The Best Deadbolts of 2026

The Medeco M4 Maxum is in a different category entirely — not because it's expensive, but because it's engineered around a fundamentally harder-to-attack cylinder. The angled cuts on the key rotate each bottom pin to a specific angle before it can set at the shear line. That means picking requires not just lifting each pin to the right height, but rotating it to the exact right angle simultaneously. Standard picks can't do both at once. We have never had a Maxum in our hands, and we are not going to invent a picking session on one. What we can tell you is documented: the cylinder is UL 437 listed, covering pick, drill and pull resistance, and no routine manipulation attack on current Medeco is published. The caveat our full review makes at length is that Medeco cylinders have been the subject of serious published research — including a key-duplication-from-a-photograph demonstration that undercuts restricted-keyway assumptions. Buy it for the body and the certification, understand the cylinder is not magic, and expect to buy it through a licensed dealer rather than a hardware store shelf.

The Schlage B60N is the lock we recommend to almost everyone asking for a front-door upgrade. At roughly $33–$52 it carries both ANSI/BHMA A156.36 Commercial Grade 1 and A156.40 Residential Grade AAA — worth stating precisely, because Grade 1 is the commercial scale and AAA is the residential one, and this lock holds the top of both. Tighter tolerances and better security pins than anything else at the price mean a rake gets nowhere and an attacker is into single-pin picking territory. For anyone upgrading from a Kwikset or a store brand, this is the move. Read our full review for the complete breakdown.

The Baldwin Prestige looks like a premium lock — the forged brass body is handsome and weighty. What is inside is a SmartKey cylinder, and that cuts both ways. It cannot be bumped and it cannot be raked, because a wafer-and-sidebar design has no driver pins and no pin stacks — we previously rated it poor on both, which was wrong. What it does carry is the documented torque bypass and the collapsed key space covered in our SmartKey review and our Schlage vs. Kwikset breakdown. You're paying $60 for a beautiful body around a cylinder that costs far less elsewhere. Fine for interior doors or low-stakes applications where you want the look. Not what we'd trust on a front door.

Rim locks — surface-mounted on the interior of the door — are common in city apartments and older homes in places like NYC and Toronto where retrofitting a mortise lock isn't practical. The Prime-Line is a fine example of what a rim deadbolt is: a secondary lock that adds friction and slows entry. It's not meant to be your primary security. A rim cylinder of this class offers little picking resistance, so treat it as a supplement to a proper deadbolt rather than a replacement.

Check which cylinder is in the box. Kwikset sells the 660 in two entirely different versions under the same model number — 660 Deadbolt with Pin & Tumbler and 660 Deadbolt featuring SmartKey — and they fail to completely different attacks. Both are ANSI/BHMA Grade 3, not Grade 2 as we previously listed. The pin-tumbler version has loose tolerances and no security pins, and a rake walks through it. The SmartKey version is a wafer-and-sidebar cylinder that cannot be raked or bumped at all, but carries the documented torque bypass covered in our SmartKey review. Either way it is the most common brand-name deadbolt in North America, and moving to a Schlage B60N costs $15–$35 more for a lock at the top of both grading scales.

A double cylinder lock requires a key to open from both sides. That does add a small amount of security on doors with glass panels nearby — a burglar can't just break the glass and reach in to turn the thumb-turn. But it's a meaningful fire safety hazard: if you need to exit fast and can't find the key, you're trapped. The cylinder itself is ordinary and opens readily to a rake. The security gain doesn't justify the life-safety tradeoff for most residential applications.

The most elegant answer to pick resistance is removing the keyhole entirely. The Yale Assure Lock 2 in key-free configuration has no keyway to insert a pick into — the only entry methods are the touchscreen code or a connected app. You cannot pick what isn't there, and you cannot bump what has no keyway. The tradeoff is that if your phone dies, the battery dies, or you forget your code, your backup options are limited. For households that are disciplined about battery maintenance and code management, this is a genuinely smart solution.

The Encode Plus is the toughest smart lock in this ranking — it combines Schlage's Grade 1 cylinder (with legitimate pick resistance) with a built-in alarm that triggers on forced entry attempts. The Wi-Fi connectivity doesn't require a hub. It is the only smart lock here where the cylinder is genuinely in the high band rather than an afterthought bolted behind a keypad. The keyway is still there and still pickable, but it's a genuinely hard target. Also reviewed separately on the site.

