How Kaspersky, Avast and Bitdefender Stack Up ... Bottom Line Kaspersky, Avast and Bitdefender have common security features against malware, ransomware, phishing attacks and other cyber threats.

Bitdefender frequently earns perfect and near-perfect scores from all four. It appears in the newest reports from three of them: AV-Test Institute, AV-Comparatives, and MRG-Effitas.

Bitdefender falls in the second group, which makes it more expensive than many. That might seem like a negative, but a one-year Norton subscription costs $59.99 per year, well above the usual.

Kaspersky, Avast and Bitdefender are only a few of the great options on the market today—but none of them managed to score the top spot in our analysis of the best antivirus software.

Bitdefender charges $49.99 for a single license, $10 above the norm, which might count against it...except that a single Norton license runs $59.99 per year, $20 above the norm.