The best knife sharpeners of 2024 and how to use them properly

As a cook, one of the most important things you will ever do is to find the best knife sharpener. It’s essential that chef’s knives are kept sharp. If you allow them to go blunt, you’ll have less control and will be more likely to see the knife slide off the food, making cooking a more hazardous process. 

The key to this is finding a sharpener that’s easy to use. Some methods can be such a faff that you won’t do them very often. Some can get great results in seconds.

The three main types are traditional whetstones, simple pull-through sharpeners and electric sharpeners. I’ve tried them all and you can read my reviews below, followed by some FAQs. But if you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick look at my top five:

Which are the best knife sharpeners in 2024? At a glance

• Best overall knife sharpener: Global Ceramic Water Sharpener
• Best value knife sharpener: Salter Diamond Electric
• Best electric sharpener: Tormek T1
• Best whetstone: King 1000/6000 Grit Combination
• Best budget knife sharpener: AnySharp Pro

What types of knife sharpeners are available?

All the experts I spoke to agreed that an abrasive whetstone (or waterstone) is the best way to keep a kitchen knife in top condition, but it takes a fair bit of skill (see instructions, below). The technology hasn’t shifted much in millennia.

Pull-through sharpeners are a lot easier to use and are the most popular option for home cooks. They usually consist of a set of ceramic, stone or diamond wheels which you pull a knife through from heel to tip. According to most knife connoisseurs, they’re not ideal for every type of knife. On a brittle, thin Japanese blade, you’re liable to chipping.

Electric knife sharpeners work in a similar fashion to pull-through sharpeners, albeit they run electronically rather than manually. Switching them on makes the wheels spin and you simply draw the knife back through it. They are incredibly easy to use – the easiest of the lot – but tend to be more expensive and can grind down more steel than is strictly necessary, decreasing the knife’s lifespan. 

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How I tested the best knife sharpeners

I acquired a range of different knife sharpeners, looking at a variety of factors to determine what was best. First and foremost came performance: how sharp was the knife after sharpening, and how long did it take? 

I pulled a variety of different knives, from small paring knives to large chef’s knives, through the sharpeners, or along the whetstones, factoring in how easy it was to pull the blade through straight and true.

I then cut a variety of foods, including hard vegetables, soft tomatoes and meat, to assess sharpness. I also considered price, weight, size, looks and any unique features.

Best knife sharpeners

1. Global Ceramic Water Sharpener

£60, Global

Also available at Amazon

Best overall, 9/10

We like: How easy it is to use 

We don’t like: Not much

• Type: Ceramic pull-through sharpener 
• Weight: 226g 
• Material: Ceramic

Global are one of the world’s leading knife manufacturers, so it comes as no surprise that they’re dab hands at sharpeners, too. This ceramic water sharpener is lightweight, so doesn’t take up much space on the counter or in your cupboard, and incredibly easy to use.

The concept is thus: there are two sets of ceramic wheels, one coarse and one fine, for a complete sharpening process. You pour water into the receptacle housing the wheels, which prevents them from overheating the blade, and pull the knife through the groove. It’s already set to the ideal angle for grinding most knives, doing the hard work for you.

Global recommend around 15 strokes per knife if you’re not using one of their own blades, which I wasn’t, and I found that more than enough to restore a sharp edge. You have to resist the temptation to push the knife down too hard, as that can damage it – a light touch is best. After, wash your knife, rinse the ceramic wheels, and you’re good to go.

This ceramic sharpener was incredibly easy to use, requires minimal effort and sharpens quickly. A damascus steel knife I used was sufficiently sharp to slice through hard veg and tomatoes, and that’s more than enough for me. 

2. Salter Diamond Electric

£32.99, Salter

Best value, 10/10

We like: Almost everything – a great sharpener 

We don’t like: It’s bulky  

• Type: Electric sharpener 
• Weight: 1.2kg 
• Abrading material: Steel with a diamond coating

This sharpener is slightly bulky – more so than most below – and will take up more space on your countertop, or in your cupboard, depending on how often you sharpen your knives. But unlike a pull-through sharpener, or indeed a whetstone, the USP here is that the electric device does the hard work for you.

