This definitive guide to the best office chairs of 2020 explores everything you need to know to find an office chair best suited to your needs, including ergonomics, price, aesthetics and features.
The Short List
- Best Overall Office Chair: Steelcase Series 1
- Best Budget Office Chair: Alera Elusion
Best Budget Office Chairs
- Best Office Chair Under $100: Flash Furniture High Back Mesh Chair
- Best Office Chair Under $200: Alera Elusion
- Best Office Chairs Under $400: Autonomous ErgoChair 2
- Best Office Chair Under $500: Steelcase Series 1
- Great Value for Build Quality: Branch Ergonomic Chair
- Best Ikea Office Chair: Ikea Markus Chair
- Good Looking and Affordable: Sihoo Ergonomics Chair
Best Ergonomic Office Chairs
- Best Office Chair for Standing Desks: HAG Capisco Puls
- Best Office Chair for Gaming: Vertagear Triigger 275
- Best Office Chair for Your Home: Blu Dot Daily Task Chair
- Best Mid-Century Modern Office Chair: Eames Aluminum Group Management Chair
- Best Office Chair for Conference Rooms: Steelcase Silq
- Best Office Chair with a Headrest: XG-Wing Management Chair
- Best Passive Ergonomic Office Chair: Herman Miller Cosm
- Best Leather Office Chair: Humanscale Freedom
- Best Office Chair for Small Work Spaces: Humanscale Diffrient World
- Best Luxury Office Chair: Herman Miller Embody
- Honorable Mention: Herman Miller Aeron
Long has the doom of sitting been forecasted. Published papers aplenty have argued that a stationary life is shorter and trouble-ridden, and the primary workarounds are many — standing desks, frequent breaks, stretching, taking walks and so on. But none address the simple fact that, sometimes, to get shit done, we simply need to plant ourselves in a chair and get after it.
Luckily, a number of companies are working to beat each other at building the best office chairs, even though they all know it’s not possible. No one chair is the best for everyone, so take our guide with lots of salt. If you can, go to stores and showrooms in your area and sit down, lean back, lean forward, pull levers and ask questions about everything. Your back, muscles, various joints and brain will thank you.
The Short List
Best Overall Office Chair: Steelcase Series 1
Steelcase
Steelcase’s entry-level office chair, the Series 1, combines looks, comfort and ergo-friendly features not usually found in a chair under $500 into one very strong value proposition.
The chair is simple and compact, which is incredible considering how many built-in intuitive adjustment controls there are in the chair. The Series 1 employs a breathable mesh backing, dubbed 3D Micro Knit, which is flexible and supportive. Then comes the laundry list of adjustments: arm height, lumbar height, seat depth, tilt control and – obviously —seat height. The Series 1’s main highlight is its 4D adjustable arms. Like most office chairs, users can adjust the arm height. Steelcase goes many steps further by making the arm cap – the soft, supportive arm rest — mobile, too. It can slide forward and backward, side-to-side and pivot about 40 degrees. At $415, you really should just get this chair.
Best Budget Office Chair: Alera Elusion
Being on a budget does not mean settling for design of a lower quality; it means identifying smart engineering at price points don’t trigger panic attacks. The Alera Elusion, which is also our best option under $200, is just that. It’s mesh-backed and features loads of recline and tension adjustment options for just $190.
If your definition of budget is a bit more expansive, we recommend Herman Miller’s Sayl chair, which is made with better materials and has a better warranty behind it — not to mention a company with a legendary reputation. That said, the extra $200 to $250 you’ll need to shell out for a Sayl makes an impact large enough to favor the more affordable, smartly designed Elusion chair.
Best Budget Office Chairs
As with most products of the budget variety, temper your expectations. There is no sub-$100, $200 or even $500 office chair that does all things for all people, or performs equally to premium chairs. Expect materials that don’t necessarily ensure a long life and may not look stellar. That said, these chairs are ergonomic. Our budget picks are simply the most affordable you can go without sacrificing your health and wellbeing at work.
