The 30 Best Electric Guitar Brands 2026: What Our Data Shows

Here we show our results after analyzing 2264 mass-produced guitars from 30 different brands in 2026.

Each model went through our scoring algorithm that takes into account over 40 different criteria items, including —but not limited to— nut width, scale size, neck joint, country of origin, quality control, quality of materials, and a lot more.

This data is updated every time we add a new model to our database, so, unlike other resources, this post is updated in real-time as the brands featured in this article release new models .

Take into account that we only evaluate mass-produced models not coming from the custom shop. We decided to leave those out since custom jobs vary on a case-by-case basis.

Table of Contents

Brands With The Highest Average Scores in 2026

To find the brand that offers the highest-quality guitars, we analyze each model's specs. This let us score each guitar according to their playability, sound and build quality based on a scale from 1 to 100. After obtaining these three different scores, we calculate the average as the final score, which is the one we show in the data below.

According to our findings, without taking into account price, the highest scoring and best brand this year is ESP E-II. Here's our result. The maximum score possible is 100:

  1. 1. ESP E-II 83.9
  2. 2. ESP 82.9
  3. 3. Schecter 77.6
  4. 4. ESP LTD 76.5
  5. 5. Chapman 76.5
  6. 6. Music Man 76.3
  7. 7. Solar 76
  8. 8. Jackson 75.9
  9. 9. Charvel 75.8
  10. 10. EVH 75.4
  11. 11. Gibson Custom 74.6
  12. 12. Reverend 74.5
  13. 13. Gretsch 73.9
  14. 14. Fender Custom 73.7
  15. 15. Gibson 73.7
  16. 16. Ibanez 73.6
  17. 17. Dean 72.7
  18. 18. Yamaha 71.7
  19. 19. Fender 71.4
  20. 20. PRS 71.1
  21. 21. Guild 70.6
  22. 22. D'Angelico 69.8
  23. 23. Washburn 68.7
  24. 24. Harley Benton 68.2
  25. 25. Sire 68.2
  26. 26. Kramer 68
  27. 27. Epiphone 67.8
  28. 28. Cort 67.4
  29. 29. Sterling 67.4
  30. 30. Fender Squier 64.7

How Did We Arrive to This Data?

To determine the build quality of each guitar, we take a look at things like the wood type —is it a proper wood piece for making a guitar?—, hardware quality —do they use branded tuning machines and bridges, or just aftermarket parts?—, building techniques —do they use the cheaper bolt-on neck or the more resistant and expensive neck-through build? We also give a higher score to guitars that are made in countries with a better reputation, although we don't give it too much importance as it's been shown that you can make good guitars from anywhere.

To score their sound quality, we take into account where and who makes their pickups. For example, if they come from a well-known brand, they will get a higher score. We also analyze the versatility of their pickup selector and additional switches.

Finally, for their playability, we take a look at the measurements, especially of the neck. For example, do they use a C or D profile, which makes guitars easier to play for most people, or do they use a baseball-like shape that some vintage players prefer? Is the neck thickness within an acceptable range for most people?

These aren't the only things we evaluate. As we said, we have over 40 different criteria items that our algorithm takes into account. We did this for all the 2264 guitars in our database and these were the results.

But that's not all we have. Below we will show more interesting data you might want to check out.

Why do Fender, Gibson and PRS Have Low Scores? Are They No Longer Good?

Something that might catch the attention of many guitarists is how low Gibson, PRS, and Fender tend to score compared to other brands. They are often considered the most prestigious and expensive brands, so why such low scores?

The reason is because they produce guitars that aim towards a mature market looking for more "vintage" style guitars. Since these brands tend to satisfy this part of the market, most of their guitars ignore modern features like multi-switching options, stainless steel frets, locking tuners, and more. Many are also more difficult to play because older necks are often thicker than modern necks.

Many vintage guitarists dislike modern features and are always looking for that old feeling, which leads to these brands building models that satisfy these needs. Even though they still can be high-quality instruments, they are at a disadvantage here. Our algorithm gives a lot of importance to modern features because we consider it the best way to score guitars objectively. We can't put a score to the "vintage tone" or the "vintage feel, but we can evaluate how up-to-date their technology is. So if you love old guitars, don't hesitate to buy a guitar from one of these brands. They're making instruments for your style.

Which Guitar Brand Offers The Best Value For The Money?

Only taking into account the best about a guitar is not fair enough if you don't take into account the price. That's why we developed a way of understanding how much you get for the money you pay.

For this, we've created another 1-to-100 scoring system called "value for the money". To calculate this, we take into account the overall score of a guitar and we add or reduce points according to how high the listing price is.

The highest the score, the more you get for your money. When it comes to value, the best scoring brand is Harley Benton.

