IT AI Index
Index IT operations and endpoint Endpoint protection › Small business September 2026 Edition

Endpoint protection for small business buyers

Asked as “endpoint protection platform”, and as “business antivirus and endpoint security tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Clear leader
50% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Microsoft Defender for Cloud50%2%55endorsed leader
03Huntress Managed EDR7%0%18accepted challenger
04Bitdefender GravityZone4%7%29accepted challenger
05Huntress4%0%10accepted challenger
06ESET PROTECT2%0%13accepted challenger
07Avast Business2%10%10accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
13CrowdStrike Falcon0%67%12criticized challenger
12CrowdStrike0%30%10criticized challenger
11SentinelOne0%19%16accepted challenger
10Sophos Intercept X0%18%17accepted challenger
09SentinelOne Singularity0%7%14accepted challenger
08CrowdStrike Falcon Go0%6%18accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01Microsoft Defender for Cloud50%
02Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security13%
03Huntress Managed EDR7%
04Bitdefender GravityZone4%
05Huntress4%
06ESET PROTECT2%
07Avast Business2%
08CrowdStrike Falcon Go0%
09SentinelOne Singularity0%
10Sophos Intercept X0%
11SentinelOne0%
12CrowdStrike0%
13CrowdStrike Falcon0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
CrowdStrike Falcon
67%
8 of 12 labels negative · 7 of 12 models
“criticized for a higher false positive rate... can lead to alert fatigue and increased management overhead” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Kaspersky
75%
3 of 4 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Some organizations have **banned Kaspersky products** due to national security concerns.” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Kaspersky Endpoint Security
75%
3 of 4 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“**Avoid** anything enterprise-only licensed at full scale, pure legacy AV, Kaspersky (for U.S. clients)” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
McAfee
67%
2 of 3 labels negative · 2 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Older versions of **Trend Micro** or **McAfee** that are AV‑only (no EDR/XDR).” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

