Best Knife Sharpeners for Chef’s Knives

That’s not to say any knife is fine. We found significant differences and clear favorites in CR’s evaluation of chef’s knives. But I’d rather cut with a crummy knife that has been recently sharpened than a stellar knife with a dull blade.

Price: From $137
Where to buy: Amazon, Sur La Table, Walmart

The Chef’s Choice Model 15XV is second to none when it comes to easy, complete sharpening. It removes most of the guesswork and helps you maintain a perfect angle, and it can sharpen pretty much any knife you’ll ever own, even serrated bread knives or sushi and sashimi knives, which are sharpened on only one side.

The tool is designed to sharpen every straight-edged knife to a precise 15-degree angle, which is a sweet spot for most new knives. It features three settings: sharpening, honing, and polishing. There’s no setup, no cleanup, and no stress.

Price: From $55
Where to buy: Amazon, Chef’s Choice

The Chef’s Choice 4643 looks like the analog version of the brand’s electric sharpener. But unlike the electric model XV above, which sharpens every knife to a 15-degree angle, this sharpener has two basic sharpening settings, one for sharpening knives to 15 degrees and another for sharpening knives to 20. Many new German and Japanese knives (including those we used) come factory-sharpened to finer angles than in the past, so check with the manufacturer to see what angle it recommends.

A third stage polishes the edge of any knife, regardless of which sharpening angle you choose. 

Like the brand’s electric sharpener, the 4643 feels well designed, with grooves that hold your knife at the perfect angle as you slowly drag it through the stage. Both knives I sharpened emerged exceptionally sharp, even when I sharpened the Henckels on the broader 20-degree setting. That makes this a perfect pick if you’re apprehensive about using an electric sharpener or you’re looking to save money and real estate on your countertop or in a cabinet.

Price: From $9
Where to buy: Amazon, Walmart

It’s hard to believe that this pocket-sized sharpener can put an edge on a knife, but it does.

The KitchenIQ Deluxe Diamond Edge Grip is a simple sharpener with two stages. The coarse stage is for damaged or seriously dull knives, while the fine slot is for knives that have just lost their edge. 

The angles are set for European-style knives—KitchenIQ doesn’t specify the exact angle—but I still found that both my German and Japanese knives emerged with a sharp edge that allowed them to effortlessly slice through onions and tomatoes. You can hold the sharpener flat on a countertop, but it also has a notch on the underside, so you can position and hold it on the edge of your counters, too. It’s extremely helpful for quick sharpenings and easily fits in a drawer. One caveat: Because it’s so small, your fingers end up quite close to your knife as you’re sharpening. The manual Chef’s Choice, above, is a better bet if you’re worried about potential mishaps.

Price: From $40
Where to buy: Amazon, Sharp Pebble

The Sharp Pebble Premium Whetstone is a double-sided knife sharpening stone. It’s 1,000 grit on the coarser side and 6,000 on the finer side—perfect for sharpening and polishing a moderately dull knife. But you’ll need a coarser grit (indicated by a value below 1,000) to reshape the edge of a seriously dull knife. Sharp Pebble also sells a 400-grit stone for about $30. 

If you enjoy the sharpening process or demand precision, this tool might be the way to go. It gives you the most control of any option here, allowing you to sharpen any knife to the exact angle you want. (You can find the angle using a tool called a bevel gauge, which is sold at most hardware stores.) The stone needs a 10- to 12-minute soak before you work, so it’s best to sharpen all your knives at once. It put an edge on both of my knives that none of the electric or manual sharpeners could match, and I found the process relaxing.

Price: From $11
Where to buy: Amazon, Walmart 

The AccuSharp differs from most of the options here, in large part because it’s designed to tackle tool blades in addition to knives.

For sharpening knives, it has one glaring shortcoming. You use the sharpener by holding a knife steady, blade up, on your countertop. Then you drag the sword-handle-shaped sharpener across the edge of your knife while applying downward pressure. It’s easy to see how a single misstep could end poorly. The sharpener certainly works, but it feels more aggressive than the fine settings you’ll see on other manual sharpeners, leaving you with the feeling that you’re shaving off more metal than you need to in order to restore an edge (though it would take at least a year to know whether that has happened for sure). 

While it feels aggressive for chef’s knives, the company claims that it can also sharpen cleavers and axes, making it a potentially valuable tool in your garage, if not your kitchen.

Price: From $37
Where to buy: Amazon, Target, Walmart

The Presto EverSharp produces sharp knives even if it lacks the refinement of the Chef’s Choice electric sharpener. It features two sharpening stages instead of three and can’t be used on serrated knives. And somehow, it felt both overly aggressive in terms of how much metal it removes yet underpowered. It bogged down several times, stopping the motor entirely until I removed the knife from the guides and started again. 

The first stage of the sharpener seemed to remove so much metal that even a split-second pause resulted in a small dip at the back of the blades, where the sharpener took off more metal than I would have liked (shown below). Aside from the inconvenience of having to even out the edge, a sharpener that removes too much metal ultimately shortens the life of your knife.

That said, it’s about a third of the price of the Chef’s Choice electric sharpener, and after the initial learning curve, I got better at using it. If you have a cheaper set of knives, it would certainly work, but for the money, you might be better off with one of the manual sharpeners we tried.

Price: From $119
Where to buy: Wasabi

The Wasabi Knives Iki Ruixin Pro arrives as little more than a bag of metal rods and clamps, and at times, I thought I should have left it that way. After a fairly tricky assembly, you’re left with a sharpener that resembles an erector set, clamped to the edge of your counter. The Ruixin Pro is basically a sharpening stone in reverse: You mount your knife in the sharpener, then use the tool to drag a series of ever-finer sharpening stones across the edge of the blade. 

Between assembly, soaking the sharpening stones, and mounting the knife in the tool—which requires loosening and tightening five fasteners—it took me 15 to 20 minutes before I could even start sharpening. You also need to use a level app or a digital level to adjust the Ruixin Pro to the correct angle for each knife you sharpen. To say the process is cumbersome is generous. But the knives did emerge exceptionally sharp, akin to the results we got from our sharpening stone. So I can see the Ruixin Pro’s appeal for someone who loves to tinker. If you buy one, set it up where you can keep it permanently assembled, thereby avoiding the aggravation of setup each time your knife loses its edge.

Price: From $70
Where to buy: Amazon, Work Sharp

The Work Sharp operates on the same premise as the Wasabi above. You clamp your knife to the tool, then drag a series of stones across the edge of the blade. But unlike the Wasabi, this tool feels polished and ready for prime time. There’s only about 30 seconds of assembly. You clamp your knife to the sharpener with a simple dial instead of a network of five screws. The sharpening stones are permanently attached, and there are three in total, which you can rotate among to adjust the coarseness. And these stones (unlike those used on the Wasabi) don’t need to be soaked in water before each use. 

The one downside: The Work Sharp felt a bit small for an 8-inch chef’s knife. I had to steady the sharpener so that it wouldn’t tip over—not dangerous per se, but annoying. To adjust the sharpening angle, you simply rotate a dial that automatically raises and lowers the stone. There are numbers printed on the tool, so you know exactly what angle you’re getting without the need to use a separate level.

All in all, it’s an effective tool, but I still can’t help but think the Work Sharp, much like the Wasabi, is much more complicated than it needs to be. Both tools certainly work to sharpen knives, but in the time it takes to familiarize yourself with the tool, you could master sharpening knives on a stone.