Do You Need Antivirus on a Mac in 2026?
macOS ships with real protection built in: Gatekeeper blocks unsigned apps, XProtect scans for known malware signatures, and the sandbox limits what any single app can touch. For years that was enough to make “Macs don’t get viruses” feel roughly true. It isn’t anymore.
What actually changed
Mac malware is still a fraction of what Windows sees, but the volume has grown every year as Mac market share has grown with it. Info-stealers disguised as pirated software, malicious browser extensions, and phishing pages don’t care what OS renders them — and Gatekeeper and XProtect are signature-based, which means they miss anything new until Apple has already seen it.
In our own sandbox testing, we ran the same live zero-day feed against macOS clients from the suites in our reviews library. Third-party suites caught samples that Apple’s built-in tools hadn’t been updated to recognize yet — the exact gap a zero-day feed is designed to expose.
Who actually needs a third-party suite
If you install software outside the Mac App Store, click links in email regularly, or share a Mac with less careful family members, a real-time suite closes a gap the built-in tools leave open. If your Mac is locked down, App-Store-only, and single-user, the built-in protections plus good habits go a long way.
Among the suites we’ve tested, Bitdefender Total Security posted the smallest performance impact on macOS, and Norton 360 Deluxe‘s Safe Web browser extension caught the most phishing pages in our latest run. Either is a reasonable default if you’ve decided you want the extra layer.
Check the full rating if you want to filter the whole lab-tested list down to Mac-compatible suites specifically.
Do Macs get viruses?
Rarely compared to Windows, but yes — info-stealers, adware, and phishing pages targeting Mac users have all grown in volume in recent years.
Is the built-in macOS protection enough?
For cautious, App-Store-only users, often yes. For anyone installing software from outside the App Store or sharing a device, a third-party suite closes a real gap.
Will antivirus slow down my Mac?
The best suites we tested add well under 2% overhead on average — noticeable in a benchmark, not in daily use.
