The best electric guitars for all styles and budgets
Buying an electric guitar can be a somewhat daunting task – there are countless options out there, and rarely a “bad” instrument to be had, even at the budget end of things. So we’ve helpfully split this list of the best electric guitars into discrete categories, including our best overall pick.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Jazzmasters for for beginners, upgraders and offset aficionados
Why? Well, the best guitar for you might be an affordable workhorse, ready to be thrown around on stage or into the back of a van without a care in the world. Or it could be a beautiful, premium instrument – a guitar to be looked after for life. The best guitar for you might offer up a palette of subtle, dynamic sounds. Or, it might pummel an amp’s front end to raise sonic hellfire. So, as well as our best overall pick, all of the guitars in this list excel in a given category – with everything from traditional classics to modern masterpieces, and premium instruments to beginner-friendly budget models represented. Let’s dive in.
The best electric guitars, at a glance:
Our Pick: Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster
Best Les Paul: Epiphone 1959 Les Paul Standard
Best Jazzmaster: Fender Player II Jazzmaster
Best Stratocaster: Fender Vintera II ’50s Stratocaster
Best affordable guitar: Epiphone Les Paul Special
Best high-end guitar: Gibson Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul Standard
Most unique guitar: Rivolta Forma Series Sferata
Best metal guitar: Jackson LM-87 Lee Malia
Best beginner guitar: Squier Sonic Mustang HH
Best headless guitar: Strandberg Boden Essential 6
Best baritone: Rivolta Mondata Baritone VII
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Our Pick: Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster
Image: Adam Gasson
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The Player II range represents some of the finest guitars to come out of Fender’s Ensenada, Mexico factory to date, and their overall quality-to-affordability ratio made them great options for the odd pickup swap or hardware change. Fender itself has always been keenly aware of the Ship Of Theseus mindset its guitars encourage – and so here we have the pre-modded Player II Modified Stratocaster, replete with some excellent noiseless single-coils, locking tuners and extra switching options.
The result is an extremely versatile Strat – even for a Strat – with some very road-ready hardware, all for a great price. What more do you need?
Need more? Read our Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster review.
Best Les Paul: Epiphone 1959 Les Paul Standard
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If you want an awesome Les Paul that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, then this collaboration between Epiphone and the Gibson Custom Shop could be it. Thanks to premium electronics and Gibson-spec pickups, there’s a wide range of responsive tone-shaping options on tap. Construction is solid and mostly sticks to vintage specifications, too – perfect if you want to see why the 1959 Les Paul Standard has remained one of the most legendary guitars of all time. It’s also a smart purchase when you compare it to what’s available at the most accessible end of the Gibson USA catalogue.
Need more? Read our Epiphone 1959 Les Paul Standard review.
Best Jazzmaster: Fender Player II Jazzmaster
The Player II Jazzmaster
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The Player II series from Fender has updated its core designs to be more approachable than ever – and the oh-so-singular Jazzmaster is always a tricky needle to thread in that regard. Complete purists may bemoan the lack of the rhythm circuit, but that aside there’s a lot to like, including the subtle wobble you can get from that Jazzmaster vibrato, and the bright, articulate single-coil pickups.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Jazzmasters for for beginners, upgraders and offset aficionados
But the star of the show is undeniably the neck – first off, rosewood is back, replacing the mildly controversial pau ferro and generally being a lot nicer to look at. And on the playing side the fretboard edges are now rolled, meaning an incredibly comfy playing experience.
Need more? Read our Fender Player II Jazzmaster review.
Best vintage-style Stratocaster: Fender Vintera II ’50s Stratocaster
Fender Vintera II ’50s Stratocaster. Image: Adam Gasson
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Fender’s Mexican-made Vintera II line is an excellent place to turn if you want maximum bang for your buck in terms of sound, playability and looks. That remains true here with the Vintera II 50s Stratocaster: while it’s not a slavishly accurate recreation like the American Vintage II line is, there’s still a lot to love if you love a good traditional Strat, including the narrow-tall frets and the 7.25-inch radius.
The neck finds itself on the accessible side of vintage, with a softer V that takes the edge off its thickness, meaning a more characterful feel than that of the Vintera I necks. The concessions to modernity, where they have been made, are welcome ones too: a the bridge-wired tone control and five-way switch might not be totally accurate, but they sure are useful. In all, it’s a great Strat experience for a great piece.
Need more? Read our Fender Vintera II ’50s Stratocaster review.