64 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 813 links across 180 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Huntress39 answers · 46 citations · 10 models
38 answers · 48 citations · 9 models
33 answers · 45 citations · 10 models
27 answers · 30 citations · 9 models
22 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
vendor site · SentinelOne21 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
19 answers · 24 citations · 10 models
19 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Expert Insights16 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
14 answers · 25 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Microsoft11 answers · 21 citations · 5 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best endpoint protection platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which business antivirus and endpoint security tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top endpoint protection platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best endpoint protection platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an endpoint protection platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which endpoint protection platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceagainst: CrowdStrike Falconno first choiceHeldMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, Malwarebytes ThreatDown, SentinelOne
against: CrowdStrike Falcon
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, ESET PROTECT
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, CrowdStrike Falcon Go
Microsoft Defender for CloudHeld
One alternativeBitdefender GravityZone Business Security
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Business Security, ESET PROTECT
against: CrowdStrike Falcon Go / small-business offerings
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
One alternativeBitdefender GravityZone Business Security
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Business Security, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for CloudHeld
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne Singularity
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, Huntress, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Huntress, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
One alternativeSentinelOne Singularity Core/Control
against: CrowdStrike Falcon Go
against: CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky, McAfee Personal, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Norton, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Symantec Endpoint Security, Trellix
Perplexity SonarBitdefender GravityZone Business Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesHuntress, SentinelOne Singularity
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business SecurityChanged
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
against: Norton Small Business
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR, Sophos Endpoint / Intercept X
against: SentinelOne Singularity
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
One alternativeBitdefender GravityZone Business Security
no first choiceagainst: Avast Business Security, Cisco
Grok 4.1 FastMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, SentinelOne Singularity
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business SecurityChanged
Three alternativesESET PROTECT Entry, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Norton Small Business
Bitdefender GravityZone, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT Entry/Advanced, Huntress Managed EDR
against: Windows Defender Antivirus
Bitdefender, Defender for Endpoint, Sophos MDR
Four alternativesCrowdStrike, ESET, Huntress, SentinelOne
against: Broadcom Symantec Endpoint Protection, Check Point Endpoint Security, CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky Endpoint Security, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Trellix (McAfee) Endpoint Security
Mistral SmallBitdefender GravityZone SBS, Huntress Managed EDR
Two alternativesAvast Business, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
ESET PROTECTChanged
Three alternativesAvast Business, Bitdefender, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Five alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint, Sophos Intercept X
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Avast Business, Carbon Black, CrowdStrike Falcon, Elastic Security, Sophos Endpoint, Trellix
DeepSeek V4 FlashMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR
Huntress Managed EDRChanged
Two alternativesMicrosoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
against: CrowdStrike
Huntress Managed EDR, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, SentinelOne Singularity
against: Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT, Huntress Managed EDR, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Business / Endpoint
Four alternativesCNiC, Cynet, Huntress, SentinelOne
against: Bitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky Endpoint Security, Palo Alto Cortex, SentinelOne, Sophos Intercept X, Trellix Endpoint Security Suite, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security
Llama 4 MaverickHuntress Managed EDR
Three alternativesAvast Business, Bitdefender GravityZone SBS, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Avast Business, Microsoft Defender for CloudChanged
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT
Huntress Managed EDR
Two alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, SentinelOne Singularity
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Business Security, ESET
no first choiceagainst: CrowdStrike Falcon, Sophos Intercept X
Qwen 3.7 FlashBitdefender GravityZone
Three alternativesESET Endpoint Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Webroot SecureAnywhere Business
Microsoft Defender for CloudChanged
Two alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT
against: CrowdStrike
Bitdefender GravityZone
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
Bitdefender GravityZone
Three alternativesAvast Business, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesBitdefender, CrowdStrike, Huntress, SentinelOne Managed
against: Cisco, CrowdStrike, Kaspersky, McAfee Home, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint E5, Norton Personal, SenseOn, Sophos
Kimi K2Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business SecurityChanged
One alternativeESET PROTECT
against: Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Bitdefender GravityZone, Huntress Managed EDR
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne Singularity Core, Sophos Intercept X
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, ESET PROTECT, Huntress Managed EDR
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone SMB, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Sophos Endpoint
against: Kaspersky Endpoint Security, McAfee, Norton Small Business, Trellix Endpoint Security Suite
GLM 4.7 FlashXCNiC, Huntress
Four alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business SecurityChanged
Four alternativesCrowdStrike, ESET PROTECT, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Seven alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon, ESET PROTECT, Huntress Managed EDR, Jamf Protect, SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint, Sophos Intercept X, UnderDefense
against: Malwarebytes for Business
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Six alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, ESET PROTECT, Huntress Managed EDR, Sophos Intercept X, ThreatDown
against: SentinelOne
no first choice
One alternativeMicrosoft Defender for Cloud
against: Avast Small Business Cybersecurity, Bitdefender GravityZone, Carbon Black EDR, CrowdStrike Falcon, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection, McAfee, SentinelOne, Sophos Endpoint, Symantec Endpoint Detection and Response, Trellix Advanced Threat Defense, Trend Micro, Webroot Business Endpoint Protection
MiniMax M2.5Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security
Four alternativesCrowdStrike Falcon Go, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, SentinelOne, Sophos
Microsoft Defender for CloudChanged
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, ESET, Webroot
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Three alternativesBitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, SentinelOne Singularity
Bitdefender GravityZone SMB
Three alternativesESET, Microsoft Defender, Webroot
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:52no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:55yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:21yes1020 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:42yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:02yes3920 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:23yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:15yes812 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:49yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:12yes523 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:39yes924 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:54yes13127 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:22yes828 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:25no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:14yes24 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:01yes819 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:29yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:44yes3518 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:13yes55 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:15yes1619 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:02yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:06yes1052 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:57yes2539 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:49yes1494 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:35yes522 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:54yes1612 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:59yes58 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:19yes1025 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:30yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:48yes2815 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:40yes58 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:48yes2038 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:57yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:29no039 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:15yes925 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:06yes1369 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:38yes2541 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:55yes99 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:42yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:42yes1121 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:46yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:32yes3416 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:42yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 13:29yes1926 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:27yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 14:12yes533 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:42yes922 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:30yes1287 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:26yes512 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:18no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:26no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:14yes2029 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:59yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:32yes2418 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:40no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:50yes1421 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:17yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:22yes546 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:36yes1425 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:49yes19352 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:42no012 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:36yes2112 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:09no05 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:38yes1922 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:38yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:33yes4221 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:18yes119 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:56yes1623 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:04yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:33yes1461 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:53yes2561 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:43yes29155 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:25yes559 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
Avast Small Business Cybersecurity
Broadcom Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP)
Check Point Endpoint Security (Harmony Endpoint)
CrowdStrike Falcon Go / small-business offerings
Emsisoft
Jamf Protect
Kaspersky Small Office Security
Malwarebytes for Business
McAfee Home
McAfee Personal
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint E5
Norton 360
Norton Personal
SentinelOne Managed
SentinelOne Singularity Core/Control
Sophos Intercept X / MDR
Sophos Intercept X / small business packages
Symantec Endpoint Detection and Response (SEDR)
Trellix Advanced Threat Defense (ATD)
Trend Micro Maximum Security
Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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