The Best Antivirus Software for Linux

1. Bitdefender Antivirus - Best for Small Businesses

Editors Rating:

8.7 /10

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How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	Yes
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

Affordable Antivirus for Small Businesses

We all know how powerful and practical Linux can be for small businesses, whether you’re hosting a server or using it as your IT solution. That’s why you need antivirus software that can match its practicality.

Bitdefender is just that. The starting price of a one-year subscription is only $77.69 to support up to three endpoints. That’s a competitive price even compared to antivirus software for personal use.

On top of that, it’s scalable. It can protect at least three and up to 100 computers. And just to give you an idea, our 10-computer setup cost us only $259 to protect with Bitdefender software.

Vulnerabilities Assessment

Another reason why Bitdefender is our top pick for small businesses was its vulnerabilities assessment feature. There’s only so much an IT admin can do to make sure each workstation is set up securely. Once the computers are in the hands of employees, they can configure their workstations differently, which could open up the entire network to security vulnerabilities. Bitdefender’s vulnerabilities assessment scanned our entire office network and computers for such flaws and misconfigurations. It then generated a report to our IT administrators so that they could take immediate action. Needless to say, we had a lengthy meeting with our IT team shortly after we deployed Bitdefender, but it’s a good thing it caught the vulnerabilities before they did any real damage.

Process Inspector

During the meeting, one IT administrator mentioned “fileless malware” and he was raving about how Bitdefender cleverly defends against such threats. Apparently, fileless malware is a new kind of attack that is harder to detect than your typical Linux malware. That’s because it leaves no trace files. Rather, it injects itself directly into legitimate programs, and once you run those programs, your computer will get infected. Scary, right? Bitdefender’s solution is to scan not just for malicious files, but also to scan for suspicious processes that programs execute within the network. During our test, the scans applied to workstations and servers alike. It used machine learning to detect malicious processes, and when it found one, it automatically killed the program and stopped the process. Clever, indeed.

2. Avast Antivirus - The Best Linux Antivirus Software for File Servers

Editors Rating:

8.5 /10

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How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	Yes
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

Malware Protection For Entire File Server Networks

Linux-based file servers are often integral to small, medium, and large businesses alike. And because of their central position within networks, file servers have the potential to spread malware like wildfire, even to Windows and macOS endpoints.

In testing Avast, we found that it’s capable of detecting all types of threats regardless of the operating system. If your server is Linux and Avast finds Windows malware in it, it can get rid of the malware. That’s what total virus protection means, if you ask us.

Four-Tier Protection

The Avast antivirus product we tested for our Linux file server was the Avast File Server Security, but there’s actually three other software packages. The lowest tier is the Avast Core Security, followed by the Avast File Server Security and Avast Network Security. The highest tier, which combines the features of all three previous tiers, is the Avast Security Suite. Avast is not only scalable in terms of the number of workstations and file servers it protects, but also in terms of features, so don’t forget to check out Avast’s antivirus pricing.

Automatic Updates

In order to do its job as an antivirus, Avast needs constant updates to its malware database. That’s to ensure that it detects even the latest emerging threats. All Avast Security products for Linux were designed to retrieve updates periodically, every hour according to Avast’s website. That means that we didn’t need to manually update the program. Additionally, the update packets, based on our experience, were small. They were averaging less than one MB, so even if we were using the file server while it was updating, it didn’t impact the server’s speed and we all got to do our jobs like nothing was happening.

3. ESET Antivirus - The Best Linux Antivirus Software for Personal Use

Editors Rating:

8.4 /10

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How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	Yes
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

The Best Antivirus For Linux Desktops

ESET NOD32 is a rare gem for Linux users as it’s one of the very few antivirus tools that work on Linux desktops. In fact, if you look at our best antivirus review, ESET is the only Linux-compatible option for personal use on the list. Better still, ESET’s pricing is indiscriminate. The cost of the antivirus license is the same for Linux, Windows, and Mac, which starts at $39.99 annually for one device. The license is even transferable from one operating system to another, so Windows users who plan to migrate to Linux (or vice versa) won’t need a new subscription.

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

What we liked about ESET as an antivirus for Linux, was its graphical user interface (GUI). Linux software typically relies on command lines typed into the Terminal to execute actions, also known as a command line interface (CLI). However, ESET NOD32 had its own GUI, which meant that we could simply launch the NOD32 window and control the antivirus from there. Clicking on the scan button was far more straightforward than typing a string of codes to run a scan. And frankly, we enjoyed not having to keep a “cheat code” of commands written on a Post-It note.

Malware Protection Features

In terms of malware protection, ESET NOD32 defended our Linux desktop from all kinds of threats— viruses, malware, spyware, and ransomware. The protection was 24/7. Scans ran on-access, which meant that ESET detected malware in real-time, although we could also initiate scans on-demand. In addition, ESET’s ThreatSense.NET, which is some sort of an early warning system for emerging new threats, made certain that we received protection even from malware that were not yet in most virus databases.

4. Kaspersky Antivirus - Best for Mixed Platform IT Solutions

Editors Rating:

9.1 /10

How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	No
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

Making Life Easy For IT Administrators

Linux is as complex as it is powerful, which is why many businesses often use hybrid networks consisting of Linux, Windows, and Mac workstations. In our office, for instance, the backend developers use Linux while the rest of us use either Mac or Windows. This kind of operating system diversity can make it hard for IT admins to deploy a universal antivirus solution. However, thanks to Kaspersky, our IT team gained centralized control over every workstation’s antivirus. They could start scans, manage security configurations, gather usage statistics and reports, and set up tasks remotely from their computers. On our end, that meant that our workstations remained safe from malware without us having to do anything. It’s nice to know that our IT experts are on top of things when we’re too busy testing VPNs, antivirus software, and home security devices.

Anti-Cryptor

Kaspersky protected our entire office network from all kinds of digital threats, but most importantly, from ransomware. As ransomware becomes increasingly notorious, it’s vital for business antiviruses to be able to detect malicious encryption before it can begin hijacking files. That’s exactly what Kaspersky’s Anti-Cryptor feature did for us. It continuously scanned the network and blocked suspicious and unauthorized encryptions as they started to happen. The scan covered not only individual workstations, but also our Linux servers and the network itself; so really, there’s no place to hide for ransomware.

Adaptable Pricing

As we noted in our page on Kaspersky’s pricing, the cost of Kaspersky products is reasonable. The same goes for their business solutions. The cheapest package, which covers up to 10 workstations, costs $404.20 per year. The price goes up as the number of protected devices increases. From what we’ve seen, Kaspersky is capable of deploying antivirus solutions to enterprises with over 1,000 workstations. In addition to antivirus protection, Kaspersky also caters to business IT needs. As an example, they can provide help in deploying the antivirus to an existing infrastructure. This service costs extra, but it’s completely optional, so businesses can opt in or out based on their needs.