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.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each endpoint security tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, 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.
Modular endpoint platform with co-monitoring and EU hosting
Ranked #1 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
A modular platform with endpoint protection, vulnerability management and a co-monitoring service in one console, from a Finnish vendor that hosts customer data in the EU by default. Pricing is quoted rather than published, the research operation is smaller than the global leaders', and it has fewer integrations.
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 #2 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 buyer who wants the simplest possible console
RomaniaPer endpoint per year, published for small business
Ranked #3 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 #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 pricingElsewhere
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 is run from Moscow, where AO Kaspersky Lab operates its website, with a European headquarters in Zurich, and a number of governments, including the United States and several EU members, have 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 and, on the Ultimate tier, 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 buyer who needs the lowest price per device
United StatesPer device per year, published for Go, Pro and Enterprise; Complete MDR quoted
Ranked #10 of 13 in Best Antivirus and Endpoint Security in 2026.
Published pricingNorth 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. Pricing is published per endpoint for the Complete and Commercial tiers, with only Enterprise quoted.
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
Managed threat hunting and 90-day retention start at the Commercial tier
Right for
A team that wants automated rollback after ransomware
Wrong for
An organisation with nobody to tune it
United StatesPer endpoint per year, published for Complete and Commercial; Enterprise quoted
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. The service also runs on Microsoft, CrowdStrike and SentinelOne agents, so it can be bought without the Sophos endpoint.
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, sold as credits spread across workload types, which 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
Wrong for
A small business that only has laptops
JapanQuoted; credits allocated across modules and workload types
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
9 of the 13 tools here publish what they cost; the other 4 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Bitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT, ThreatDown, Kaspersky Endpoint Security, Avast Business, IObit Malware Fighter, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 13 vendors are established in 9 countries across 4 regions (North America 5, Europe 5, Asia-Pacific 2, Elsewhere 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
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.
Five of the thirteen here are European: Bitdefender in Romania, ESET in Slovakia, WithSecure in Finland, Avast in Czechia (owned by the American Gen Digital) and Sophos in the United Kingdom. Kaspersky's site is run by its Moscow company. 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
6 answers
What is the best endpoint security in 2026?
WithSecure Elements leads our ranking of 13. A modular platform with endpoint protection, vulnerability management and a co-monitoring service in one console, from a Finnish vendor that hosts customer data in the EU by default.
Pricing is quoted rather than published, the research operation is smaller than the global leaders', and it has fewer integrations.
Which endpoint security tools publish their pricing?
9 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 device per year, published for Go, Pro and Enterprise; Complete MDR quoted.
SentinelOne Singularity: Per endpoint per year, published for Complete and Commercial; Enterprise quoted.
The other 4 quote per organisation.
Is there a free endpoint security tool?
IObit Malware Fighter offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these endpoint security vendors established?
In 9 countries across 4 regions: North America 5, Europe 5, Asia-Pacific 2, Elsewhere 1.
WithSecure Elements: Finland.
Bitdefender GravityZone: Romania.
ESET PROTECT: Slovakia.
ThreatDown: United States.
Kaspersky Endpoint Security: Russia.
Avast Business: Czechia.
IObit Malware Fighter: China.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint: United States.
CrowdStrike Falcon: United States.
SentinelOne Singularity: United States.
Sophos Endpoint: United Kingdom.
TrendAI Vision One: Japan.
Symantec Endpoint Security: United States.
What should you use instead of WithSecure Elements?
Bitdefender GravityZone and ESET PROTECT are the next two on this page. Bitdefender GravityZone is for a company that wants top detection without a heavy agent; ESET PROTECT is for a fleet with older or resource-constrained machines.
Who should not buy WithSecure Elements?
A buyer optimising purely for detection scores. Smaller research operation than the global leaders.
If your endpoint security product belongs among these 13, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