The U-Bolt Pro hides its physical backup keyway behind a cover, which adds a small layer of obscurity — an attacker needs to know it exists before they can target it. With six entry methods (fingerprint, keypad, app, auto-unlock, shake to open, key), it's genuinely versatile. The physical cylinder underneath is average once found, but the combination of hidden keyway plus biometric primary entry makes this a solid choice for tech-forward households.

The Eufy's fingerprint scanner is legitimately fast — 0.3 seconds in good conditions makes it practical as a primary entry method. The cylinder behind the keyway is better than average for this price class, holding for nearly three minutes under raking. For the money it's one of the better-value smart locks here, especially if fingerprint entry is a priority for your household.

The August is not a lock — it's a smart retrofit that mounts on your existing deadbolt's interior thumb-turn. Your exterior hardware stays exactly as it was, meaning the physical cylinder security is whatever you already have. If you pair it with a Schlage B60N you have decent security plus smart features. If you pair it with a Kwikset 660 you have a $200 smart layer on top of a 14-second cylinder. The August itself is well-made; the security outcome depends completely on what you put it on.

The Halo connects directly to Wi-Fi without a hub, which is convenient, and the app integration is well-designed. But it uses the SmartKey cylinder system. That means no bump attack and no rake attack — structurally, not as a marketing claim — alongside a documented forcing vulnerability in which a screwdriver turned with a wrench opens it in about fifteen seconds, at roughly a third of the torque its certification implies. You're paying $180 for smart features on a cylinder with that specific hole in it. If smart lock convenience is the goal and budget is the concern, the Wyze Lock Bolt at $70 gets you a similar experience for less money — and a comparable physical security result.

For $70 the Wyze Lock Bolt is a remarkable value in the smart lock space. Fingerprint reader, keypad, auto-lock, Bluetooth app control — all the essentials. The physical cylinder is below average but so is the price. The Bluetooth-only connectivity means no remote control without your phone in range, which is a real limitation. But as an affordable entry into biometric/keypad locking, nothing else at this price comes close.

Like the Yale Assure, the Nest x Yale has no physical keyway — picking isn't an attack surface. It scores lower than its Yale sibling primarily because the physical deadbolt mechanism underneath is less robust and the Nest Secure ecosystem it was designed around has been discontinued by Google, which raises long-term software support questions. Good lock, uncertain future. The Yale Assure Lock 2 is the better choice unless you're deeply invested in Google Home.

A staple in Canadian homes — Weiser is to Canada what Kwikset is to the US. The Elements line is Grade 3, the baseline residential classification — tested, just to a lower threshold, and not “interior only” as we previously wrote. It's on exterior doors across the country anyway because it's affordable and available at every Canadian Tire in the country. Eighteen seconds to pick is a deterrent against nobody with any lock knowledge at all. If this is your front door lock, the Schlage B60N is available in Canada for roughly $65 CAD and is a night-and-day improvement.

Home Depot's house brand, roughly $15–$25, Grade 3. One correction in its favour: the cylinder is five pins with three security spools on the KW1 keyway, which is more than the price owes you and enough to frustrate a beginner. We previously implied it had nothing. The real weak point is the strike plate and the short screws in the box — a one-inch bolt anchored into pine trim fails when the trim splits, and the bolt never gets tested. We've covered the Defiant more fully in our Deep Cuts series — it was one of seven locks that genuinely concerned us.

Lowes' house brand equivalent of the Defiant. Nine seconds to pick. The tolerances are so loose that a rake finds multiple false sets simultaneously and the lock practically opens itself. Available in Canada through Rona. The only reason it is not last is that the Garrison edges it out for the bottom spot.

Last place out of eighteen locks, and it earns it. The Canadian Tire house brand deadbolt is in apartments and rental units across the country. Eight seconds is the fastest pick time in this entire roundup. If you're a renter in Canada and this is what came with the unit, you are not locked in — you're just in a room that happens to have a door. Ask your landlord for an upgrade, or invest $65 of your own money in a Schlage B60N. That $50 difference is the most impactful security spending you can do.