Endpoint products are one of the few software categories with independent laboratory testing, so this ranking leans on AV-Comparatives and AV-TEST results rather than vendor claims.
We also weight what the console costs in analyst time, whether detection and response is included or an upsell, and how the product behaves on an underpowered laptop.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What endpoint security software does
Endpoint security software protects laptops, desktops and servers against malware and intrusion, and in its detection-and-response form records what happened so an incident can be investigated afterwards.
Five things, in this order. Feature counts are not among them: they are the least useful
comparison in software, because every vendor ticks every box.
01
Setup effort in endpoint security software
What the first ninety days of a endpoint security software rollout cost in hours, not in licence fees. A product that needs a partner engagement before it does anything is a different purchase from one a team configures in an afternoon.
02
What endpoint security software really costs
What the bill becomes once the modules a normal buyer of endpoint security software needs are added, and whether you can read that number without a sales conversation.
03
Getting your data out of endpoint security software
How your own data comes back out, in what format, and whether that export is included in the endpoint security software contract or billed as a project.
04
Independence from the vendor
Whether you can buy endpoint security software, run it and leave it on your own terms. This test decides most of the order on this page, and it is why the largest vendors in endpoint security software often sit below the smaller ones.
05
Who the product is built for
The size and shape of company each endpoint security software product was actually built for. Most regret in software comes from buying for a company you are not yet.
The fourth test decides most of the order on this page, and it is the reason the largest
endpoint security software vendors sit below the smaller ones. A product with a published price, an export
that works and no mandatory implementation partner is a product you can leave.
A platform suite that arrives with a quote, a partner and a two-year commitment may well be
the better software and is still the harder decision to reverse. We rank endpoint security software for the
buyer who has to live with that decision without a procurement department, which is a stated
bias rather than a hidden one.
We do not publish a score out of ten. A number like 8.4 is a judgement dressed as a
measurement, and nobody can check it.
What you can check is on this page: what each endpoint security tool costs, where the vendor is
established, whether the price is published, and what we think it is bad at. Our full method
is on the how we work page.
A large enterprise with an existing Broadcom relationship
A mid-market company that wants predictable renewals
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Ranked #1 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Bitdefender sits at or near the top of independent detection tests year after year while staying light enough that users do not notice it, which is a rare combination.
Small-business pricing is published rather than quoted. The console rewards learning: the defaults are sensible but the policy model has depth, and support is adequate rather than the reason to buy.
What stands out
Top lab results
Low resource use
Published SMB pricing
Where it costs you
The console rewards learning rather than being obvious
Support is adequate rather than excellent
Right for
A company that wants top detection without a heavy agent
Wrong for
A team wanting a managed service to run it
RomaniaPer endpoint per year, published for small business
Ranked #2 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
ESET is the answer when the fleet includes machines that cannot spare resources — older hardware, thin clients, machines running production software — and the detection record goes back decades.
Management is straightforward. The detection and response tier is less mature than CrowdStrike or SentinelOne, so an organisation that needs real threat hunting will find it thin.
What stands out
Very low overhead
Strong on older hardware
Modular tiers
Where it costs you
Detection and response is less mature than the specialists
Interface is utilitarian
Right for
A fleet with older or resource-constrained machines
Wrong for
An organisation that needs deep detection and threat hunting
Ranked #3 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
The clearest answer when data residency in Europe is a hard requirement, with vulnerability management in the same console. Smaller research operation than the global leaders.
What stands out
EU data residency
Modular platform
Co-monitoring
Where it costs you
Smaller research operation than the global leaders
Fewer integrations
Right for
An organisation with a hard EU data-residency requirement
Ranked #4 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Formerly Malwarebytes for business, and still the best at cleaning up a machine that is already infected. Preventive detection scores trail the leaders in independent testing.
What stands out
Simple console
Strong remediation
Quick deployment
Where it costs you
Preventive detection scores trail the leaders
Lighter reporting
Right for
A small IT team that mostly needs to clean up infections
Ranked #5 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
On the technical merits Kaspersky consistently scores at or near the top of independent detection tests, and it costs less than the American vendors. The complication is not technical.
