Best Surfboard Brands

It’s hard to outclass Catch Surf. Located in the heart of Southern California’s surf culture, San Clemente, Catch Surf has grown quite a reputation. They’re known as the king of the foam surfboard because they offer the highest quality shredders on the market.

Foam boards are traditionally used by beginners, learning how to pop up. But Catch Surf is anything but traditional—their boards are used by beginners, amateur, seasoned veteran, and even the pros.

With backers like Jamie O’Brien, Kalani Robb, Taj Burrows, and tons of other pro surfers, this brand is one for the books. For one of the most epic California surfboard brands, choose Catch Surf.

Based out of Los Angeles, California, South Bay Board Co. is a soft-top surfboard company specializing in beginner surfboards, hybrid surfboards, stand up paddle boards, and beach accessories.

This is one of the best surfboard brands for beginners, mainly because of their hybrid collection. They are bards made with soft foam on the top and a hard wooden bottom. This will give you the performance on the wave without the repercussions of falling.

Most of their boards also come with a wax-free design on the top of the surfboard so your feet will stick to the surface without any wax. They have every different sized board you could want, so just shop through their collections and find the right one for you.

Originally a line in Catch Surf, Wave Bandit has become a complete offshoot and formed its own company. Backed by surfer extraordinaire and hilarious YouTube personality, Ben Gravy. Mr. Gravy has been showing off these boards for a few years now and has ridden them on every swell from hurricane surf to riding the wake off a boat.

Wave Bandit has four collections to choose from: Performer, Shred Sled, Easy Rider, and Shockwave. They are all foam boards and come with a basic design. 

All the Ben Gravy edition boards come with his signature tag of a sunglasses-wearing pineapple head on a lime green background.

Everybody knows the classic Wavestorm. These Costco boards came about in the mid-2000s and rose to fame with the increased interest in surfing. They typically came in 7-foot and 8-foot boards and had blue and white lines stretching down the center. One in every three beginners out in the water would be seen on a wavestorm.

This is one of the surfboard brands to avoid if you want to hide the fact that you’re learning. But if you don’t care who knows, it’s a great board for gaining confidence out in the water. They’re easy to paddle, fast, and will be able to catch waves in any size or condition. Their manufacturer is AGIT-Global, and they’re distributed through Costco still.

Formed out of a small town on the northside of France in Vannes, Brittany, BIC Sport has produced and shipped more than 100,000 surfboards. The company started over 20 years ago and has been partnering with top board shapers to create their well-known lines.

They cover surfers from shortboards to longboards and even a 7’ egg and an epoxy fish surfboard. Also, not that it affects the board, but we believe BIC has one of the best surfboard brands logos and overall design.

Today, Bic Sport remains a strong part of the community by sponsoring young French surf competitions so that new talent can come out of France.

Liquid shredders hold a special place in this author’s heart as it was one of the first transitional shortboards he got to ride. Despite any deep-seeded biases, these boards are phenomenal for transitioning from longboards to shortboards. When surfers first transition the biggest thing they’ll notice is balancing is nearly impossible. Liquid shredders take this into account by offering hybrid surfboards.

Hybrid surfboards are some combination of foam and fiberglass. By offering a mix between the two, you still get all the stability and buoyancy benefits of the traditional foam board, with the shredability of the fiberglass board.

For anyone looking for a quick, maneuverable shortboard, Liquid Shredder should be the go-to brand.

Hang Ten is a globally known surf and skate brand.

Their brand consists of iconic fashion and they report that everything they do, they try to keep to the heart of surfing’s most legendary move “the hang ten.”

Though inspired by everything surf culture, their brand does not actually sell surfboards.

They do sponsor a lot of great surf sessions for the pros, though, and sometimes this is enough to get them mistaken for a surfboard brand.

A name that most beach and bodyboard lovers know is Tom Morey. Morey is known for inventing the first body board in his backyard out of the same material surfboards were using. The idea was to make a board that could go deeper into the barrel and strike at the heart of the wave. Bobby Szabad (BZ), was one of Morey’s first team riders and he helped to manufacture the early designs.

Now BZ surfboards are known for cutting edge, high performance lines that bring riders the best of soft top technology. They have four boards currently, each unique from the others.

There’s the flat-back 4’7” Blackball, the 7’ soft top, the 8’ squash tail longboard, and the 6’ Ripper soft top surfboard.

