Which antivirus is better?

SEP is the best we use for corporate network and its very light easy management and very lite nver bothers you... does all by its own setup policy and forget.. make sure to upgrade their SP regularly...

I don't know the Kaspersky product and have SEP 11 MR4 MP2 installed on my systems and it is running happily, has a low overhead, is centrally manageable and you can monitor the entire network from the Admin console on the server, so it will make your life very easy.

The earlier versions of SEP were resource hungry, but this has been addresses in the later releases.

There are a lot of people who don't like Symantec products at all and I am surprised that no-one has put their two-penneth in yet to say don't install Symantec.

ESET Nod32 should also be one to consider.  Much lighter than both options you have put forward. http://www.eset.com/products/nod32_business.php

Hello,
I will put in my two cents and I despise the Symantec products.  Extremely resource hungry and they don't always get the viruses.
I love AVG network edition and Avast.  Great products and they are not as resource hungry as Symantec.  Been using AVG for around 7 years and have not had one problem with it.
Thanks,
Kelly Wilke

Well - there you go - it didn't take long.  Thanks Kelly_W!

Hello,
Of the two options, I would chose Kaspersky, though with many reservations.
Several years ago one of my clients had to have Kaspersky and they released some bad definitions and engine.  With them being in Eastern Europe/Russia (at least at that time the tech department was) it taook a while to fix the issues.
Will never go through that one again, so we got rid of Kaspersky and I talked them into AVG.
Thanks,
Kelly Wilke

Just to add that my experience on Symantec's Anti-Virus and Symantec Endpoint Protection has been a good one.  Used them for over 7 years and never had a virus.  Had the ocassional problem with the software from a management point of view and used the Tech Support a few times and found them to be brilliant.

Hi,

Properly configured, managed and controled AV solution is best. Pick the name you like, but you need to do a proper configuration, to constatly monitor and manage it. Also, you will need to take care of patches for workstation, to try to have good password policy and network sharing policy, USB policy also. If you put everything in place, than, you don't care what AV you will use.

Notice that some AV will provide you integrated tools for most of the above (like Symantec Endpoint Protection) and for some you will have to do it manualy. This is the true difference, not in detection, not in speed or resource. Of course, if you have 5 PC to manage, then you don't care for this - but with couple of 100 PC, it will be important.

Best regards,
Vladimir

For Kaspersky's corporate solution, they have the Kaspersky Administrator's Kit which provides their central management, and now have offices in the US with english technical support, so it is a lot better than it was several years ago.

SEP is pretty much the "staple" when it comes to corporate AV these days.  Their clients and management integration are quite good, especially with the latest versions of SEP.  The only qualms I would have with SEP would be the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM - the central management interface), whose interface response time can be awfully slow sometimes and its reporting/logging system a little convoluted.  Don't get me wrong, there are three different ways to install client software, all of which provides their own unique quirk in efficiently pushing/deploying clients, and their AD integration has its benefits.  You can customize exactly which modules are deployed on workstations, laptops, and servers to balance protection with compatibility.

Just know that if you have any old versions of Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition installed (ie. version 8), you will need to manually uninstall those by hand first (the deployment/setup programs can not automatically and silently uninstall anything before version 9).  Also, if you already have a pre-existing management setup based on NAV CE, choose to use a new setup when installing SEPM or you will run into issues.

I have had the best luck across the board with Sophos AV -- not one you can buy off the shelf, and not a good solution for a single user (cost prohibitive) but I find it offers the best balance between securirty and performance.  Out of the two you mentioned I find Kapersky a bit less intrusive and less resource hungry.