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19 Best Surfboard Brands For Shredding & Posing

Your definitive guide to the best surfboard brands in the world.

19 Best Surfboard Brands For Shredding & Posing

If you’re new to surfing or just looking to upgrade your board and need inspiration, this guide will help you separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to surfboards.


Surfing isn’t just about Eastern (suburbs) mysticism. Sure: the old blokes may hark back to the days of uncrowded Bali sessions and the classic lines you can draw with a waterlogged single fin, but even the most stoic shred heads can’t deny there’s no better feeling than fresh fibreglass under your arm.

But where there is ecstasy there is also peril. And we’re not talking about threading the needle at low tide Cape Solander: if you buy the wrong board, not only will you be $800 in the hole, you’ll also face such problems as your friends mocking you for not being able to catch a wave, bogging every second rail, and cursing the thing every time you put it in the car.

Not to mention dealing with dickheads on Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace to offload it.

In other words: picking the right surfboard is key to your performance, bank account, sanity and social status (among other, vital, things).

When buying a surfboard there are a number of crucial factors to consider: length, thickness, volume, and brand.

What to consider when buying a surfboard…

Surfboard Length – Depending on which way you glide, you’ll want a longboard, midlength, fish, or shortboard. For more information on which one to pick, we’ve got a specific guide on learning to surf (and picking the perfect beginner’s board) here. For everyone else: length is determined by your style (if you want longer, more drawn-out turns, get something longer, if you want something more wiggly, go shorter), personal preference and weight. Generally speaking, you’ll be looking at 9-11ft for a longboard (or gun), 6’6″ to 7’10” for a mid-length, 6’2″ to 7’2″ for a step up, 5’5″ to 6’5″ for a shortboard and 5’0 to 6’0″ for a fish.

Surfboard Thickness – The oldest cheat code to shortboarding better is to buy something thinner and wider. This is because it will be stabler, paddle better (or equally as well), and you will catch less rail when turning (i.e you won’t bog so much). On the flip side, if you’re ordering a step-up or gun, and are looking for a board that can handle going very fast in a straight line, with lots of projection, then you will be looking at something narrower, thicker, and less forgiving.

Surfboard Width – Generally, all longboards and fish surfboards will be quite wide and forgiving, while shortboards, step-ups and guns will be relatively narrow. The wider the board the more forgiving it will be for marginal conditions and marginal riders.

Surfboard Volume – Though this isn’t the silver bullet many believe it is, it’s bloody useful (to the point where if you had to pick just one aspect of a board to go off when ordering, you’d pick volume). The more volume your board has the more buoyant it will be, and the easier it will be to catch waves. The less volume your board has the more manoeuvrable it will be, but the more difficult it will be to catch waves. This means more advanced surfers should order boards with less volume, and more inexperienced surfers should order boards with more volume.

Now onto the most popular surfboard brands…