Simply plug it in, turn on the switch and you’re good to go. It’s quiet when on (until you pull the knife through) so it’s not too annoying. There are two stages, each with two sharpening slots, so in fact you’re pulling the knife through four different grooves. This gives reassurance that it’s doing a thorough job. The first stage, with a coarser grinder, is designed to remove dull or misaligned metal from the blade edge; the second creates the razor-sharp precision.

There’s a loud screech when you first pull through the whizzing wheels, but it’s the inevitable sound of metal on stone, and makes you feel like a blacksmith. Simply pull the knife slowly through the spinning wheel (you’ll see the grooves) and make sure you do it straight and true. Looking at my Zwilling German chef’s knife’s blade after the first run, it was clear to see the knife had sharpened considerably. I was left thoroughly impressed. 

3. Tormek T1

£330, Tormek

Best electric knife sharpener, 10/10

We like: keeps all your knives in tip-top condition with minimal effort

We don’t like: it’s not exactly cheap

• Type: Electric sharpener
• Weight: 5.4kg
• Abrading material: Fine-grained diamond

When you’ve spent several hundred pounds on a really good chef’s knife, you’ll want a really good sharpener to do it justice.

Step forward Swedish sharpening experts Tormek, whose TW is very much the Rolls Royce of the knife-sharpening world. It’s heavy and solid, about half the size of a toaster, with two wheels that spin at a fixed speed when you turn it on. To hone – that is, to correct the tiny kinks and bends in the cutting edge, which you should do every day – all you need to do is run your knife’s blade along the composite honing wheel (seen on the left in the picture above). It takes 10 seconds.

To sharpen, you use the little black dial on the right to select the angle: usually, thick-spined European knives are sharpened to 20°, and slender Japanese knives are sharpened to 15°, but you can set it down to 10°. You may need your reading glasses for this, because the increments are tiny.

Once your knife is in the clamp with the angle selected, you just run it back and forth against the diamond grinding wheel, along its whole length, repeating the process for the other side. The machine doesn’t make much noise but the blade makes a satisfying high-pitched whine as it’s ground down.

Some will miss the zen-like art of wetting the whetstone and gently caressing it with the blade for hours on end. Me, I’d rather have a piece of Scandi kit that turns it into a two-minute job. 

4. King 1000/6000 Grit Combination Waterstone

£31.42, Amazon

Best whetstone 10/10

We like: That it’s two-in one (coarse and fine on either side)

We don’t like: Whetstones take more time and effort 

• Type: Whetstone
• Weight: 1.052kg 
• Abrading material: Ceramic

According to Laurie Timpson, founder of Savernake Knives in Wiltshire, whetstones are “absolutely” the best method. “They can be quite tricky, but it’s not rocket science,” he says. They also benefit from the fact they can be used on just about any knife, which can’t be said of most pull-through sharpeners.

Whetstones come with different grit counts, indicating the level of coarseness. Around 1,000 grits is ideal for sharpening a knife blade. You then use a finer stone, around 6,000 (usually on the flip side of the same block) to achieve a nice, polished finish, though this isn’t strictly necessary. It’s pretty basic technology, one blacksmiths would have used long before electricity existed. There’s a guide to how to do it at the bottom of this feature.

Thankfully, you don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds to get the best whetstone knife sharpener. This option from King comes recommended by many top knife experts, including Richard Warner, a knife maker at Blenheim Forge in south east London. It’ll take years – realistically longer than your lifetime – for it to run out. A very decent alternative is this version from Lakeland. 

5. Horl 2 

£159, Horl

Best knife sharpener for professional chefs, 9/10 

We like: How intuitive it is to use 

We don’t like: The price 

• Type: Whetstone
• Weight: 700g 
• Abrading material: diamond and ceramic

Traditional whetstone sharpening may be the best method, but it only works if you can hold the blade at a consistent angle against the stone. It’s a bit tricky.