Best Office Chair Under $150: Flash Furniture High Back Mesh Chair
This mesh-bodied, high-back chair from Flash Furniture is the best and most versatile chair we’ve found under $100. It has an adjustable headrest (ideal for those who like to lean back), holds more weight than most dirt cheap options, has a tilt tension adjustment knob, offers firm lumbar support and isn’t absolutely atrocious to look at. If it’s missing anything (other than quality materials that would drive the price up), it’s adjustable armrests, but that’s the lowest number of serious compromises you’ll find out of seating in this price category.
Best Office Chair Under $200: Alera Elusion Chair
It looks as simple as any other chair you’d run into at Staples, but it isn’t. Alera’s Elusion chair borrows features like a full mesh back for breathability, a waterfall-edge seat cushion to maintain regular levels of leg circulation and more comfort customization than chairs fives times its price.
Its only limiting factors are aesthetics (it is rather boring to look at) and the use of cheap materials, which means it’s likely not a great long-term seating option.
Best Office Chair Under $400: Autonomous ErgoChair 2
Autonomous
Autonomous isn’t a new company, but it’s found its niche in the affordable-but-clever office chair space. The ErgoChair 2 features the mass-adjustability that’s needed in a chair you’ll sit in eight hours a day – the armrests move, the seat pan moves, the seat cushion moves and, perhaps most helpfully, the lumbar support slides up and down the spine of the chair. All this, in tandem with a mesh back and a wicked sub-$400 price point, make Autonomous’ chair one of the best value buys there is.
Best Office Chair Under $500: Steelcase Series 1
Steelcase
There are chairs around the $500 mark that offer some of what the Series 1 offers, but none match it feature-for-feature without jumping into the $600 and $700 range. Our selection for the Best Overall Office Chair checks every box: strong warranty, huge well of personal adjustment options, solid build quality and a strong brand to back it all up.
Branch Ergonomic Chair
Branch is a new company that makes affordable home office gear. Its plainly named Ergonomic chair ticks the ergonomic boxes you’re looking for — adjustable height armrests, tilt, tilt tension, lumbar support, up-down functions, adjustable depth seat and an airy mesh back. Instead of the cheap plastics deployed by other ultra-cheap options, its base is made of a sturdier anodized aluminum. The brand offers white glove delivery in NYC, but self-assembly otherwise, which takes about 10 minutes.
Ikea Markus Chair
Most of Ikea’s desk chairs are built with aesthetics top of mind, rather than performance. Avoid those. The Markus chair is the Swedish company’s most body-minded offering. Its high mesh back is good for taller folks and those of us who run hot, and despite Ikea’s reputation for cheapness, it’s better built than most frugal options. Plus, because it’s from Ikea and not a nobody Amazon company run by bots, you’re more likely to get customer service if anything goes wrong.
Sihoo Ergonomics Office Chair
What you get from this chair, for less than $300: a breezy mesh back, adjustable headrest, lower back support, variable armrests and easily one of the best spring-lock tilt mechanism of any cheap chair. That’s everything you can ask for out of a budget chair.
The Short List
- Best Overall Office Chair: Steelcase Series 1
- Best Budget Office Chair: Alera Elusion
Best Budget Office Chairs
- Best Office Chair Under $100: Flash Furniture High Back Mesh Chair
- Best Office Chair Under $200: Alera Elusion
- Best Office Chairs Under $400: Autonomous ErgoChair 2
- Best Office Chair Under $500: Herman Miller Sayl
- Great Value for Build Quality: Branch Ergonomic Chair
- Best Ikea Office Chair: Ikea Markus Chair
- Good Looking and Affordable: Sihoo Ergonomics Chair
Best Ergonomic Office Chairs
- Best Office Chair for Standing Desks: HAG Capisco Puls
- Best Office Chair for Gaming: Vertagear Triigger 275
- Best Office Chair for Your Home: Blu Dot Daily Task Chair
- Best Mid-Century Modern Office Chair: Eames Aluminum Group Management Chair
- Best Office Chair for Conference Rooms: Steelcase Silq
- Best Office Chair with a Headrest: XG-Wing Management Chair
- Best Passive Ergonomic Office Chair: Herman Miller Cosm
- Best Leather Office Chair: Humanscale Freedom
- Best Office Chair for Small Work Spaces: Humanscale Diffrient World
- Best Luxury Office Chair: Herman Miller Embody
- Honorable Mention: Herman Miller Aeron
Best Office Chair Brands
Humanscale
An extreme and praise-worthy focus on sustainable, eco-friendly design and gorgeous aesthetics come together with research-backed ergonomics at Humanscale. A through-line can be seen in all Humanscale’s more recent products — simplicity. Simplicity urged forward by the late American industrial designer Niels Diffrient in his partnership with Humanscale, which yielded two of the most notable and respected chairs ever — the Freedom and Diffrient World.
