Best Antivirus Software · alternatives
Best ESET alternatives (2026)
8 alternatives to ESET in antivirus software, ranked by entry price. ESET starts at $3.33/mo. Every figure links to the public page it was captured from — the vendor's own wherever the vendor publishes the number, otherwise the named public source — with the date we captured it.
Key takeaways
- Cheaper than ESET: Avast, AVG, Comodo, Bitdefender, McAfee, Kaspersky.
- Free alternatives: Avast, AVG, Comodo, Bitdefender.
- Closest by price: Avast ($0/mo), AVG ($0/mo), Comodo ($0/mo).
ESET alternatives compared
| # | Alternative | Entry price | Free | HIPAA | Best for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avast STALE · 2026-09-27 | $0/mo | Yes | — | Budget users wanting a full-featured forever-free antivirus | avast.com |
| 2 | AVG STALE · 2026-09-02 | $0/mo | Yes | — | Budget users wanting a genuine forever-free antivirus (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS) | avg.com |
| 3 | Comodo | $0/mo | Yes | — | Security-focused users who want prevention-based (not just detection-based) protection | antivirus.comodo.com |
| 4 | Bitdefender STALE · 2026-09-26 | $2.08/mo | Yes | — | Windows-primary households wanting strong detection with low system overhead | bitdefender.com |
| 5 | McAfee STALE · 2026-09-05 | $2.5/mo | No | — | Households with unlimited devices needing a single subscription | mcafee.com |
| 6 | Kaspersky STALE · 2026-09-02 | $3.25/mo | No | — | Non-US consumers wanting top detection rates at competitive prices | security.org |
| 7 | Malwarebytes STALE · 2026-09-02 | $3.75/mo | No | — | Users who want a secondary malware scanner alongside another antivirus | security.org |
| 8 | Norton STALE · 2026-09-02 | $4.99/mo | No | — | Families wanting bundled antivirus + identity theft protection | us.norton.com |
Data current through 2026-10-12. STALE marks a row whose price we have not re-checked at its source in over 30 days; a vendor with no published price is marked when any of its plans is. 7 of 8 rows above are marked. Compare any two directly on the Antivirus Software index.