  1. 1. Harley Benton 82.8
  2. 2. Chapman 78.8
  3. 3. Fender Squier 77.9
  4. 4. Cort 77.7
  5. 5. Schecter 77.5
  6. 6. ESP LTD 76.7
  7. 7. Kramer 76.4
  8. 8. Yamaha 76
  9. 9. EVH 75.9
  10. 10. Sire 75.6
  11. 11. Solar 75.3
  12. 12. Jackson 73.7
  13. 13. Epiphone 73.7
  14. 14. Sterling 73.6
  15. 15. Dean 72.5
  16. 16. Ibanez 72.1
  17. 17. Charvel 71.8
  18. 18. Reverend 71.8
  19. 19. Guild 71.5
  20. 20. Fender 68.7
  21. 21. D'Angelico 68.5
  22. 22. ESP E-II 68.5
  23. 23. PRS 66.8
  24. 24. Gretsch 66.2
  25. 25. Washburn 64
  26. 26. ESP 62.5
  27. 27. Gibson 62
  28. 28. Music Man 60.7
  29. 29. Gibson Custom 55.2
  30. 30. Fender Custom 54.8

What Brand is the Best for Beginners?

There are indeed some features that might make things harder for a beginner, while there are others that can make their learning process a lot easier. Because of this, we also take into account the beginner-friendly traits that each electric guitar has.

It's recommended for beginners to choose a guitar with a bridge that is easy to set up, a comfortable body and neck, good tuning stability, easy-to-press frets, short scale, and more. We take all of this into account to score the guitars from 1 to 100 in the beginner-friendliness department.

Even though these are the recommended brands for new guitar players, we still recommend you to look for the specific review of the guitar you want. We provide the beginner-friendliness score of every guitar in their dedicated review.

With all this data, we found that the most beginner-friendly brand is Chapman.

  1. 1. Chapman 1127.5
  2. 2. Fender Custom 1113.2
  3. 3. Sire 1109.4
  4. 4. Cort 1102.2
  5. 5. Yamaha 1093.3
  6. 6. Fender Squier 1072.3
  7. 7. Sterling 1070.1
  8. 8. Music Man 1062.5
  9. 9. ESP E-II 1060.6
  10. 10. Charvel 1048.1
  11. 11. Schecter 1040.8
  12. 12. ESP 1020.3
  13. 13. Guild 1008.3
  14. 14. Fender 996
  15. 15. PRS 992.3
  16. 16. Reverend 982.5
  17. 17. Jackson 980.3
  18. 18. ESP LTD 979.9
  19. 19. Ibanez 979.1
  20. 20. D'Angelico 958.7
  21. 21. EVH 954.9
  22. 22. Epiphone 945.2
  23. 23. Gibson 938.1
  24. 24. Kramer 937.5
  25. 25. Gibson Custom 929.5
  26. 26. Harley Benton 915.9
  27. 27. Gretsch 911.3
  28. 28. Solar 893.2
  29. 29. Dean 859.2
  30. 30. Washburn 849.2

Best Brands for Every Genre

If you're looking for a guitar to play a specific music genre, here are the brands we recommend. Bear in mind that you can still use almost any guitar to play any kind of music, but some models tend to be popular for different music. For example, SSS Stratocasters for Funk, Hollow-Bodies for Jazz, Active pickups for Heavy Metal, and so on. With this in mind, here are our results.

Note: You'll notice that some brands are missing for some genres. This is because they are not producing enough models for us to get a reliable average score for the genre, so we didn't include them.

Best Brands for Playing Hard Rock

  1. 1. ESP E-II 84.3
  2. 2. ESP 82.4
  3. 3. Schecter 77.6
  4. 4. Chapman 77
  5. 5. Music Man 76.4
  6. 6. Solar 75.9
  7. 7. Charvel 75.9
  8. 8. EVH 75.4
  9. 9. ESP LTD 75.3
  10. 10. Gretsch 75
  11. 11. Gibson Custom 74.7
  12. 12. Jackson 74.7
  13. 13. Reverend 74.1
  14. 14. Gibson 73.8
  15. 15. Ibanez 73.4
  16. 16. Dean 72.2
  17. 17. Fender 71.8
  18. 18. Yamaha 70.9
  19. 19. PRS 70.9
  20. 20. D'Angelico 70.1
  21. 21. Harley Benton 69.4
  22. 22. Washburn 68.3
  23. 23. Kramer 68
  24. 24. Guild 67.8
  25. 25. Cort 67.7
  26. 26. Epiphone 67.6
  27. 27. Sterling 66.8
  28. 28. Sire 66.7
  29. 29. Fender Squier 65.4

Best Brands for Playing Heavy Metal

  1. 1. ESP E-II 83.8
  2. 2. ESP 83.4
  3. 3. Jackson 78.3
  4. 4. Schecter 78.1
  5. 5. Dean 77.6
  6. 6. ESP LTD 77.5
  7. 7. Solar 76.1
  8. 8. Ibanez 75.4
  9. 9. Harley Benton 71.7
  10. 10. Sterling 69.5

