is very clean and clear to use, not overly cluttered, allowing me to see the icon of all the different apps that I can install, and when I click on the little icon in my toolbar, it shows me any updates which I am able to install, making it very easy to use. The clean UI and ease of use definitely save me time, probably cutting the time in half for trying to figure out when to install updates myself, because the notifications are pushed to me, which is good since I want to keep my system up to date without interfering with my workflow. Kandji has impacted my organization positively by definitely increasing security because it notifies you when an update is ready to be installed, and if you do not install it within a reasonable time frame, it would automatically install it, which is good, and it probably has saved at least 30% of my time from manually having to look for updates since it just notifies me when the update is ready. Kandji's automatic installation feature ensures our team's compliance or security posture, as it makes sure we are up to date and all on the same version of a particular tool, which is very important for a technical IT team to avoid differences that might affect functionality.
OB
Microsoft Solutions Manager at Self-Employed
Ensures strong threat and vulnerability management with continuous risk assessment
The major priority is identity, which is crucial; we have lots of companies in manufacturing, energy, or various sectors, and it varies from one to another. I assess Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as very effective in continuously assessing vulnerabilities without requiring scans. We use automatic investigation and remediation features, safe attachments, safe links, and real-time reports, which are also very effective. For Active Directory, Defender has threat intelligence, and we are using that. The risk-based prioritization within Vulnerability Management affects my ability to manage vulnerabilities, particularly in relation to the Zero Trust Model utilized by our customers. The end-users often do as they please in their systems.

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."
"I highly recommend Kandji to others looking into using it since I have not seen any game-breaking issues; it is highly reliable, scalable, improves security, and reduces the time individuals need to spend on system configuration for security updates."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides several valuable features that I utilize, as I use it to control security configuration, for example, the apps that I use or the many connections from my router, and with this configuration, I can filter content and malware."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management has streamlined our threat management processes and provided region-specific customization for our healthcare operations."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"The product's stability is very high...The scalability of the product is amazing."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The main advantage of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is that it can locate and prevent most threats even when the endpoints are not connected to the corporate network, as long as the internet is available."
 

Cons

"Kandji should give open customization."
"Integration can be improved."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"There is a good solution from Microsoft, however, there is a gap between Windows and Linux management."
"When I create rules, it gave me problems and I did not know where the problem was located."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard. A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update."
"There should be risk scoring added to Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management; specifically, they call it quantification of the risk."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Kandji, which is expensive."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kandji?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that their pricing structure is bucket-based, requiring licenses to be bought in large groups, which is not an issue for my organization due...
What needs improvement with Kandji?
I have not been involved in the purchase process of Kandji, but I understand it is very Apple-centric and they have very recently come out with support for Windows or Android, although I do not bel...
What is your primary use case for Kandji?
My main use case for Kandji is that within my organization, I have a Mac as my work laptop, and Kandji is used for self-service platforms so that we can download tools, as well as secondly, automat...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
When I create rules, it gave me problems and I did not know where the problem was located. A small pop-up notification indicating how a rule should be configured would be helpful, rather than the p...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I do not use Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management at work. However, I am currently not working, but I do use Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management on my personal computer.
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Kandji vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.