Herman Miller
Herman Miller is the company behind many of the most iconic pieces in the era of mid-century modern but its catalog has far more to offer than famous lounge chairs. When Herman Miller released the Aeron office chair, it instantly became the, or at least one of the, best makers of office seating the world over. The American brand’s most notable office chairs are likely the Aeron, Embody and the newly released Cosm, a fully passive ergonomic chair with a few unique-unto-itself features.
Steelcase
Where Herman Miller and others work in a variety of furniture areas, Steelcase narrows its gaze to furniture with a performance and sustainability bend. The 105-year-old company is unrelenting in its focus on research-guided design, and it is most known for the Gesture, Leap and its auto-adjusting (and fairly new) SILQ.
Allsteel
Allsteel is function and performance driven above all else. It bullied its way into office gear in the early 20th century making steel electrical boxes and lockers (it would take until the middle of the century to add its first chairs) Not all of its seating is beautiful looking (except for the Acuity, which is), but it is all based on the science of ergonomics.
Knoll
Like Herman Miller, Knoll was (and has become again) mid-century royalty. Also like Herman Miller, it didn’t fall off the face of the earth. Knoll still peddles high-end, luxurious home furniture aplenty, but its office seating, the Generation line in particular, is a revelation. Ergonomic, good looking and sold at price points low and high, Knoll covers the spectrum of what you need now and in the future.
Best Ergonomic Office Chairs
Ergonomic design, to some extent, is present in all seating, but not all chairs can be called ergonomical. By way of built-in automatic adjustments or manually turning knobs and pulling levers, great ergonomical chairs are the ones that conform to the human body, and the best do that to specific human bodies, no matter their weight, height or posture. These are those chairs, in every specific taste and style we could think of.
Best Office Chair for a Standing Desk: HAG Capisco Puls
As illogical as it sounds, standing and raising desks do need seats of their own. Portland-based Fully specializes in supplying only the best ergonomic seating for the modern workspace (it’s most known for the Jarvis adjustable height desk), and the Capisco was the very first product it stocked.
It allows for seating in any way that’s comfortable to you — stool seating, cross-legged, side sitting, sitting backwards and so on. Essentially, it encourages non-static working and provides the means to act on that comfortably.
The Capisco Puls is the slimmer, newer and more affordable version ($300 cheaper) of the chair. Looking at the greater standing desk chair market, you could settle for less, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice.
Best Office Chair for Gaming: Vertagear Triigger 275
The proliferation of the racing-style chair as the defacto “gaming” chair is sad and dumb. The best gaming chair is not about immersing the sitter in the game or looking cool — it’s about support, customization and the ability to remain cool for hours.
Vertagear’s Triigger series of chairs is just this, and the 275 model is the best balance of price and useful features. Though we’ve praised chairs that automatically adjust to all users in this guide, gaming requires a chair fine-tuned to the player. The Trigger 275 allows you to adjust armrest height, seat height, backrest height and lumbar support. And because it’s a mesh chair, you remain cooler for longer, and it doesn’t look juvenile (though you can get it with white, red and blue accents).
The brand offers a premium option, too — the Vertagears 350 comes with an aluminum frame and calfskin leather accents for a couple hundred dollars more.
Best Office Chair for Home Use: Blu Dot Daily Task Chair
Blu Dot’s mantra: bring good design to as many people as possible. As such, the Midwestern company’s designs ride the “I could afford that if I wanted to” line more than any modern furniture brand, and it’s all original, sturdy and hardwearing. The Daily Task Chair isn’t a loud or boastful piece to bring into your own home, but it’s interesting, a bit retro and comes with a few foundational ergonomic perks.
