Absolute Ransomware Response vs ClamAV: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Absolute Ransomware Response is a commercial endpoint protection platform tool by Absolute. ClamAV is a free endpoint protection platform tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best endpoint protection platform fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Organizations with distributed endpoints and limited recovery playbooks should adopt Absolute Ransomware Response for its automated readiness assessment and self-healing controls that work across Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and Ivanti stacks. The tool covers NIST RC.RP incident recovery execution and RS.MI mitigation through endpoint freeze and remote recovery assistance, addressing the gap most teams face between detection and restoration. Skip this if your priority is real-time threat hunting or behavioral EDR; Absolute is built for preparedness and recovery speed, not threat detection.
Teams running mail servers, file gateways, or hybrid Linux infrastructure will get the most value from ClamAV because its lightweight footprint and lack of licensing costs let you deploy detection everywhere without budget friction. The engine powers production mail filtering at scale across thousands of organizations, and integrates directly into tools like Postfix and Exim rather than requiring separate agent infrastructure. Skip this if you need behavioral detection, ransomware rollback, or endpoint response capabilities; ClamAV is signature-based detection only and won't catch novel malware or give you incident response tools.
