15 Best Knife Brands, Ranked

We will forever remember the Cutco name for its salesperson's in-home demonstration of using the brand's kitchen shears to cut a penny. Some cooks may find appeal in the fact that Cutco is, according to Prudent Reviews, one of the few remaining domestic cutlery manufacturers. Just because the brand is produced on American soil doesn't mean it's readily available, though. The consequence of its sales model is that its knives aren't available on retail shelves and are only sold through the company's website and third-party retailers online.

The blades are high-carbon, but they're laser-stamped from sheets of steel, leading to a flimsier and duller blade over time. Through our firsthand experience with Cutco knives, we also found its smooth, molded plastic handles to be difficult to handle at times. With sets averaging a staggering $1,000+ online, we just don't find Cutco to be a justifiable brand and feel your money is better spent elsewhere. 

While affordability and quality are rare to intersect perfectly, we feel Cuisinart gets pretty darn close. One of its popular selections, the Classic 15-piece block set, comes in a vibrant white handle plating that alludes to luxury but only costs $100 through retailers like Crate and Barrel. The smaller 12-piece ColorPro set is $60 at Williams Sonoma, and the Cuisinart walnut-handled 14-piece set is less than $50 on Amazon. 

Does this affordability raise concerns in quality? Cuisinart's reputation is typically stronger in small kitchen appliances and multiple brands with a stronger grip on the knife industry exist, but as Kitchen Ambition's review notes, as far as affordable cutlery goes, you can't go wrong with this brand. The reviewer adds that Cuisinart is likely to offer the highest-quality knives at this low price point, but even with its superior build to other budget brands, these knives won't suit experienced or serious cooks.

Cuisinart will shine in the majority of kitchens that see an average amount of use. Across its different series — Classic, Graphix, Nitrogen, Artisan, and Advantage — you'll find different handle and blade upgrades to suit different cooks. The Artisan series for example, incorporates Japanese techniques in blade finishing, while the nitrogen-infused knives in the Nitrogen set make for harder steel that stays sharper longer. The Graphix set is not much different than the Classic set other than its more textured metal handle (Classic uses a smooth molded plastic for the handles) for better grip. 

Keeping up with knife sharpening can be difficult if you're forgetful or just not a huge cooking enthusiast. Calphalon is a brand that's taken it upon themselves to solve that problem: their knife sets are famously self-sharpening, thanks to a ceramic insert that sharpens the blades every time they're taken out of and replaced in the block, referred to by the brand as SharpIN Technology. 

What do the consumers say about Calphalon's most important standout feature? The reviews on Amazon are mixed, with some users gushing over the function and others complaining that it doesn't maintain blades nearly as well as manual sharpening would. Whether a true flaw of Calphalon's or a small price to pay for convenience, the self-sharpening function doesn't seem to please everyone. Most reviewers do agree that the blades arrive plenty sharp, however, although some have suggested a major shortcoming in the fact that replacing the ceramic once it's worn out is impossible. 

Calphalon's knives are sleek and classic with all the desired high-quality knife features: full tang, forged steel for a thicker and sturdier blade, and high-carbon material. Another Calphalon feature enjoyed by its users is the conveniently labeled handles, so you don't have to rifle through the block for what you need. If you can't be convinced of this feature's effectiveness or prefer to do your own sharpening, there's not much else to justify Calphalon's fee, especially with even its smallest sets retailing for $180 on Amazon and flagship collections approaching $300.

If you're going for something sleek and eye-catching, go Global. These popular home kitchen knives, famous for their use on "MasterChef," are manufactured in Niigata, Japan. Without the wooden handles or trademark hammered Damascus steel, are Japanese-made knives but with an untraditional Japanese look. 

It's hard to suspect that Global's price tag — which aligns with that of other Japanese manufacturers, with one chef's knife running at $160 on Amazon — pays for much more than its flashy image. Despite being from a nation known for its high-caliber blades, Global knives are stamped, not forged, and offer no customization in handles or steel. It seems the stainless steel handle was an attempt to create a vision of the knives that aligns with the sparkling steel kitchens of professional chefs, and would be easier to adjust to if the knives were full tang as a result of having a steel handle — instead, we've found the handles to a bit slippery and the knife prone to causing blisters after long periods of handling. 

Through our own personal use, we also feel Global knives lose sharpness quickly. Without a full tang, bolster, or forged steel, we can't justify the $1,200 price tag for a 20-piece Global block. Whether Global is worth the hype or overrated is up to you, but we think your money can be better spent. 

Shun is a popular Japanese knife brand often connected to celebrity chef Bobby Flay (although Flay told Men's Health back in 2010, "I'm not married to a particular brand"). This brand has been churning out knives in Seki City, Japan, for just about 20 years, but Seki has been known for forged knives for centuries. As Prudent Reviews notes, it's one of the first names to have emerged on the market of Japanese knives for Western countries.