For high-quality surfboards, there’s Paragon Surfboards. They come with four different categories of boards: shortboards, midlengths, longboards, and foamies. Each collection has beautifully designed boards with aesthetically pleasing artwork.

Among their shortboard collection of Mini Simmons, Hobgoblins, and Grovelers, they also have some retro fish surfboards to choose from. With the curved tail and wide midsection, it has that classic fish surfboard shape.

The 5’10” retro fish surfboard dimensions come to 5’10 by 21” by 2.5”. It has the width of a longboard, and it’s pretty thick too. This will allow you to have the maneuverability of a shortboard, with the stability of a longboard. Plus, these boards will be perfect for small days where shortboards can’t hang.

Aye mate, ECS here, contending for the top spot amongst all Australia surfboard brands. With a wide selection of longboards, shortboards, and stand-up paddleboards, there’s a board in these collections for any surfer.

Their team has a solid number of riders including Harry Maskell, Dylan Henry, and Hannah Finlay-Jones.

One great thing about ECS Boards are there incredible designs. There’s the Purple Haze, the Bulldog, and the Modern Pig to name a few. Plus, if you like the design, the board comes in many different sizes and fin layout so you can get the perfect board for you.

Raystreak is a surfboard accessory brand and kayak equipment supplier. From them you can get anything from a wax comb to a stand-up paddle board shoulder strap to a three piece kayak paddle set.

They also have a small selection of surfboards from their 8’2” Crocskin soft-top longboard to their 7’2” foam funboard.

They also have a foam beginner board that comes with a plug at the top to let out any water that gets into the board.

Rock-It surfboards are known for providing quality starter surfboards to the average beginner. These are perfect for surf schools or summer surf camps that need to provide a lot of boards to the groms and grommets who are just starting out.

Their board sizes run all the way down to the 4’11” Chub surfboard and the 5’8” Albert. With a fun fish tail and classic wide nose, these boards are perfect for riding the whitewash into shore and getting used to popping up in the water.

While they’re known for their starter boards, they do also provide larger boards for adults. These boards range up to 8-foot longboards.

Boardworks has been around since the early 90s and they have tried to stay ahead of the curve in their stand-up paddleboards. They are one of the many brands within Confluence Outdoor, a watersports company that has roots in all different sports.

Their stand-up paddle boards are their most commonly bought product, but they all have Froth boards, a collection of shortboards, funboards, and longboards. Their SUPs come as inflatable or rigid and can be used for many different activities.

Look through their collection to find the perfect board for yoga, fishing, cruising, touring around, or riding mother nature’s curls.

Empire surfboards is a company based out of the UK. Although, that’s just about all we can say about them. Their website consists of a masked man holding a nicely shaped longboard againsts a graffiti backdrop. If anything it does make us curious.

On their website there is a mailing list you can be a part of own one of their boards.

Fire Wire made a big splash about ten years ago when they started boasting the newest cutting edge in surfboard technology. Now their company is absolutely stacked with backers like Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and Timmy Reyes.

From the technology standpoint, these boards are lighter and more durable than any other board on the market. With the base of their Helium shape only 0.8 lbs.

They also have a new Woolight board that uses sheets of wool instead of fiberglass.

Channel Islands surfboards are a group of boards designed by Al Merrick. If you don’t know who that is, let’s help inform you. Al Merrick has been one of the most dominant and influential figures in surfboard shaping history. When boards were still twelve feet long and made from cheap plastic, Al had other plans for the rise of the shortboard.

Channel island surfboards runs the gamut of possible shapes, sizes, feels, and flows. Whatever you want, CI surfboards have it.

You can also build your own custom surfboard through their website. Just pick a sticker and a blank and you can customize dimensions, the set up, and the graphics.

Out in San Clemente there’s another surfboard company who is constantly at the forefront of technology and design. That company is Lost surfboards. With a killer collection of high performance shortboards, fishes, and a few longboards, you can find the perfect shred stick just waiting to get wet.

You can also choose between designs. There are classic blanks all the way to groovy Libtech Freak Flag Bean Bag designs with psychedelic colors floating off the back.

Their team has all the faces surfers have come to know and love. This includes Kolohe Andino, Carissa Moore, Tyler Wright, Taj Burrow, and many, many more.