Unless, that is, you have the Horl 2, an attractive two-piece sharpener from Germany. You simply place the block (seen on the right in our picture) onto your worktop and attach your knife’s blade to one of its magnetised faces. One face is angled to 15°, ideal for Japanese knives, and the other is angled to 20° for European knives. With the knife held at exactly the right angle, all you have to do is run the cylinder-shaped whetstone against it, like this:

After sharpening your knife with the diamond end of the cylinder, you use the ceramic end to hone it. The process is cathartic: no loud noises as with electric sharpeners, no worrying about getting it wrong. It left my Japanese chef’s knife much sharper than previously, able to swish through tomatoes. 

I found it less effective with small knives, though, so worth bearing that in mind – the Horl is, after all, much more expensive than most on this list. 

6. ProCook electric knife sharpener

£49, ProCook

Best looking knife sharpener, 8/10 

We like: It looks good on the worktop

We don’t like: The results can be a little patchy on longer blades

• Type: Electric sharpener 
• Weight: 504g 
• Abrading material: White corundum

This slick-looking device is one for those who care deeply about how their kitchen looks. That’s not a criticism – lots of us like nice-looking kitchen utensils, especially when keeping them on the counter. That said, it’s bigger than the VonShef option below (though smaller than the Salter). It’s much quieter too, even when pulling knives through. Like most electric sharpeners, it’s the two-stage process, again.

The packaging offers a useful tip: to alternate between pulling through the left and right side of the blade, in order to ensure a consistent edge. It also recommends 5-10 pulls for each stage, which I found sufficient for sharpening knives.

While the sharpness wasn’t in question, with a few knives, especially longer ones like my Wusthof utility knife, I found it hard to ensure the whole knife came through, leaving the sharpness patchy in places. For shorter blades, that wasn’t a problem. 

7. VonShef Electric

£24.99, Amazon

Best budget electric knife sharpener, 8/10 

We like: It’s small and simple 

We don’t like: The heat

• Type: Electric sharpener 
• Weight: 810g
• Abrading material: White corundum

This electric sharpener is far smaller than the Salter option above and it performs almost as decently, with a few snags. First, the good stuff. It’s cheap. It also works on scissors. Its size meant it was relatively easy to sharpen small knives like my paring knife, which can be trickier on larger sharpeners – the knife was left very sharp at the end.

Like the Salter it’s a two-stage process, coarse and then fine, which mirrors how one uses a traditional whetstone. It was just a little more frustrating than some options. Firstly it was noisy, like a lawnmower. When I pulled blades through, such as my paring knife, there were a lot of sparks – which is normal – but it seemed to overheat the knife quickly, and emitted a slight burning smell. 

The knife was sharp, and I didn’t need to use it for very long, so it wasn’t a huge problem, but if money isn’t an issue, I’d opt for the Salter. 

8. Chantry knife sharpener  

£32.99, Lakeland

Best easy pull-through sharpener, 8/10

We like: It’s ridiculously easy 

We don’t like: It’s not as precise as a whetstone 

• Type: Pull-through
• Weight: 623g
• Abrading material: Steel

These sharpeners are incredibly easy to use, and having used one on my old-school Sabatier knives for years, I can report that they quickly turn a blunt knife sharp, and as yet those knives are in perfectly good nick. They are best avoided with Japanese knives, according to experts.

This is because pull-through sharpeners remove more metal than whestones, adding microscopic serrations that keep the knife sharp but can shorten its lifespan. “For more sturdy, German- or French-style knives, you’re not going to damage them that much,” says Richard Warner, a knife maker at Blenheim Forge in southeast London. But Japanese knives can be more brittle.

The concept with the Chantry is fairly simple. There are two V-shaped rotating steels, which you pull the knife through towards yourself, from heel to tip. Ten swipes is enough to leave the blades as sharp as when they arrived. There’s no denying it’s not as romantic, meditative or precise as a waterstone, but for quickly sharpening (some kinds of) blades, you can’t go too far wrong. 

