Is Bitdefender good? What the labs measured and what renews

What the two labs measure

AV-TEST’s report on Bitdefender Total Security 27.0 for Windows 11 covers November and December 2025. AV-TEST says it evaluated 15 home user security products with their default settings, using the most current public version of each, which could update itself and query its cloud services at any time. Each product can earn up to 6 points in three categories, protection, performance and usability, so 18 points is the best possible result. AV-TEST says a product with 10 points or more gets its seal of approval and one with 17.5 or more also gets the TOP PRODUCT award.

Total Security scored 6.0 out of 6.0 in all three categories, which adds up to 18. In the protection part, AV-TEST lists 100% in both months against 990 samples of 0-day malware, where it gives an industry average of 99.3, and 100% in both months against its set of widespread and prevalent malware. In the usability part the report lists 0 false warnings or blockages when visiting 500 websites. We do not quote the slow-down percentages from the performance part, because the way their columns line up in the text we read is not clear enough to attribute.

AV-Comparatives runs different tests. Its Malware Protection Test executes malicious files on the system, and the files can arrive through network drives, USB sticks or because they are already on the disk. Its Real-World Protection Test uses live web addresses. The lab adds a warning in its September 2026 report: it does not recommend buying a product purely on the basis of one individual test or one type of test, and it points readers to price, ease of use, compatibility and support, and to the free trial a vendor may offer.

AV-TEST also published its Awards 2024 for Bitdefender, which name the Best Protection Award for Consumer Users to Bitdefender Total Security, the Best MacOS Security Award for the Antivirus for Mac product and the Best Android Security Award for Mobile Security. Bitdefender’s Total Security page makes a claim of its own: that its anti-malware protection is the best in the industry, as proven by the last ten years of independent test scores. That sentence is the company’s, and the numbers in this page are the labs’.

Protection: two AV-Comparatives tests, a year apart

The Malware Protection Test for September 2026, released on 15 October 2026, covered 20 products on Windows. Bitdefender Total Security 27.0 blocked 9,998 samples and had 2 compromise the system, a protection rate of 99.98%, the highest figure in the table. Kaspersky, F-Secure, Fortect, McAfee and TotalAV follow at 99.97%, Avast, AVG and Norton at 99.96%, Microsoft Defender Antivirus at 99.89% and Trend Micro at 98.22%. Fifteen of the 20 products sit in the lab’s top cluster. On false alarms on clean files, Bitdefender and G Data have 1 each, which the lab labels few, Kaspersky has 5, Norton 15 and Microsoft 28, which the lab labels very many. By the lab’s own table of award levels, a product in the top cluster with between 0 and 10 false alarms reaches Advanced+, and that applies to Bitdefender, ESET, G Data, Kaspersky, Total Defense and VIPRE.

The Real-World Protection Test for July to October 2025, released on 17 November 2025, used 428 test cases. Bitdefender blocked 424 and had 4 compromised, a protection rate of 99.1%, in the top cluster with F-Secure and Microsoft. Avast, AVG and Norton scored 100%, and Avira, ESET, G Data, Kaspersky, McAfee, TotalAV and Trend Micro scored 99.5%. On wrongly blocked sites and files Bitdefender had 4, against an average of 10 for the test, Microsoft and ESET had 3 and Kaspersky had 1. In that report the lab says it considers all the products in a results cluster equally effective, as long as their false positives are below the industry average.

Read side by side, the two tests do not rank Bitdefender the same way. In September 2026 it has the highest rate in the table. In the 2025 real-world test it is in the 99.1% group, behind the 100% and 99.5% groups, with fewer wrongly blocked files than the test average. Both put it in the top cluster.

The same engine under other names

In both reports AV-Comparatives lists the third-party engines inside the products it tests, and in both it says that G Data, Total Defense and VIPRE use the Bitdefender engine. Their results are in the same tables as Bitdefender’s, so the two can be put side by side.

In September 2026 Bitdefender scored 99.98% with 2 compromised and 1 false alarm. G Data scored 99.93% with 7 compromised and 1 false alarm, Total Defense 99.95% with 5 compromised and 4 false alarms, and VIPRE 99.80% with 20 compromised and 6 false alarms. In the July to October 2025 real-world test the order changes: G Data scored 99.5% with 11 wrongly blocked, Bitdefender 99.1% with 4, and Total Defense and VIPRE 98.8% with 2 and 1.

So the same engine produces different numbers in different products, and the leader changes between the two tests. In the 2025 real-world report AV-Comparatives says G Data was one of six products with above-average wrongly blocked sites and files (11, against a test average of 10) and gave it a lower award for that reason, while Total Defense and VIPRE, with 2 and 1, were not downgraded. In the September 2026 malware report Bitdefender, G Data, Total Defense and VIPRE all appear in the lab’s Advanced+ list, even though VIPRE had 20 compromised samples against Bitdefender’s 2, because that award weighs false alarms (6 for VIPRE) as well as the protection rate. The pages we read do not say what G Data, Total Defense and VIPRE each add around the engine, so we do not guess at it here.

The awards, and Bitdefender next to Microsoft Defender

AV-Comparatives’ Consumer Summary Report for 2025, published on 14 January 2026, covers 19 products. Its Top-Rated Product Awards went to Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, ESET, G Data, Kaspersky and Norton. Test by test, Bitdefender got Silver in the Real-World Protection Test (Norton took Gold), Bronze in the Malware Protection Test (Kaspersky Gold, G Data Silver), Gold in the Advanced Threat Protection Test (shared with ESET) and Bronze in the False-Positives Test (Kaspersky Gold, Total Defense Silver). Bitdefender is not named among the Gold, Silver or Bronze products in the Performance Test, which went to Avast, AVG, Norton and McAfee. In the 2025 awards Bitdefender has no Gold in either the Real-World or the Malware Protection test.

