Agentic Index
Knostic vs WitnessAI (2026)
Both vendors last verified
Knostic and WitnessAI both put security controls around the AI tools and agents employees use. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Knostic centers on coding assistants and MCP connections, and WitnessAI on one inline policy layer across all AI use. Knostic's Kirin guards coding assistants and MCP connections inline with an agent inventory and least privilege policies and runs Copilot oversharing assessments, while its AgentMesh rates the risk of agent skills and MCP servers, with tiers from free to Pro at $850 per user a month, and Kirin runs from free for up to 5 users to Team at $15 per user a month, with Enterprise by quote, and the agent security platform is sold through a demo. WitnessAI enforces intent based policies inline at the network layer, governs agents at the tool call and MCP server level, and ties each action to a person, with AWS Marketplace listing Agentic Visibility at $24 per agent a year and a 2,500 agent minimum. WitnessAI ties each agent action to a person, and Knostic rates the risk of each skill and MCP server an agent can reach. Choose Knostic for coding assistant and MCP risk, and WitnessAI for enforcement across all AI use.
On the Agentic Index AI SOC ranking, neither Knostic nor WitnessAI clears the bar, which asks for all five investigation loop capabilities documented in full. Knostic documents two of the five in full; WitnessAI does not document workflow orchestration in full, nor human oversight and guardrails. 25 of the 86 vendors in the lane clear it. See the AI SOC ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Knostic and WitnessAI are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,084 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Knostic if
- Coding assistants and MCP connections are the main risk.
- Copilot oversharing needs assessing.
- You want risk ratings for agent skills and MCP servers, with a free tier to start.
Choose WitnessAI if
- Every AI prompt, response and agent action should pass one inline policy layer.
- Every agent action should trace back to a person.
- Each agent action should be tied to a person.
| Feature | K Knostic |
W WitnessAI |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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KnosticIntegrations & Tool Calling Kirin integrates into Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot and Windsurf, with Codex and JetBrains listed as coming, to block risky prompts, MCP connections and extensions inline. The Enterprise plan adds SIEM and Slack integrations, and Kirin is built to extend existing DLP, DSPM, Purview and SIEM investments into AI workflows. The Copilot work covers Microsoft 365 Copilot and Glean, with remediation through permissions and labels. SourceKnostic, getkirin.com, /pricing, /features and /enterpriseread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIIntegrations & Tool Calling Named network connectors cover Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, Netskope, Fortinet and F5, alongside SIEM and XDR integration. Coverage extends to Windows 11 Copilot, Office 365 and other desktop AI apps, and enforcement works at the tool call and MCP server level, with an MCP Catalog that scores known tools. Sourcewitness.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/wit-secure-ai-enablement-platform-op.pdfread 2026-09-28 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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KnosticWorkflow Orchestration The product runs a fixed pipeline over the customer's AI tools and agents, discovering, monitoring, enforcing and remediating, with the same policies applied to agents built in house, SaaS agents and MCP driven agents. Knostic does not orchestrate the customer's agents, and customers cannot build a flow of their own. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/ai-agent-security-solutionread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIWorkflow Orchestration WitnessAI runs a fixed pipeline over the customer's AI traffic that intercepts, analyzes and enforces. It ships no agents of its own, and customers do not configure flows across several agents. Sourcewitness.ai/controlread 2026-09-28 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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KnosticTriggers & Channel Coverage Kirin enforces inline on each prompt, MCP connection and extension before execution and keeps scanning projects continuously, and MCP posture management flags policy drift and misconfiguration as they occur, with no user prompt needed. SourceKnostic, getkirin.com, /features and knostic.ai/mcp-security-posture-management-solutionread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAITriggers & Channel Coverage Enforcement runs inline on every prompt, response and tool call crossing the network, without a user launching it, so each interaction's arrival starts the work. Sourcewitness.ai/controlread 2026-09-28 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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KnosticKnowledge Grounding & RAG An up to date list of the customer's allowed MCP servers is kept, with every connection validated in real time, alongside a map of which business topics, such as HR, finance and legal, Copilot exposes. AgentMesh is Knostic's own catalog, which scans every MCP server, agent skill and extension for prompt injection, malicious behavior and supply chain risk. Knostic describes no retrieval structure that the agents draw on. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/mcp-security-posture-management-solution and /copilot-readiness-assessmentread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIKnowledge Grounding & RAG Observe detects AI apps against a catalog of 4,000+ and shows which agents are running and what external tools they connect to, and the MCP Catalog scores known tools against OWASP and CVE risk classes. That is a named inventory plus WitnessAI's own knowledge, with no retrieval structure over the customer's estate for its agents. Sourcewitness.ai/observeread 2026-09-28 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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KnosticMemory & State Persistence Policies, inventories and allowed lists are settings that shape enforcement. Knostic describes no memory for the customer's agents or for an agent of its own. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/ai-agent-security-solution and getkirin.com; knostic.airead 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIMemory & State Persistence There is no agent memory with a scope and lifetime. The agent and MCP inventory is a catalog of what runs, and the conversation and execution record is an audit trail, so neither is memory the agents keep. Sourcewitness.ai/observeread 2026-09-28 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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KnosticHuman Oversight & Guardrails Policies on the customer's coding agents block destructive commands and risky prompts and connections, redact secrets and PII, gate exec and file read operations, and enforce least privilege access, OAuth based agent authentication and an allowed MCP server list, with policy groups on the Enterprise plan. These policies block or allow. Knostic names no step that asks a person to approve an agent action before it commits. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/ai-agent-security-solution, /mcp-security-posture-management-solution and getkirin.com/pricingread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIHuman Oversight & Guardrails Policies route, block or redact prompts and responses, and allow lists of approved MCP servers and tools are enforced at the tool call and MCP server level. There is no step to approve or confirm an agent's action before it commits. Sourcewitness.ai/controlread 2026-09-28 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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KnosticSecurity, Identity & Governance Kirin's Team plan adds role based access control and audit logs, and its Enterprise plan adds enterprise SSO. Multi factor authentication is among the product security controls. Knostic reports SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR compliance, and its trust center offers a pentest report. Role based training is part of Knostic's own security program. SourceKnostic, getkirin.com/pricing and security.knostic.airead 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAISecurity, Identity & Governance SOC 2 Type I and Type II badges sit in the footer, and the datasheet names Role Based Access Control, with a VIP privacy mode governing who can see executive conversations. WitnessAI does not say whether it supports SSO, and its documentation portal is password protected. Sourcewitness.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/wit-secure-ai-enablement-platform-op.pdfread 2026-09-28 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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KnosticObservability & Auditability Knostic says it tracks "every agentic action" and keeps logs for compliance and incident response. MCP posture management logs connections, blocks and drift events for review. Kirin gives centralized audit of security events and actions across the customer's agents, with audit logs and a unified dashboard on Team and compliance ready reporting on Enterprise. Knostic describes no record at the level of each step or tool call. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/ai-agent-security-solution, /mcp-security-posture-management-solution and getkirin.com/pricingread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIObservability & Auditability Agent state and execution commands are captured at runtime, and every agent action maps to a human identity. Every blocked tool call generates an audit record that names the user and agent along with the tool and rule, and prompts, responses and agentic activity are visualized for each interaction. The result is a record of each tool call the customer's agents make. Sourcewitness.ai/resources/witnessai-raises-58-million-for-global-expansion-and-announces-new-ways-to-secure-ai-agentsread 2026-09-28 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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KnosticDeployment & Data Residency The infrastructure runs on Amazon Web Services, with Cloudflare, Descope, Sentry and Groundcover among Knostic's subprocessors. No hosting region is published, and Knostic names no customer environment or data residency option. SourceKnostic, security.knostic.airead 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIDeployment & Data Residency Single tenant isolation and customer controlled encryption are offered, with "multi-region deployment" but no named region, customer environment or way to choose. The AWS Marketplace listing gives SaaS delivery, and WitnessAI describes no on premises, cloud sandbox or VPC option. The documentation portal is password protected. Sourcewitness.ai/productread 2026-09-28 