Bitdefender Vs Avast: Which Is The Better Option In 2020?

Avast and Bitdefender are both powerful antivirus suites that come with a lot of advanced features for additional security against threats. With amazing third-party independent test results, it gets difficult to choose between these two brands.

Premium features like advanced firewall, webcam protection, parental control, cross-platform compatibility, and more are provided by both brands. Read on for a detailed comparison of Bitdefender vs Avast to help you choose the right fit for your needs.

• Scanning

• Threat Protection

• Features

• Customer Support

• Compatibility

Features

When it comes to determining the relevant audience for Bitdefender, it’s rapidly evident that this solution is suited for nearly everyone. As part of its value-added offering, the provider even offers some advanced features in its base plan, which most antivirus brands can’t match. The antivirus has performed great in the 3rd party tests conducted by AV-Comparatives and AV-Tests, bagging the Top Performer award in 2019. 

With this antivirus suite, you’ll gain multi-layered malware protection, a dedicated hardened browser, cross-platform compatibility, personal firewall, VPN, parental controls, and more. Subscribers are also entitled to receive a 30-day free trial period to evaluate the performance of the antivirus solution.

Avast, on the other hand, also offers a solid set of features, but is edged out by the competition. Various scanning options, real-time malware protection, and gamer mode are regular features that accompany the basic plans. However, for advanced features like a VPN, password manager, parental controls, and other functionality are only available in the top-tier plans, which is costly when evaluated against other comparable antivirus brands.

Ease Of Use

Both the featured products have simple, straightforward, and intuitive user interfaces. Avast has made the correct use of colors throughout its dashboard. The white fonts and neon-green highlights stand out clearly against the dark background. 

Moreover, the sections are neatly categorized and self-explanatory inside a grid of left-hand menu lines. Each feature is easily accessible without the need for multiple clicks. Simply put, both beginners and advanced users can easily get the hang of the interface. 

Echoing the competition, Bitdefender has a simple dashboard that offers quick access to the most important features and settings. The left sidebar organizes other resources in the categories of Protection, Privacy and Utilities. You can tap any of the sub-menus to search for the various functions they have. 

If you’re not comfortable with the default user interface, this product allows you to customize the layout. Overall, it delivers a great balance of an ease and comfort for beginners while enabling experts to reconfigure the interface according to their own preferences.

Performance

In terms of performance, Avast runs silently in the background and doesn’t hog much of a system’s resources, thus ensuring your device doesn’t operate slowly. In the October 2019 Performance Test conducted by AV-Comparatives, this offering ranked 4th out of 16 products. Moreover, the solution recorded an impact score of 2.6 and an ADVANCED+ rating, leaving behind major competitors.

Like its peer, Bitdefender is very light on the system as well. It doesn’t overuse system memory and you can barely notice it running in the background. Independent results showed that while other antiviruses hamper system performance by 50%, this antivirus slows the device by a mere 8-10%. Additionally, the product scored a 6/6 (an ADVANCED+ rating) on the Performance Test results from AV-Comparatives.

Security Suites

The array of advanced features provided by Bitdefender makes it a cost-effective deal. Even the lowest tier plan comes with security features like:

• Real-time protection against threats
• Password manager
• Limited-use VPN
• File shredder
• Anti-fraud
• Vulnerability scanner
• Two-way firewall
• Parental control
• Anti-theft module

Avast also has a lot of add-on features, but you’ll need to upgrade to a high-tier package to take advantage of these options. Premium features include:

• Real-time protection
• Sandbox feature
• Real Site feature
• Advanced firewall
• Webcam shield
• Data shredder
• Ransomware shield
• VPN
• Clean-up and password manager tools

Protection

Bitdefender is undeniably one of the best antivirus programs from an end-user standpoint. Users receive complete protection against malware, spyware, ransomware, and phishing given the AI-based heuristic monitoring feature identifies and neutralizes threats in real-time. In addition, there aren’t many brands that offer the same level of firewall protection. 

The antivirus scored a perfect 100 in the real-world security evaluation organized by AV-Test. It was the only product to receive seven ADVANCED+ ratings, Silver and Bronze awards for Real-World and Advanced Threat Protection. To top it all off, this offering was also named Product of the Year 2019 by AV-Comparatives.

Avast has proven its protection capabilities in the 2019 AV-Comparative Malware Protection Test against 15 other antivirus programs. The company was able to block 100% of 10,566 samples used and was awarded the ADVANCED+ rating, leaving behind industry leaders like Trend Micro and Kaspersky. Further to this point, the core antivirus engine provides multi-layered protection from malware, ransomware and other threats. 

The product manufacturer also claims that Avast observes phishing sites using AI. It’s one of the very few antivirus programs that is also certified as an Anti-Phishing product. The firewall feature is average but allows advanced customization like specifying default rules, creating packet rules, and more.

Price

Bitdefender has three plans to choose from. It also offers a free program with limited features. Compared to other antivirus programs it’s very competitively priced. Here’s the standard pricing choices:

Avast has two core plans to choose from alongside a free plan with limited features. Each plan has two options: a single device and up to 10 devices. If you need protection for a lot of devices, the pricing seems fair. Here’s the pricing chart:

Conclusion

Although there aren’t many differences between these antivirus solutions, when it comes to cost-effectiveness for single-device protection, Bitdefender wins the race. Then again, if you’re seeking a security solution for your family, Avast has the upper hand. Both companies offer 24/7 customer support and have thousands of positive reviews to backup their respective offerings. 

When you consider all aspects, Bitdefender emerges is the better option. That doesn’t mean that Avast isn’t good, it's just that the former is loaded with more features while delivering a more pocket-friendly offer.