# Endpoint protection for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "endpoint protection platform" and as "business antivirus and endpoint security tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/operations/endpoint-protection/smb/

**Standing:** Microsoft Defender for Cloud leads with 50% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 46 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Defender for Cloud | 50% | 2% | 55 |
| 2 | Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security | 13% | 0% | 12 |
| 3 | Huntress Managed EDR | 7% | 0% | 18 |
| 4 | Bitdefender GravityZone | 4% | 7% | 29 |
| 5 | Huntress | 4% | 0% | 10 |
| 6 | ESET PROTECT | 2% | 0% | 13 |
| 7 | Avast Business | 2% | 10% | 10 |
| 8 | CrowdStrike Falcon Go | 0% | 6% | 18 |
| 9 | SentinelOne Singularity | 0% | 7% | 14 |
| 10 | Sophos Intercept X | 0% | 18% | 17 |
| 11 | SentinelOne | 0% | 19% | 16 |
| 12 | CrowdStrike | 0% | 30% | 10 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, CrowdStrike Falcon Go
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X
- Perplexity Sonar: Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives Huntress, SentinelOne Singularity
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, SentinelOne Singularity
- Mistral Small: Bitdefender GravityZone SBS, Huntress Managed EDR; alternatives Avast Business, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security, CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR
- Llama 4 Maverick: Huntress Managed EDR; alternatives Avast Business, Bitdefender GravityZone SBS, Microsoft Defender for Cloud
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Bitdefender GravityZone; alternatives ESET Endpoint Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Webroot SecureAnywhere Business
- Kimi K2: Microsoft Defender for Cloud; alternatives CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Huntress Managed EDR, SentinelOne Singularity
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: CNiC, Huntress; alternatives Bitdefender GravityZone, CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, SentinelOne
- MiniMax M2.5: Bitdefender GravityZone Small Business Security; alternatives CrowdStrike Falcon Go, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, SentinelOne, Sophos

## Sources the answers cite

64 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- huntress.com: 39 answers, 46 citations
- gbhackers.com: 38 answers, 48 citations
- cnicsolutions.com: 33 answers, 45 citations
- cyberpress.org: 27 answers, 30 citations
- tekpon.com: 22 answers, 26 citations
- sentinelone.com: 21 answers, 23 citations
- cyberwise.almontsf.com: 20 answers, 20 citations
- deel.com: 19 answers, 24 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://huntress.com/internal-it-cybersecurity-guide/best-endpoint-protection-for-small-businesses (39 answers)
- https://gbhackers.com/best-business-antivirus-compared (35 answers)
- https://cnicsolutions.com/cybersecurity-threat-protection/detection-response/best-endpoint-protection-edr-solutions-for-smbs (24 answers)
- https://cnicsolutions.com/cybersecurity-threat-protection/best-endpoint-protection-edr-solutions-for-smbs (21 answers)
- https://cyberpress.org/business-antivirus-by-business-size (21 answers)
- https://cyberwise.almontsf.com/best-endpoint-protection-small-business (20 answers)
- https://sentinelone.com/cybersecurity-101/endpoint-security/best-edr-solutions-for-small-business (18 answers)
- https://deel.com/blog/best-endpoint-protection-for-business (15 answers)
- https://tekpon.com/insights/security-compliance/cybersecurity/best-endpoint-protection-software-for-business (14 answers)
- https://gbhackers.com/best-edr-solutions-compared (13 answers)

## Warned against

- CrowdStrike Falcon: 8 of 12 labels negative. "criticized for a higher false positive rate... can lead to alert fatigue and increased management overhead" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)
- Kaspersky: 3 of 4 labels negative. "Some organizations have banned Kaspersky products due to national security concerns." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Kaspersky Endpoint Security: 3 of 4 labels negative. "Avoid anything enterprise-only licensed at full scale, pure legacy AV, Kaspersky (for U.S. clients)" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- McAfee: 2 of 3 labels negative. "Older versions of Trend Micro or McAfee that are AV‑only (no EDR/XDR)." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.