One of Shun's selling points is its widely different collections, appealing to many different budgets and preferred features. Its blades are layered Damascus steel, and offers handles ranging from basic to artisan. Shun also offers both double- and single-bevel collections. Several Shun knives are only offered as individuals and not sets, which can be seen as an inconvenience or an opportunity to mix and match. We've handled Shun and found it to be incredibly sharp out of the box, but prone to bending, chipping, and dullness as use continues, especially when frequently used for meat cutting. 

The best value in Shun for most home cooks is the Shun Sora 6-piece set, which at $350 on Amazon comes with a paring, utility, and chef's knife, plus kitchen shears and five additional slots for add-in knives. However, as some culinary tool enthusiasts have said on Reddit, many feel better-performing knives can be found for the same price range.

Let's face it. Right now, price rules the world, and anyone that can offer a good deal is someone who deserves a space in the top five of knife brands in our eyes. A two-piece chef and paring knife essential duo from Chicago will cost just 17 smackers, and its flagship set, the Chicago Cutlery Malden — 16 pieces, stainless steel, built-in sharpener, blades forged instead of stamped with a full metal tang — is barely over $200 on Amazon. 

Chicago Cutlery offers large sets, including 16-, 17-, and 18-piece options. You'll never be without the essential blades: chef, santoku, paring, serrated, shears, and plenty of steak knives for all of your dinner parties. However, with nearly a dozen different large collections, Chicago might be overwhelming its customers a bit with options. If price is not the determining factor in your knife purchase, look beyond the numbers at the collections' features: the Fusion series offers unique cushioned handles, the Metropolitan is affordable with stamped blades but a full tang, and the Essentials is a Wüsthof Classic lookalike but with a stamped blade and no bolster. The brand also offers a gorgeous walnut handle — just be sure to season the handles before using.

We've used Chicago blades and find them to be sharper and more agile than Cuisinart and Farberware, and even competitive with higher-ticket brands like Henckels and Schmidt Brothers, thanks to its 26-angle edge. Overall, Chicago's bang-to-buck ratio gets our approval, and found itself high in the ranking for the quality it brings to its price.

If you're serious about cooking, it's time to enter the world of Japanese knives. Famous for craftsmanship and traditional forging techniques, quality Japanese knives are sturdy, lightweight and wicked sharp. Miyabi is the third tier of knives by the Zwilling J.A. Henckels company. Its blades are made with over 100 layers of steel over a powder steel core, hardened with a special ice-hardening process, and given a gorgeous Damascus pattern. 

We've always loved Miyabi for its lightness and easy-to-hold handles, made of solid woods like birch, black ash, or pakka. We appreciate the spacious bolster on the neck of these knives, and we think Miyabi varies slightly from Japanese knife tradition in the best way: where most of those traditional blades are single-beveled (meaning only sharp on one side), Miyabi made their blades double-beveled. The brand's triple-step sharpening process, known as honbazuke, also means that you'll be slicing vegetables razor-thin with the Miyabi santoku. 

While still an expensive line of knives, Miyabi is one of the most affordable, but quality, entry points into the incredibly cost-inhibitive realm of Japanese-style knives, and we believe it provides stiff competition to Shun. You can test the waters of Japanese knives with the Miyabi Mizu SG2 8-inch chef's knife, a micarta-handled hammer-finished blade that only runs $180 on Amazon. Miyabi is rated incredibly well online, with the vast majority of low-star reviews being complaints of their knives arriving bent or dented. 

Closing up the rankings is the German workhorse knife itself: Wüsthof. Because of how well-established this Western manufacturer's brand is, having been in production for centuries, you'll never have to be uncertain about the customer service or warranty. (Which is lifetime for manufacturer defects, by the way. Your children can probably inherit your Wüsthofs.) Whether Japanese or German knife-making approaches are better is a constant and unanswerable debate among the culinary community, and some brands claim to combine the best of both. 

Japanese knives are gorgeous and artistic, while German knives are solid and all business. The blades of these knives aren't eye-catching with dressy Damascus or hammered steel like some of our beloved Japanese brands, but they make up for it in their hardiness. We love this brand for its capability to stand up to a variety of uses, from rough chopping, to fine dicing to even carving on-the-bone meats. Wüsthof's proprietary carbon blades sharpen easily and the half-bolster allows for both finger protection and easier sharpening. Wüsthof is also produced to be sharper than Zwilling (14 angles vs. 16, per House of Knives). 

These full-tang blades are sleek, sturdy, and impervious to chips, stains, and bends. You can start your Wüsthof collection with an 8-inch chef's knife for $200, thanks to Amazon, or even a slightly smaller santoku for $100. An added plus of Wüsthof? You'll know that you're wielding the same blades as Gordon Ramsay, Ree Drummond, and Ina Garten. "Hell's Kitchen," here we come.