The company originated in Russia, relocated its holding structure and moved some data processing to Switzerland, and a number of governments — including the United States and several EU members — have still restricted its use in public bodies. If you sell to the public sector, your customers may inherit that restriction. That is the reason for its position here, and it is a reason worth stating plainly rather than burying.
What stands out
Strong detection scores
Published price
Broad platform support
Where it costs you
Banned or restricted for public sector use in several countries
Origin raises supply chain questions for some buyers
Right for
A private company that selects on detection rates and price
Straightforward endpoint protection for small companies
Ranked #6 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Avast Business does the fundamentals — malware protection, a firewall, patch management — through a console a generalist IT person can run, at a price a small company can approve without a meeting. That is a legitimate requirement and it meets it. Two things keep it low.
It is protection rather than detection and response: when something does get in, there is little here to investigate it with. And the group’s Jumpshot subsidiary was found selling detailed browsing data before it was shut down in 2020, which is old but relevant history for a company you are asking to watch every machine you own.
What stands out
Cheap
Simple console
Published price
Where it costs you
No meaningful detection and response capability
Parent company sold user browsing data in the past
Right for
A small company that needs solid basics and no administrator
Wrong for
Any organisation that needs threat hunting or forensic response
Consumer anti-malware for a handful of Windows PCs, free to start
Ranked #7 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingAsia-Pacific
IObit Malware Fighter is a consumer security suite rather than an endpoint platform: real-time malware and ransomware protection, browser anti-tracking and a USB guard, installed and run on each PC separately.
The free version covers basic real-time protection and Pro is priced per device per year. What it lacks is what this list is usually about: central policies, macOS and Linux agents, and tools to investigate an incident. IObit publishes no company address; business registers mostly place it in China.
What stands out
Free version
Windows only
No central console
Where it costs you
There is no console to manage more than one PC
Windows only, with no detection-and-response or investigation tools
Right for
A very small office protecting a few Windows PCs on a tight budget
Wrong for
Any company that needs to manage its devices from one place
Ranked #8 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
If you already hold Microsoft 365 E5 you own a capable EDR with telemetry on Windows that no third party can match, integrated with identity and email signals in one console.
That combination is genuinely strong. Coverage of macOS and Linux is weaker, and working out which licence tier includes which capability is a project in itself.
What stands out
Bundled with E5
Deep Windows telemetry
No extra agent
Where it costs you
Cross-platform coverage is weaker
The licensing maze is its own project
Right for
An organisation already holding Microsoft 365 E5
Wrong for
A mixed fleet with many Macs and Linux boxes
United StatesPer user per month, published; included in E5
Ranked #9 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
CrowdStrike is the reference product for detection and response, with threat intelligence and managed hunting that most organisations could never staff internally.
When something happens, the timeline it reconstructs is the reason people pay. It is expensive, and the July 2024 update that took machines offline worldwide is a legitimate question to put to them about release process and staged rollout.
What stands out
Best-in-class EDR
Threat intelligence
Managed hunting
Where it costs you
Expensive
The July 2024 update outage is a fair question to ask
Right for
An organisation that needs the reference EDR and managed hunting
Wrong for
A small business without a security function
United StatesPer endpoint per year, published for small business
Ranked #10 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
The one-click rollback after a ransomware event is a genuine differentiator: the agent records what changed and reverses it, which turns an incident into an inconvenience.
It keeps deciding when disconnected from the network. Tuning is not optional — left at defaults the automation will act on things you would rather it did not — and pricing is quoted rather than published.
What stands out
Automated rollback
Works offline
Strong lab results
Where it costs you
Tuning is required or the automation acts on the wrong things
Quoted pricing
Right for
A team that wants automated rollback after ransomware
Ranked #11 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
The managed detection service is the reason to buy Sophos: a competent outsourced analyst layer, twenty-four hours a day, for an organisation that will never hire a security team.
Integration with Sophos firewalls gives useful cross-signal context. The endpoint product on its own is competent rather than exceptional, so if you already have a SOC the case is much weaker.
What stands out
MDR service
Firewall integration
Anti-ransomware
Where it costs you
The product on its own is competent rather than exceptional
Endpoint, server and cloud workload protection in one console
Ranked #12 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestAsia-Pacific
Trend Micro has been in this market longer than most of the vendors above it and its strength is breadth of estate: physical servers, virtual machines, containers and cloud workloads get real protection rather than a repackaged desktop agent.