Best affordable guitar: Epiphone Les Paul Special
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Compared to the pricey Custom Shop collaborations Epiphone likes to shout about, the standard Les Paul special – first launched as part of the Inspired By Gibson range in 2020 – is an affordable workhorse that, unless you really, really hate the Epiphone headstock, has no discernible compromises. Although its neck profile is on the chunkier side, it’s very playable – and not quite as fat as some baseball-bat examples out there. Importantly, its pickups aren’t messing around, either, with all of the vocal midrange P90s are famous for.
Need more? Read our Epiphone Les Paul Special review.
Best high-end guitar: Gibson Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul Standard
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From an affordable student-model Les Paul to, well, quite the opposite. The Gibson Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul standard is the absolute pinnacle of Gibson’s modern production guitars, recreating the absolute pinnacle of its vintage instruments. While you may baulk at any level of ageing, the Murphy Lab’s various wearing-in processes – from light to heavy – serve to make the guitar feel like a truly authentic 1950s example, rather than a new guitar built to the same specs. For those of us without six figures to drop on a vintage example, it’ll be the closest we get to owning the real deal.
Need more? Read our Gibson Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul Standard review.
Most unique guitar: Rivolta Forma Series Sferata
The Sferata. Image: Adam Gasson
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There’s nothing wrong with the classics – the kinds of instruments that make a guitar-savvy audience member go, “Oh hey, it’s that guitar.” But maybe you want them to “what it that!?” – if that’s the case, look no further than the Rivolta Forma series. These awesome guitars chuck Gibson and Fender elements into a blender – along with a splash of brutalism, and a healthy dose of the sort of curves normally reserved for experimental Cold War-era aircraft. The Sferata is a particularly cool design standout, landing somewhere between a melted Jaguar and a Les Paul Junior.
But it’s not all about looks. The Forma series also come loaded with some awesome electronics, particularly a dramatically-slanted neck pickup – which our reviewer found to have an awesome and unique voice, thanks to the varied timbre of each string. They’re not the most affordable instruments out there, but Rivolta has a proven track-record of excellent guitars for the money, and, well, where else are you going for a guitar that looks like this?
Need more? Read our Rivolta Forma Series Sferata review.
Best metal guitar: Jackson LM-87 Lee Malia
Jackson Lee Malia LM-87 guitar. Image: Press
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This offset from Jackson is one of the best-looking metal guitars released in recent years, and it follows up its cooler-than-cool aesthetics with great playability and some crushing sounds. But thanks to its versatile set up pickups – with that single-coil in the neck – there’s a lot of range here, too, so it doesn’t always have to be drop-A and tremolo-picking. But, of course, this has ultimately been made for Lee Malia – and so will handle pretty much whatever heaviness you want to throw at it!
Need more? Read our Jackson LM-87 Lee Malia review.
Best beginner guitar: Squier Sonic Mustang HH
Squier Sonic Mustang HH. Image: Adam Gasson
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The Squier Sonic Mustang HH could be a perfect starter guitar, for a good few reasons. It is, of course, very affordable, at less than $200 – but it’s also no slouch in the playability department. It has a short 24-inch scale length, meaning that those with smaller hands will have an easier time with it – and string tension is lower, meaning easier fretting no matter the size of your mitts. And while the pickups aren’t the most deft and articulate humbuckers out there – for getting someone hooked on the sheer joy of a power-chord, they’re perfect.
Need more? Read our Squier Sonic Mustang HH review.
Best headless guitar: Strandberg Boden Essential 6
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It’s undeniable that a headless guitar is not for everyone – but it’s equally undeniable that they’re playing a massive role in the modern guitar landscape, espcially in the proggier, mathier outlands of heavier music. For the uninitiated, the Strandberg Boden 6 offers an enticing invite into that world – it has a rather reasonable price of $999, as well as an approachable featureset.
Six strings and a non-fanned fretboard mean that there’s only so much you’ll need to get used to if you’re coming over from a more traditional electric. Our reviewer found some truly excellent and versatile sounds on board, and had an excellent time with the ergonomics of the instrument. If you’re a fan of a comfortable, light guitar, there are very few lighter or more comfortable instruments – the Boden Essential 6 offers all of the awesome ergonomic benefits of a modern headless, with none of the extended-range hurdles, and all at a very approachable price.
Need more? Read our Strandberg Boden Essential 6 review.
Best baritone: Rivolta Mondata Baritone VII
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The Rivolta Mondata Baritone VII is, as you can tell immediately, an absolute stunner. But it’s as sonically beautiful as it is aesthetically, with a versatile combination of a humbucker and a P90 for exploring all corners of the downtuned sound. Need to get even more old-school? A strangle switch lets you starve some low-end for some bright tic-tac basslines, but whack things back up to full and let the 28-inch scale length add clarity to your ultra-low riffage.
Need more? Read our Rivolta Mondata Baritone VII review.
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