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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KnosticPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs OpenAnt, the oversharing tester and a prompts library are free standalone utilities, and Knostic names no prebuilt agents, templates or packs. Kirin's Free plan covers teams of up to five with policy controls and MCP, extension and rules scanning, before Team at $15 a user a month and a custom Enterprise plan. SourceKnostic, getkirin.com/pricing and knostic.ai/copilot-readiness-assessment; knostic.airead 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Customers assemble policies for each department and role, and the MCP Catalog is vendor reference data for building allow lists. No catalog of prebuilt policies or agents is published. Sourcewitness.ai/controlread 2026-09-28 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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KnosticModel Flexibility & Routing Knostic governs third party assistants and agents, such as the coding assistants Kirin protects and Microsoft 365 Copilot, and offers no model choice or routing of its own. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai and getkirin.comread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIModel Flexibility & Routing Admins set a routing policy, which WitnessAI pitches as "Route AI requests from employees and agents based on risk, cost, and purpose. Direct sensitive queries to secure internal models." No model list, named provider or selection surface is shown, and the documentation portal is password protected. Sourcewitness.ai/productread 2026-09-28 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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KnosticAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility AgentMesh offers API access by tier, with capped calls for free signed in users and on Premium at $15 a user a month, which includes a Kirin license, and unlimited calls on Pro at $850 a user a month. OpenAnt is an open source tool. Kirin offers open API integration, but no API reference or SDK for building on the Knostic platform is published. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/blog/introducing-agentmesh-access-tiers and getkirin.com/featuresread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility The datasheet lists API integration to connect to existing analytics and security systems, but no API reference or coverage can be read, because docs.witness.ai is password protected. The portal exists, but what it covers is not public. Sourcewitness.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/wit-secure-ai-enablement-platform-op.pdfread 2026-09-28 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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KnosticTesting, Debugging & Optimization The Copilot Readiness Assessment maps which business topics the customer's Copilot exposes, finds the permission gaps behind them against each user's need to know, and recommends changes to file and URL permissions. Knostic delivers it as an independent assessment of the deployed assistant that complements Microsoft's own tools, and there is no harness for the customer to run. A free LLM oversharing tester is also offered. SourceKnostic, knostic.ai/copilot-readiness-assessmentread 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAITesting, Debugging & Optimization Witness Attack runs automated red teaming against the customer's models before production deployment, including prompt injection, multi-step jailbreaks and multimodal exploits, so the customer's own AI is tested before it ships. The stated targets are models; red teaming of agents is not mentioned. Sourcewitness.ai/protectread 2026-09-28 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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KnosticBrowser & Computer Use Kirin runs as a background service in the IDE, and the agents it watches are the customer's coding assistants. Knostic describes no browser or computer use. SourceKnostic, getkirin.com; knostic.airead 2026-10-06 |
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WitnessAIBrowser & Computer Use Coverage of Windows 11 Copilot, Office 365 and desktop AI apps is monitoring of other applications, not an agent using a browser or a computer. Sourcewitness.ai/productread 2026-09-28 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | K Knostic |
W WitnessAI |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Kirin: Free for 1 to 5 users, Team $15 per user per month, Enterprise contact sales. Agent security platform: contact sales. AgentMesh catalog: free tiers, Premium $15 per user per month, Pro $850 per user per month, Enterprise custom. | AWS Marketplace: 12-month contract for WitnessAI Agentic Visibility at $24 per agent per year with a 2,500-agent minimum ($60,000 a year, about $5,000 a month). |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, partial | Public, partial |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
Kirin and AgentMesh per user per month; agent security platform not published. | Per user and per agent on annual 12-month contracts, with a flat WitnessProtect contract and a usage dimension for true-ups, on AWS Marketplace. |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Medium variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tierTrial
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No free tier
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Mixed |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
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