The lab’s 2023 awards page for Bitdefender, dated 1 March 2024, says it reached the highest Advanced+ level in all seven tests of the Consumer Main-Test Series and won the Outstanding Product Award, with Gold for Advanced Threat Protection, Silver for Real-World Protection and Bronze for Malware Protection. The page is AV-Comparatives’ own, but it is written as an awards announcement about one vendor. The two labs also give different prizes for different years: AV-TEST’s Best Protection award is for 2024 and AV-Comparatives’ Real-World Silver is for 2025.

On Microsoft Defender, the sources part. CNET, in a review updated on 17 April 2026, answers yes to whether Bitdefender gives better malware protection than Windows Defender. AV-Comparatives’ real-world test puts the two in the same cluster at the same 99.1%, with Microsoft one wrongly blocked file lower. In September 2026 the rates are 99.98% and 99.89%, with 1 false alarm for Bitdefender and 28 for Microsoft. CNET also says Bitdefender has scored 6 out of 6 in every AV-TEST test since June 2022, which we did not check beyond the November and December 2025 report. Our page on Microsoft Defender covers the other side of that comparison.

What the suite includes, and what it costs

Bitdefender’s support page describes Total Security as both a software name for Windows PCs and a security suite for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. On Windows it says the software has every feature of Internet Security plus cryptomining protection and optimization tools. The feature list on that page includes Antivirus, Advanced Threat Defense, which it says analyzes suspicious behavior in real time, Online Threat Prevention, Ransomware Remediation, which it says restores encrypted files automatically, a Vulnerability Scan, a Firewall, Antispam for Outlook and Thunderbird, Safepay, a VPN, the SecurePass password manager, Anti-tracker, webcam and microphone protection, Parental Control, File Shredder, Anti-Theft and OneClick Optimizer. Email Protection and Scam Protection are marked “Available in premium plans”.

The VPN is limited. Bitdefender’s pages give 200 MB of encrypted traffic a day, and its Total Security page adds a total of 6 GB a month and 200 MB a day per device in the plan table. CNET also says the VPN is limited to 200 MB a day per device and is sluggish. It adds that an individual plan covers at most five devices, and that McAfee or Norton generally give better value for multi-user and family plans. For unlimited traffic, Bitdefender’s page says to add Premium VPN, and that Premium Security includes Total Security with Premium VPN. The Windows requirements on that page are Windows 7 with Service Pack 1, 8.1, 10 or 11, 2 GB of memory and 2.5 GB of free disk space; the other systems need macOS Big Sur (11.3) or later, Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 14 or later.

Bitdefender’s Total Security page lists the Individual plan, for 1 member and up to 5 devices, at USD 59.99 as a first-year price, and the Family plan, for 5 members and up to 25 devices, at USD 79.99. The same page also lists USD 79.99 for the first year of Premium Security and USD 29.99 for the first year of Antivirus Plus, which covers 3 devices. The terms on that page say the price is valid for the first year and that the renewal price “may be higher”; they give no renewal figure.

CNET and Security.org do give figures. CNET, in April 2026, lists Total Security at $60 for the first year and $110 on renewal, Premium Security at $80 and $130, Antivirus Plus at $25 and $50, and the family version of Total Security at $80 and $140. Security.org, updated on 27 February 2026, calls the first-year pricing promotional and says to expect to pay nearly double afterwards. The terms say the subscription renews automatically, that it can be cancelled from Bitdefender Central or through customer support, and that a refund can be requested within 30 days of the first purchase or of the renewal date. Bitdefender says it emails starting 30 days before expiry, and that a free 30-day trial needs no credit card.

The record: 2015, 2020, and what the pages leave out

The Register reported on 31 July 2015 that usernames and passwords belonging to some of Bitdefender’s small business customers had leaked, after a demand for payment to keep the records private. The Register calls the login details unencrypted. Bitdefender told The Register that a single application in its public cloud exposed a very limited number of usernames and passwords, that the server itself was not penetrated, and that a password reset notice went to all potentially affected customers, which it put at less than 1 per cent of its small and medium business customers. Security.org describes the same breach differently: it says the server held usernames and encrypted passwords and puts the number at approximately 250 accounts. The Register page we read does not give that number.

On 24 June 2020 The Register reported CVE-2020-8102, a remote code execution bug that Wladimir Palant reported to Bitdefender in April and that was patched in May. Bitdefender placed the flaw in the Safepay browser component of Total Security 2020, in versions before 24.0.20.116, while Palant placed it in a component called Online Protection, which in The Register’s account means that any website opened in any browser on a machine running the vulnerable package could exploit it. Security.org says the 2020 vulnerability was in the free Windows version and says Bitdefender disclosed both issues promptly and fixed them within 48 hours. The Register and Bitdefender name Total Security 2020, and The Register gives a timeline from April to May.

Some questions stay open in the pages we read. They give Bitdefender’s renewal price as “may be higher”, not as a figure. The newest AV-TEST report we read is the one for November and December 2025. The test numbers we have for the Mac and Android products are limited to the AV-TEST 2024 awards. The pages do not say how much Bitdefender slows a real computer, or how many customers are unhappy: customer reviews and forum threads are not among the pages we read.