9. Tefal Eversharp 

£22, Habitat

Best integrated knife store and sharpener, 8/10 

We like: It’s all-in-one nature 

We don’t like: It wasn’t the sharpest knife out of the block  

• Type: Pull-through  
• Weight: 368g  
• Abrading material: Ceramic

Let’s face it, sharpening knives can be a bit of a hassle. Non-stick pan purveyors Tefal have come up with a simple solution: a knife that is permanently kept in a plastic sheath with a built-in sharpener. This means you’ll pretty much always have a sharp knife at hand. The only downside is I found the supplied knife to be slightly less sharp than some of my best Japanese blades. But, then, they cost 10 times as much.

Of course, most chefs have multiple knives, such as a paring knife and perhaps a larger carving knife, and they won’t fit in here – you can only use the Tefal knife that comes with it. So, unless you’re happy with the one blade, you may end up having to buy another sharpener. 

10. AnySharp Pro 

£17.49, Amazon

Best budget knife sharpener, 8/10

We like: It’s easy and cheap 

We don’t like: Not the smoothest finish

• Type: Pull-through
• Weight: 178g
• Abrading material: Tungsten carbide

Functionally, this knife sharpener works pretty similarly to the Chantry above, using tungsten carbide technology for sharpening – basically meaning it’s super strong and sturdy. The sharpener is as safe as they come: there’s a nifty suction pad underneath which, when you pull down the lever, sticks down to most flat surfaces. (You can even stick it to the fridge door, which is handy.)

Most importantly, the sharpener won’t slide about, reducing the risk of hurting yourself. On my wooden kitchen table, it was virtually impossible to rip off. 

It works swiftly, with just three or four pull-throughs I found sufficient to resharpen knives. However, it does create tiny serrations on the blade, unlike the smooth sharpness provided by a waterstone. Some users have reported that the suction loses grip over time, too.

Even so, the AnySharp Pro is effective, easy to store, incredibly light, and comes with a 10-year warranty. Overall, a decent piece of kit at an appealing price. 

11. MinoSharp Plus Shinkansen

£37.44, Amazon

Best Japanese knife sharpener, 8/10

We like: How easy it is to use

We don’t like: Not as sharp results as some 

• Type: Pull-through
• Weight: 168g
• Abrading material: Ceramic

A shinkansen is a Japanese-style pull-through sharpener named after the famous bullet train. It features two sets of ceramic wheels set at the right angle for sharpening a Japanese blade, which takes out the guesswork (until you’re an expert) of the waterstone. Simply hold the handle with your left hand, then saw back and forth gently through the coarser wheel to sharpen, before switching to the finer wheel to polish.

You need to fill a tiny reservoir with water before you start, similar to the Global sharpener at the top of our list. This is to help clean the wheel and to prevent overheating.

You can get shinkansens with three grades for an even finer finish, but two, like this model by MinoSharp, should suffice. “They’re quite easy to use, although you don’t get quite as good an edge as you would with a whetston,” says Joe Authbert, product development manager at ProCook. The MinoSharp should be a good choice for Japanese knives, since it’s designed for their narrow blades. 

12. Joseph Joseph Rota

£20, Joseph Joseph

Best compact knife sharpener, 8/10 

We like: How it folds away compactly 

We don’t like: Not the smoothest results 

• Type: Pull-through: 
• Weight: 120g
• Abrading material: Ceramic 

For most of us, a knife sharpener is something we’ll use a few times a year, tops. And while we want to keep our knives as sharp as can be, we don’t necessarily need the precision of a professional chef’s fancy knife. If you’re not going to use your sharpener regularly on expensive knives, then there’s no point forking out on a pricy option.

This Joseph Joseph option is ideal for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s very light and compact. It also folds neatly to make it far easier to store. It won’t take up much space in your drawer. 

It’s also very easy to use. Just hold the handle and pull the knife through the two wheels, the first coarse, the second fine, and your knife is sharp in seconds. 

The one downside I found is that my blades weren’t the smoothest afterwards – I could see tiny serrations – but unless you’re using expensive knives, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, the knife was still sharp. 

FAQ

How often should I sharpen my knives?

If you’re a daily cook, preparing lots of food including meat, you might want to sharpen it weekly. Most of us can get by with sharpening monthly or even annually, but regular honing (which is different to sharpening) helps keep the knife in good condition. 