For a company running its own infrastructure that matters. The two persistent criticisms are the console, which has accumulated a decade of features and shows it, and the licensing, which varies by workload type in a way that makes comparing quotes genuinely difficult.
What stands out
Server and cloud workloads
Single console
Long track record
Where it costs you
Licensing across workload types is complicated
Console shows its history
Right for
A company protecting servers and cloud workloads as well as laptops
A long-established enterprise product now inside Broadcom
Ranked #13 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
Symantec Endpoint Protection was for years the default enterprise answer, and the underlying product remains capable: broad platform coverage, mature policy management and the integrations a large security operation expects. What changed is ownership.
Broadcom’s approach to acquired enterprise software — focusing on the largest accounts, raising minimums and reshaping support — is well documented by customers across its portfolio, and endpoint buyers below the top tier consistently report renewal terms and support responsiveness as the reason they left rather than anything the software did.
What stands out
Mature product
Enterprise features
Broadcom licensing
Where it costs you
Commercial terms after acquisition are the main complaint
Smaller customers report support and renewal difficulties
Right for
A large enterprise with an existing Broadcom relationship
Wrong for
A mid-market company that wants predictable renewals
United StatesQuoted per organisation; enterprise agreements
Endpoint security software protects laptops, desktops and servers against malware and intrusion, and in its detection-and-response form records what happened so an incident can be investigated afterwards. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
8 of the 13 tools here publish what they cost; the other 5 quote per organisation, which means a sales conversation before you can compare anything.
If you are buying without a procurement function, start with the ones that publish: Bitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT, ThreatDown, Kaspersky Endpoint Security, Avast Business, IObit Malware Fighter, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon.
02
Work out what the first ninety days cost in time
Licence cost is the number in the contract; setup effort is the number that surprises people. Ask every shortlisted vendor who does the configuration, how long it took the last customer of your size, and what happens if that person leaves halfway.
03
Check the exit before the entry
Ask for an export of your own data in a format you can open, and ask whether it is included or billed as a project. A vendor that hesitates here is telling you what renewal negotiations will feel like in three years.
04
Match the tool to the size you are, not the size you plan to be
Most regret in this category comes from buying for a headcount that never arrived. The entry-level products here are not worse; they are aimed at a different company.
05
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 13 vendors are established in 8 countries across 3 regions (Europe 6, North America 5, Asia-Pacific 2). Where a vendor is established decides which government can compel access to what it holds, which is a different question from where the servers are. For most buyers that is a factor, not a veto.
Antivirus or detection and response
The older products on this page block known malware. The EDR products, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint among them, also record what happened on the machine so an incident can be reconstructed and contained.
That recording is the difference between knowing you were attacked and knowing what was taken, and it is most of the price difference too.
Ask whether you would need to explain an incident to an insurer or a regulator.
If yes, you need the recording, not only the blocking.
Check how long telemetry is retained and what retention costs.
Somebody has to watch the alerts
EDR produces alerts, and alerts need a human. A company without a security team buys managed detection alongside the licence or buys an alert queue nobody reads. Bitdefender, WithSecure and Sophos sell managed services around their products for exactly this reason, and the managed service usually costs more than the software.
Decide who looks at an alert at two in the morning.
If the answer is nobody, price a managed detection service now.
Ask what the vendor's managed service will and will not do on your behalf.
Jurisdiction and the security vendor problem
Security software runs with the highest privilege on every machine you own, which makes the vendor's establishment a real question rather than a preference.
Six of the thirteen here are European: Bitdefender in Romania, ESET in Slovakia, WithSecure in Finland, Avast in Czechia, Kaspersky's British entity and Sophos in the United Kingdom. Several governments have taken formal positions on vendors in this category; check whether yours has.
Check any national advisory that applies to your sector before shortlisting.
Confirm the contracting entity and where support staff sit.
Ask what telemetry leaves your estate and where it is stored.
What it costs the machine, and the helpdesk
The real cost of endpoint security is measured in support tickets: false positives that block a legitimate tool, agents that slow a build machine, updates that need a reboot mid-presentation.
This is not in any feature comparison and it is what determines whether the product survives a year. Pilot on your noisiest machines, not on a clean laptop.
Pilot on developer and finance machines, where false positives hurt most.
