It’s 2025, and we’re in the golden age of guitar manufacturing. From high-end boutique makers to historically significant brands and affordable options, this guide covers everything you need to make an informed, educated decision as a consumer.
How I chose the brands for this list
As someone who has played guitar for the past 28 years, I’ve had the opportunity to play, test, buy, and fall in love with instruments from a wide range of brands.
With this article, my goal is to use my experience and insider knowledge to provide you with a definitive list of the best guitar brands on today’s market.
When compiling this list, I focused on the following key criteria:
- Genres and styles: I aimed to include brands that offer guitars for a wide variety of musical genres. Naturally, all of the brands mentioned are producing some exceptional models today.
- Price point: I selected brands that cover a broad range of price points, ensuring that this guide will help you find a guitar that fits your budget and needs.
- Innovation and tech: Hardware innovations were taken into account to make sure this list features brands that are pushing the boundaries of guitar design.
- Tonewood selection: Finally, I considered brands that prioritize high-quality tonewoods, ensuring that their guitars not only look good but sound great.
Here are my top picks for the best guitar brands in 2025:
Fender
Axe-eptional achievement award: Distinct sounds with highly customizable features.
Starting with a bang, obviously! Is there anything that hasn’t been said about this legendary brand?
Besides Stratocasters and Telecasters being some of the most recognizable instruments ever (due to the fact that so many legendary artists we love and adore played those puppies), one of the main hallmarks of Fender’s history is quality and innovation.
Fender electric guitars are very well-known for their spanky high end which lent itself to so many of the famous songs we have grown up with and continue to like. Try anything by Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits, and “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix, just to name a few.
The fact that these instruments are highly customizable and also available at different price points really adds to their popularity and wide appeal.
Other notable Fender electric guitar models are Jaguar, Mustang, and Jazzmaster (look up Kurt Cobain and Noel Gallagher, for example).
Besides building electric guitars, Fender is also known to produce some really cool acoustic and Spanish acoustic guitar models as well.
Harley Benton
Axe-eptional achievement award: The best price-quality ratio currently on the market.
It has been said that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, that really does come in handy when describing the sudden meteoric rise in popularity of this guitar brand.
What do I mean by that? Well, since most of the dinosaur-type guitar brands are pretty much overpricing their instruments just because they can (since their name is deeply embedded in all our guitar-playing folk’s brains and emotions), Harley Benton decided to take a completely different approach.
The name of the game here is: Maximize the quality, minimize the price.
The prices at which you can buy yourself a great guitar are downright unbelievably low; as opposed to what we got used to in the past couple of years (decades), at least.
Harley Benton is mostly known for creating stunning copies of classic guitar models. Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, you name it… They do it all! And they do it well!
One of the coolest things about this fine guitar brand is that they make some incredible replicas of classic Gibson acoustic guitar models. Not only are those HB Gibson wanna-be’s really good, but they are mind-bogglingly affordable.
PRS
Axe-eptional achievement award: The fine wine of the higher-end guitar manufacturing game.
Do you see yourself liking some really fine instruments? Instruments that are lavish, stylish, fine-taste approved, yet they still work like magic? Well, look no further!
Ever since 1985, these guys have been manufacturing some incredible guitars that ended up in the hands of some of the biggest guitar virtuosos of today, like John Mayer and Carlos Santana, just to name a few.
If you are looking for an affordable consumer option, you should primarily focus on the SE line of PRS guitars. Those are some sturdy, bang-for-your-buck guitars that retail from $500 up to $1500.
As far as the rest of their catalog goes, those are mostly high-end, boutique-type guitars that are sure to give you boundless years of creative interplay between you and your beloved instrument.
The S2 line of PRS instruments features all of the classic designs that they are known for. However, the Private Stock collection represents the pinnacle of PRS’ craftsmanship, since those guitars are handmade by their finest luthiers.
With PRS you are likely to get a prestigious instrument that can go anywhere with you and be a tremendous servant to your needs.
Chances are that if you are a beginner you would gravitate toward some more affordable instruments. For the seasoned professional, you’ll struggle to find a more reliable brand that goes about its business with so much passion and care.
Taylor
Axe-eptional achievement award: Dat SOUND.
These guys are the sovereign rulers of the acoustic guitar niche. Their instruments take the craftsmanship to some new dizzying artistic heights while delivering some stunning sonic textures.
If you are looking to buy a cheap guitar that you can strum away at frat parties and happenings similar in nature, you should probably skip buying Taylor. There are many other guitar manufacturers that offer guitars that are much more tailored (definitely not Taylored… cringe jokes galore!) to your specific needs.
This is a fine instrument that will lay best in the hands of someone who pays close attention to their craft. The marriage between the right guitar player and a carefully picked Taylor acoustic guitar can really be a perfect one.
The options of different Taylor guitar series are superabundant, which may seem to overly complicate your buying decisions, but no worries. With my guidance and Taylor’s vast plethora of different instruments, you can truly pick a real babe.
Their smallest full-size body guitar is the Grand Concert. With that one, you are getting a scale length more reminiscent of the parlor guitars, and the same can be said about the body size. However, the coolest thing about it is that it sounds like a regular-sized instrument.