If you’re regularly slicing hard ingredients, like squash, for example, you should consider sharpening frequently. Storing knives on magnet racks helps prevent chipping and blunting. You should never dishwash them. Always dry immediately after hand washing. 

Can I use the same sharpener for all types of knives?

Knife sharpeners are relatively straightforward to use, so when deciding which to buy, much of it comes down to how frequently you’re likely to use it. A small device you can keep on the counter or in one of your most accessible drawers is likely to see you using it more frequently. 

If you have a standard chef’s knife, most sharpeners will work just fine on it. A pull-through sharpener, though the easiest to use, isn’t ideal for thin and brittle Japanese knives. The same goes for ceramic wheel sharpeners. If you’re using Japanese knives, consider a whetstone.  

Can knife sharpeners damage my blades?

Knife sharpeners can damage your blades if you use them incorrectly. Pull-through sharpeners and electric sharpeners can remove too much metal, which can shorten the life of your knife. On the flip side over-sharpening can damage the edge of your knife and make it duller.

How do I clean a knife sharpener?

The pull-through type can be tricky to maintain. A fine, dark metal dust comes off the knife during sharpening. Left to build up, this can stop the sharpener working. Clean it off with a damp cloth or a stiff brush (such as a toothbrush), but don’t rinse the sharpener in the sink and definitely don’t put it away wet.

If the residue is very thick, some people advise using a kitchen cleaner like Ajax on a toothbrush. Since most pull-through sharpeners cost less than £30, however, our advice would be to simply buy a new one. 

To clean a whetstone, don’t use soapy water. Liberally coat the surface with WD40 and gently rub with fine steel wool until you see the dirt and debris lift off. Wipe it down with a damp cloth. When you’re satisfied you have removed all the dirt, you can rinse it under the tap – still not using soap – and dry thoroughly.

How do I use a knife sharpener correctly?

Pull-through and electric sharpeners are easy to use. Just drag the knife through the wheels (this is very straightforward, there are groves in the sharpener in which you place the knife). Make sure you pull the knife through straight and true, along its entire length, otherwise you might sharpen it unevenly. 

Whetstones are a little more complicated, but this guide should help you…

How to use a whetstone to sharpen a knife

As we’ve seen above, you don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds to get the best knife sharpener. A professional-grade whetstone can cost as little as £30. But you do need to know what you’re doing.  Richard Warner, a knife maker at Blenheim Forge in south east London, gave me a crash course in the technique. 

It took a while to get used to (especially since Warner handed me a knife that had never previously been sharpened) but after half an hour’s practice and a little encouragement, I got the hang of it. Here’s what I learned...

Step 1: Preparing your stone

Before you start sharpening, soak the stone in water for around five to 10 minutes, until it absorbs the water and a liquid film appears on the surface. After soaking, splash some water on top, and re-splash during the process if it ever gets too dry. You’ll get a dark, splotch of steel and stone building up on the stone while you’re sharpening the blade. This is totally normal so just splash the stone with some water to clean it off and allow it to perform more efficiently. 

Once sufficiently wet, it’s time to position the stone on something solid, so it doesn’t move about during sharpening. Many come with holders, but you can just place it on a slightly damp tea towel on the table. The stone should be roughly perpendicular to your body, though Warner told me it is sometimes easier to angle it ever so slightly to the right (if you’re right handed). 

Step 2: Sharpening the blade

Now the fun begins. Grip the knife in your dominant hand, holding it at a 45° angle across the stone with the edge facing yourself and the knife’s heel pointing towards your belly (as seen in the picture below). “The hardest thing,” Warner explains, “is getting your angles right.”

The toughest angle to master is the angle at which you’ll sharpen the edge of the knife. For a Japanese knife, that should be around 12-15 degrees. Before you reach for the protractor, a good test is to get roughly half an index finger’s gap between the spine of the knife and the stone (see above). Remember to remove your finger before you start sharpening. For a Western-style knife, you want an angle of about 20°, so raise it ever-so-slightly higher.

How drastic is getting the angle wrong, I ask Warner. “Not really,” is his response. “If you sharpen too fine, you’ll sharpen it for ages and polish further up the blade.” It will feel unnatural at first, but with time you’ll get used to the angle, and it will become second nature.   