Measure boot time and build time with the agent installed.
Check how an exclusion is added and who is allowed to add one.
What goes wrong most often when buying endpoint security software
Buying EDR with nobody to read the alerts. The licence is the smaller half of that decision.
Piloting on a clean test laptop rather than on the machines that will complain.
Ignoring national advisories about specific vendors in this category.
Comparing per-endpoint prices without the telemetry retention that makes EDR useful.
07
Frequently asked questions
9 answers
What is the best endpoint security in 2026?
Bitdefender GravityZone leads our ranking of 13. Consistently at or near the top of independent detection tests while staying light on the machine, and small-business pricing is published. The console rewards learning rather than being obvious.
How did you rank these endpoint security tools?
On what separates products after the demo: how much setup the first ninety days take, what the price becomes once the modules a normal buyer needs are added, how your data comes back out, whether you can buy and leave it without a partner engagement, and who the product is genuinely for.
That fourth test is why the large platform suites usually sit lower here than their market share would suggest. Not on feature counts, and not on a score we invented.
Which endpoint security tools publish their pricing?
8 of the 13, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Bitdefender GravityZone: Per endpoint per year, published for small business.
ESET PROTECT: Per endpoint per year, published.
ThreatDown: Per endpoint per year, published.
Kaspersky Endpoint Security: Per endpoint per year, published.
Avast Business: Per device per year, published.
IObit Malware Fighter: Free tier; per device per year, published.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint: Per user per month, published; included in E5.
CrowdStrike Falcon: Per endpoint per year, published for small business.
The other 5 quote per organisation.
Is there a free endpoint security tool?
IObit Malware Fighter offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition. Read what the free tier excludes before you plan around it.
Where are these endpoint security vendors established?
In 8 countries across 3 regions: Europe 6, North America 5, Asia-Pacific 2.
Bitdefender GravityZone is established in Romania.
ESET PROTECT is established in Slovakia.
WithSecure Elements is established in Finland.
ThreatDown is established in the United States.
Kaspersky Endpoint Security is established in the United Kingdom.
Avast Business is established in Czechia.
IObit Malware Fighter is established in China.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is established in the United States.
CrowdStrike Falcon is established in the United States.
SentinelOne Singularity is established in the United States.
Sophos Intercept X is established in the United Kingdom.
Trend Micro Vision One is established in Japan.
Symantec Endpoint Security is established in the United States.
Establishment decides whose courts and whose disclosure laws apply, which is a separate question from where the data is hosted.
What should you use instead of Bitdefender GravityZone?
ESET PROTECT and WithSecure Elements are the next two on this page.
ESET PROTECT is for a fleet with older or resource-constrained machines; WithSecure Elements is for an organisation with a hard EU data-residency requirement. All 13 are ranked here with what each one is bad at.
Who should not buy Bitdefender GravityZone?
A team wanting a managed service to run it. The console rewards learning rather than being obvious.
Do you get paid for these rankings?
Vendors can pay for visibility, which affects where and how prominently a product appears. It does not change a word of what the entry says about that product, including the criticism, and it cannot buy inclusion for something that does not belong in the category.
We take no commission when you click through to a vendor and we do not know whether you bought anything. The full arrangement is on our disclosure page.
How often is this endpoint security guide updated?
Whenever the facts move: a price change, an acquisition, a product that stops being maintained. The published and updated dates at the top of the page are real, and a review means someone went back to the vendor documentation rather than bumping a date.
These 13 products are the ones we judged worth ranking in endpoint security. If yours belongs here and is missing, tell us what it does and who it is for, and we will look at it. Inclusion is an editorial call and it is not for sale — but nobody gets considered for a list they were never put in front of.
People land on this page with a shortlist to make, not a browsing habit to feed. That is a narrower audience than a banner reaches and a far more decided one.
Written by us, about you
We describe the product in our own words, say who it suits and say who it does not. A vendor never writes the entry and never sees it before it goes up.
A correction costs nothing
If a fact about your product is wrong here, tell us and we fix it, whether or not there is any money between us. That offer is older than any commercial arrangement on this site.
Placement is separate, and disclosed
Where a product sits in the ranking can be paid for, and the notice above the list says so on every page. What the entry says about the product is not for sale at any price.
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