Best Brands for Playing Jazz

  1. 1. Gibson 74.4
  2. 2. Gibson Custom 74.1
  3. 3. Gretsch 73.5
  4. 4. Guild 71.5
  5. 5. PRS 70.7
  6. 6. Fender 69.6
  7. 7. D'Angelico 69.2
  8. 8. Ibanez 65.9
  9. 9. Epiphone 65.9
  10. 10. Harley Benton 64.3

Best Brands for Playing Blues

  1. 1. Ibanez 77.3
  2. 2. Gibson 73.9
  3. 3. PRS 73
  4. 4. Fender 71.4

Best Brands for Playing Funk

  1. 1. Ibanez 74.2
  2. 2. Fender Custom 74.1
  3. 3. Fender 71
  4. 4. Harley Benton 64.1
  5. 5. Fender Squier 64.1

Best Brands for Playing Country Music

  1. 1. Fender Custom 73.6
  2. 2. Fender 71.6
  3. 3. Fender Squier 64.7
  4. 4. Harley Benton 62.3

What Brand Makes the Best Extended Range Guitars?

Here are the top brands to choose from when looking for a baritone guitar (scale length longer than 25.5'') or with more than six strings.

  1. 1. ESP E-II 82
  2. 2. ESP 81.8
  3. 3. Jackson 78.9
  4. 4. Schecter 76.1
  5. 5. Ibanez 75.2
  6. 6. Solar 75.2
  7. 7. ESP LTD 75.1
  8. 8. Gretsch 71
  9. 9. Sterling 68.9
  10. 10. Harley Benton 68.3

What Countries Are Producing Most Guitars in 2026?

China was the most popular country for making guitars just a few years back. Our data shows that things have changed:

  1. 1. Indonesia 985
  2. 2. United States 437
  3. 3. South Korea 262
  4. 4. China 259
  5. 5. Japan 221
  6. 6. Mexico 157
  7. 7. India 21
  8. 8. Vietnam 8

The reason might be that Indonesia provides a better price/quality relationship. However, we also believe that this was a good way for brands to wash away the bad reputation of Chinese products. Even though they've proven for years that they can produce high-quality instruments, many people still believe Chinese products are of low quality.

Where Does Each Brand Produces its Electric Guitars?

Below we list each brand's countries of choice for manufacturing and how many of their models are produced there in 2026.

ESP E-II

  1. 1. Japan 33

ESP

  1. 1. Japan 37

Schecter

  1. 1. South Korea 134
  2. 2. Indonesia 79
  3. 3. China 11
  4. 4. United States 9

ESP LTD

  1. 1. Indonesia 166
  2. 2. South Korea 11

Chapman

  1. 1. South Korea 8
  2. 2. Indonesia 7

Music Man

  1. 1. United States 35

Solar

  1. 1. Indonesia 114

Jackson

  1. 1. Indonesia 73
  2. 2. China 39
  3. 3. United States 32
  4. 4. South Korea 21
  5. 5. Japan 7

Charvel

  1. 1. Mexico 43
  2. 2. United States 15

EVH

  1. 1. Mexico 12
  2. 2. Indonesia 9

Gibson Custom

  1. 1. United States 87

Reverend

  1. 1. South Korea 50

Gretsch

  1. 1. Japan 54
  2. 2. China 22
  3. 3. Indonesia 10

Fender Custom

  1. 1. United States 57

Gibson

  1. 1. United States 58

Ibanez

  1. 1. Indonesia 133
  2. 2. Japan 67
  3. 3. China 31

Dean

  1. 1. Indonesia 35
  2. 2. India 21
  3. 3. United States 14
  4. 4. South Korea 10
  5. 5. China 6

Yamaha

  1. 1. Indonesia 16
  2. 2. Japan 6

Fender

  1. 1. Mexico 101
  2. 2. United States 81
  3. 3. Japan 12

PRS

  1. 1. Indonesia 39
  2. 2. United States 37

Guild

  1. 1. Indonesia 20

D'Angelico

  1. 1. South Korea 19
  2. 2. Indonesia 14

Washburn

  1. 1. United States 8
  2. 2. Indonesia 7

Harley Benton

  1. 1. Indonesia 63
  2. 2. China 61
  3. 3. Vietnam 8

Sire

  1. 1. Indonesia 20

Kramer

  1. 1. Indonesia 14
  2. 2. China 5

Epiphone

  1. 1. China 52

Cort

  1. 1. Indonesia 33

Sterling

  1. 1. Indonesia 41

Fender Squier

  1. 1. Indonesia 41
  2. 2. China 28

That's it for now. You might also like reading about the most popular pickups found in these guitars. Alternatively, you can explore all the 2264 guitars in our database. Or, you can go to our search page to find and compare specific models you're interested in.