Now that you’re holding the handle and the blade is in position, gently apply some pressure to the belly of the blade with your left hand fingers – “roughly the amount of pressure to semi-depress a sponge,” says Warner. Starting at the tip, glide the blade up and down the stone – around five strokes up and down is a good number. Then move to the middle – five more strokes. Finally five strokes up and down on the heel.

I found it tough to maintain the angle throughout the movement, often tilting upwards towards the end. This is a common error, according to Warner, and one that’s fixed by just concentrating as hard as you can on maintaining that angle.

Once you’ve sharpened one side, you need to flip over, but don’t swap the hand gripping the blade – think of it a bit like going backhand with a tennis racket (see above). Lead with the heel this time, rather then with the blade, but repeat the process in three parts. After five strokes on each third of the blade, it’s time to check your knife. It’s not an exact science, and it all depends on how blunt your blade was to start with (mine was very blunt indeed). But if you sharpen fairly regularly, it should just take a few strokes. 

The goal when sharpening is to create a burr, which is a tiny whisper of metal left on one side of the blade. You’ll know you have a burr when you can feel one smooth and one scratchy side to the edge. Warner’s is formed in no time at all; I struggled. Nevertheless, eventually I got there. Once you’ve got the burr, it’s time to move on to step three.

Step 3: Removing the burr

Removing the burr is fairly simple. You’ll need a leather strop or block (this sort of thing), which is designed to catch the metal fibres from the knife. You could do it with a fibrous tea towel or some newspaper if you like, but I’d suggest going with leather to begin with. The motion is fairly similar to sharpening. Draw the knife over the leather, going away from the edge at roughly the same angle as when you sharpened. 

Once the burr is removed, it’s time to test the sharpness with paper. Hold a piece of newspaper at about 45°, with a bit of tension, and slash lightly with each point of the blade. If it cuts through easily, your knife’s sharp. Warner speedily lacerated his newspaper, but I of course struggled. There is an element of technique involved, he reassured me. 

Step 4: Polishing the blade 

Now it’s time to polish. This is when you’ll swap over from the coarse grit to the finer grit (make sure this side is wet, too). I found the knife still had a bit of grime on it, so I gave it a wipe clean beforehand. The motion is exactly the same as with sharpening, but you can apply slightly less pressure, and limit to roughly 30 strokes on each side. 

Give your blade one more swipe on the leather, and you should have a perfectly sharp and polished knife that’ll cut onions, tomatoes and all manner of squishy veg with no trouble at all. 

Step 5: Honing your blade regularly

Honing a blade is considerably different from sharpening one, though many of our drawers contain just a honing steel – often unhelpfully called a sharpening steel.

When we cut through produce onto a chopping board, we usually bring the knife back up at a slightly different angle, causing the blade to misalign sightly. “If you look at it under a microscope, you can see it starts to bend over,” Authbert explains. “What you’re doing with the honing steel is basically straightening the edge back out.” 

Chefs will do this every day, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t too. Before cooking, or after you’ve done the washing up, honing your knife will help keep it in good condition. “When you’re using a honing steel, you’re not actually removing any metal at all, just re-straightening that edge, to get it back in line,” says Authbert. Remember that you’ll still need to sharpen it every two or three months. 

“How do I use this daunting metal rod?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s not too hard, really. The best way for a beginner is to balance the steel on a surface with the tip secured by a damp tea towel. You want to get that angle right, whether it’s around 15 degrees for a Japanese knife or 20 degrees on a German or French blade. Then swipe slowly down, away from you, making sure the whole blade is honed – around five swipes on each side should do. 

I found this £19 model by ProCook to be sturdy, thanks to its considerable weight – although don’t worry, once you rest it on the table it won’t feel heavy. It also had a comfortable handle and, most importantly, it’s not too expensive. 

According to Tim Hayward, author of Knife: The Cult, Craft and Culture of the Cook’s Knife, you should steer away from something called a diamond hone, which is the “death of good knives. It chews away the knife. To be avoided at all costs,” Hayward warns.