The Best Pickleball Paddles 2025

The Best Pickleball Paddles 2025

The JOOLA Ben Johns Perseus IV stood out to us long before we finalized this list. From the first few rallies, it was clear this paddle brings together traits that usually don’t coexist, lively power, disciplined control, and enough spin potential to pressure opponents from anywhere on the court.

Reviewers around the industry have echoed similar takeaways: the new TFP construction and foam-loaded edge design create a larger, more forgiving sweetspot than most paddles in its class, and the Propulsion Honeycomb Core adds a responsive feel that makes both resets and counterdrives noticeably more reliable. What impressed our team most was how quickly it felt playable. There was no “adjustment period” we had to fight through, serves jumped, hands battles felt settled, and shaping the ball came naturally from day one. Combined with strong stability and a cleaner sensation at contact compared to past JOOLA releases, the Perseus IV delivers exactly the all-court performance players have been asking for. It’s the paddle we kept coming back to in testing, and the one that earns our pick as the Best Overall Paddle of 2025.

Best Overall Pickleball Paddles

Why spend hours grinding out your soft-game drills when you can test-drive a paddle built to support that precise style of play? Give the CRBN TruFoam Genesis 4 a try with our 30-day paddle guarantee.

If you’re the type who wins points through patience, placement, and well-timed dinks rather than constant drives, the Genesis 4 offers the kind of controlled feel our team associates with a soft-touch, finesse-forward game. Its TruFoam core provides a plush, stable response, offering confidence on resets and delicate touch shots. And while its construction isn’t designed for heavy plow-through, the paddle’s forgiving sweet spot, textured surface, and consistent feel help you shape the ball with ease, whether you’re adding a hint of slice or dropping a perfectly weighted dink at your opponent’s feet. For players who want a soft-touch, finesse-forward feel with reliable performance, the CRBN TruFoam Genesis 4 earns our pick as the Best Control Paddle of 2025.

Best Control Pickleball Paddles

The ProXR Signature Jolt is one of those rare paddles that delivers true pro-level performance without the pro-level price tag.

The Jolt is built from the same prototype lineage used by ProXR’s touring athletes. Its EVA/polymer core gives the paddle a livelier, more responsive ball feel than most value-tier options, while the Perimeter Ring System adds the stability and sweet-spot expansion normally reserved for higher-end models. Testers across the board note how confidently it counters, how much spin it produces, and how the elongated shape and long handle make it a natural fit for aggressive players and two-handed backhands. It may not have every refinement of the top-shelf foamed paddles, but the performance gap is far smaller than the price suggests. For players who want a tour-ready build at a fraction of the cost, the Jolt earns our pick as the Best Value Paddle of 2025.

Best Value Pickleball Paddles

"Let it go! It's going out!.......nevermind"

The RPM Friction Pro Elongated has been one of the most impressive spin performers we’ve tested this year, and the wider review landscape agrees.

Players and testers consistently point to the same strengths: the CarbonBite texture grabs the ball with a level of reliability that makes shaping drive trajectories, dipping passes, and rolling dinks feel almost effortless. What sets it apart from other high-spin paddles is how predictable that grip is, instead of creating the occasional “hot” launch you get from stiffer Gen 4 builds, this one keeps the ball on a smooth, linear path even when you’re taking bigger cuts. The elongated profile adds reach and leverage without feeling unwieldy, and the Tri-Density core balances face flex and stability in a way that helps the paddle stay connected through contact. Add in its lighter stock swing weight and versatile 14 mm and 16 mm options, and you get a paddle that lets attacking players swing freely while maintaining full command over spin and depth. For players who depend on heavy rotation to control points, the RPM Friction Pro Elongated earns our pick as the Best Spin Paddle of 2025.

Best Spin Pickleball Paddles

The Selkirk LABS Project Boomstik quickly separated itself from every other power paddle we tested this year. Across the industry, the reaction has been nearly identical: this thing hits harder than anything else in its class, but with far more stability and predictability than you’d expect from a paddle built around raw force.

The BoomCore interior is the star of the show, giving the paddle that immediate, explosive pop people keep highlighting, while the new MOI tuning adds a steadiness on contact that helps rein in all that pace. Reviewers consistently mention how confidently it drives through the ball, how much spin the InfiniGrit surface can produce on heavy swings, and how the elongated layout gives players both reach and effortless plow-through when attacking. It’s definitely substantial in hand, but that weight is exactly what makes it so dominant in hands-battles and full-swing power exchanges. For players who want a paddle that turns clean mechanics into overwhelming pace, and one that delivers its full performance right out of the box, the Boomstik is our clear pick as the Best Power Paddle of 2025.

Best Power Pickleball Paddles

Selecting a suitable pickleball paddle is important, but having an ideal or the best paddle is optimal. Considering the ever-expanding menu of paddles to choose from, narrowing the process down can be a little tricky. To help new and experienced players alike make a more well-informed search and purchase, we try to list all aspects of paddle performance, in terms of where the sources of power, control and comfort are derived from. Ultimately our aim is to deliver you a paddle that is both fun and easy to swing, right out of the box, and also provides room for skill improvement.

The best paddle is one that feels, looks and sounds good to you. Aspects like paddle weight, shape, handle length/size, core liveliness, and spin potential all play into a paddle’s performance. Other factors to consider include affordability and durability.

Power comes in three basic forms: Weight, length and the energy return produced from the core and surface materials. Weight and length are more closely related to each other, as you can feel paddle mass and length just by picking a paddle up. You cannot really feel how lively the core is or realize a paddle's spin potential until you have played with it.

Heavier paddles feature better stability, vibration control and have a larger sweetspot compared to lighter paddles. However, at a point, can be at the expense of maneuverability. Ideally you want enough mass to keep the paddle stable, especially on off center contact of the ball, yet light enough to swing over the period of time you most often play. Beginners to intermediate skill sets will probably gain the most from a middle-of-the-road paddle in terms of weight, maybe 7.7 - 8.1 ozs.

A longer paddle offers increased power, not to mention extra reach.

Core wise, polypropylene is by far the most popular material these days. And when players refer to a paddle as having good "pop," that usually indicates a noticeable degree of power coming from the paddle's core. The thinner the core, the livelier the response. Thicker cores absorb more energy at impact of the ball and return less to the ball.

Along with a loopy swing path high friction surfaces are probably the most effective way to improve access to spin, with raw carbon currently leading the way. Manufacturers are now able to deliver top tier levels of spin using fiberglass and carbon composite face materials.

Simply put, a paddle that delivers good performance, is reasonably priced and withstands regular use over a longer period of time without compromising its quality can be considered the best paddle! With our vast selection to choose from, we are confident that we have a paddle that will suit any player's needs. Although players ultimately have to make their own decision, Pickleball Warehouse can help minimize the search time, which will help maximize your play time.

Our "The Best Pickleball Paddles" list is based on playtester feedback. We begin, and repeat this process every few months, with approximately 30 paddles, and then test each one under similar play conditions. Our playtesters score each paddle based on a variety of criteria, including player experience level. The result is a list containing, what we feel are, the very best pickleball paddles.