Grand Auditorium is probably the model they are best known for, and quite rightfully so! The impeccable design ensures top-notch sonic qualities with the playing comfort being at the highest possible level.
Grand Symphony and Grand Orchestra are jumbo (or at least jumbo-esque) guitars that give you that incredible warmth and weight in your sound.
Ibanez
Axe-eptional achievement award: Superfast necks, tuning reliability. A shredder’s wet dream.
Ibanez has a long tradition of making a wide variety of different types of guitars.
Their humble beginnings consisted of importing Spanish guitars into Japan. That would perfectly describe the origins of the company name, right?
However, they are most famous for building guitars with very fast and thin necks. Historically, you would often find an Ibanez in the hands of a prolific shredlord.
Their main forte eventually became a style of guitars best described as super-strats. Thin necks with flatter radiuses, contoured bodies, humbucking pickups, as well as Floyd Rose tremolo bridges.
So, if you are into fast legato licks or down-tuned riffing, Ibanez might just have the guitar you are looking for!
Some of the most famous axemen and axewomen using Ibanez would be Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Nita Strauss, Paul Stanley, just to name a few!
Gretsch
Axe-eptional achievement award: Swagger and idiosyncratic sounds!
Up until this point, all of my picks were either primarily electric or acoustic guitar-making companies. Enter Gretsch! The undisputed kings of hollow-body guitar design.
These guys were pretty much spearheading the wave of revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll guitar sounds in the 50s and early 60s. Bands like the Beatles, ACDC, and Green Day (just to name a few) were sporting their beloved Gretsch babies each in their own decade.
The trademark Gretsch hollow-body sound allows for tremendously harmonically rich content and some truly magical sonic textures.
Although best at what they do, you cannot expect to buy a Gretsch hollow-body guitar and get it to sound equally as impressive in a heavy metal scenario. In that way, these guitars are not that versatile.
However, the joint forces of the hollow-body design with those legendary Filter’Tron pickups really make for a truly unique sound that really is the best at what it does.
Besides the hollow-body design, you can also get some solid-body Gretsch guitars, as well as acoustic guitars. Both of those other categories are really good, but they are not what first comes to mind when we talk about Gretsch.
If you want that type of sound, and your budget allows for it, grab a good ole Gretschsky!
Strandberg
Axe-eptional achievement award: Modern guitar masterpieces.
These Swedes made an impressive mark on the guitar market of today – for sure! Their ergonomic designs revolutionized the way we look at a good instrument nowadays.
The word that constantly comes to mind while talking about Strandberg guitars is modern. I am personally impressed with the lightweightness to quality-build ratio of their products.
Another feature that immediately stands out is their headless neck design. Besides modern, their guitars are as functional and uncomplicated as they get.
What adds to the overall functionality is the fact that their guitars are usually multiscale. Ensuring better overall tuning and tonality.
Gibson
Axe-eptional achievement award: Legacy of Kings!
You might just as well end it with a bang, right?
Gibson has really come under fire from the guitar-playing loyals in the last decade. Is all of the backlash fair? Well, judge for yourself. Just type on YouTube “Gibson Play Authentic” and decide for yourself.
However, the overall quality and the longevity of this brand, truly make it worthy of the G.O.A.T. moniker.
Anyone who has ever strapped on a guitar has at a certain point lusted after a Les Paul or an SG. Those two models literally defined rock ‘n’ roll as a genre.
Don’t get me started trying to list famous Gibson players… Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Slash, Randy Rhoads, Angus Young, Tony Iommi, BB King, Larry Carlton, Noel Gallagher, Gary Moore, and the list goes on and on.
Another one of those legendary models that Gibson brought forward was the famous ES-335, which was a very unique semi-hollow body Thinline instrument.
On the acoustic guitar front, Gibson has been killing it as much as they did in regards to the electric guitars. Models such as J-45, J-200, Hummingbird, and many others truly defined what we know as a good acoustic guitar sound.
The main issue with Gibson nowadays is the price. They are very well aware of the emotions we have developed in regards to their products, and they are more than willing to cash in on that. And why wouldn’t they?
The only real issue there is the fact that they really knocked it out of the park with their pricing points. You are rarely going to see a beginner with a Gibson. It’s just that they are too expensive.
On the other hand, if you are a seasoned pro, chances are that one of the aforementioned guitars is a mandatory weapon in your arsenal.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best guitar brand for beginners?
I would go with Harley Benton. Bar none!
Which guitar brand is considered the best for professionals?
I think it’s more about finding the right guitar for your stylistic needs. Having said that, some brands do focus on certain guitar types. Make sure to read the whole article to get a clear picture!
What are the price ranges for reputable guitar brands?
Generally, it goes from around $600 up to a couple of thousand bucks.
Are there any guitar brands that are particularly known for their sustainable or eco-friendly practices?
Yep. Martin would be the leaders of the movement. Taylor is investing in the eco-friendly agenda quite a lot, Fender is eco-conscious about their usage of tonewoods. PRS is buying from sustainable sources, and Gibson is manufacturing entirely sustainable guitars.
Can you recommend any underrated brands that offer great value?
Yes! Harley Benton!
How do signature models differ from other models made by the same brand?
Signature models are designed for specific artists according to their individual needs and preferences. Other models are created according to the vision of the guitar company.