Best Mid-Century Modern Office Chair: Eames Aluminum Group Management Chair
The Eames Management chair is from a time gone by, when office hierarchy was defined by corner offices, over-sized desks and, in this case, a luxe mid-back desk chair. What does that mean? It’s behind some others on this list in the ergonomics department, but it’s miles ahead in style. An aluminum frame, MCL leather and a distinctly mid-century look define the Eameses instantly recognizable seat. (Note: if you regularly spend working hours in your home office chair, we recommend leaning toward the more ergonomic-focused options in this guide.)
Best Office Chair for Conference Rooms: Steelcase Silq
A lack of fiddling with knobs and levers is what separates a good conference room chair from the chair at your desk. When people are coming in and out, there’s no time to pull out a manual to adjust the secondary recline tension. Steelcase’s conference room-minded Silq chair is one of the few examples of affordable passive ergonomics. Other than height, everything about the chair adjusts to the sitter automatically.
Best Office Chair with a Headrest: XG-Wing Management Chair
X-Chair
No chair ticks every box. X-Chairs Wing Management chair comes as close as any. The all-mesh design is plush and allows your body to regulate temperature without getting sweaty with non-breathable materials. The two-part back is a delightful combination of a King Cobra hood and the USS Enterprise “Command Chair,” which, other than looking very futuristic, is a pleasantly intense sight to behold once assembled. The chair’s look, weight and features say it’s time to work. The headrest is mesh, too, and it’s adjustable for sitters with different heights. In short, it twists and turns in every way a body might during an eight-hour workday and it’s made of ultra-light mesh and sturdy metal component parts.
Best Passive Ergonomic Office Chair: Herman Miller Cosm
The success of Herman Miller’s office seating line is unquestioned (just look at our list), but this might be the largest departure from that line since it began. Where our “Best Value” choice was of the old school of passive ergonomics, Cosm is of the new.
Apart from aesthetics and sizing options (the high-backed Cosm is stunning online and in person), the primary functional difference between the two is a single, completely unique innovation — the ability to use your weight to adjust tension to you without the need to slide your body forward or lift you up at all. This sliding and lifting lifts your legs ever so slightly up, resulting in added tension to the body.
It’s a subtle difference, but one no other company had managed until Cosm. In fact, the only reason Herman Miller didn’t release an auto-adjusting chair prior was its inability to solve the riddle of the lifting legs.
Lumens: $895+ | Herman Miller: $895+
Best Leather Office Chair: Humanscale Freedom
American industrial design legend Niels Diffrient authored many products of great importance, but this was his magnum opus. The Freedom chair marks the beginning of the shift away from manually-adjustable office seating (primarily because most people don’t actually know how to adjust the chairs properly) and to self-adjusting chairs.
Specifically, the Freedom chair handles all recline tension and tilt functionality itself, while still allowing you to slide the seat backward or forward and the armrest up and down. Since its release, a hundred or more self-adjusting chairs have cropped up, but few have done so as elegantly as the Freedom chair.
Its base model ships in a PU leather upholstery (as almost all “leather” office chairs do) with a die-cast aluminum frame, but you can special order real leather upon request.
Humanscale: $1,899+ | Amazon: $1,995+
Best Office Chair for Small Work Spaces: Humanscale Diffrient World Chair
Humanscale
Few manufacturers set out to make office chairs specifically for small spaces. This chair, also designed by Diffrient, has armrests that can be lifted or lowered to slide under a desk when not in use, a back high enough to allow for comfortable reclining and a width on the slimmer end.
Instead of chairs requiring manual adjustment via knobs and levers like most task chairs before it, the Diffrient World adapts to the sitter automatically (it was one of the earlier task chairs to do this). It uses your body weight as a counterbalance to allow for seamless and steady reclining and the whole thing is a springy mesh that’s just tight enough to sink into, but not so much to the point of sagging and stretching. It’s also guaranteed to last for 10 years.
Best Luxury Office Chair: Herman Miller Embody
This is not luxury in the plush leather, animal skin, bedazzled sense; it’s luxury in just how effective it is at what it does. Herman Miller puts it this way: “so intelligent, it makes you think.” It prioritizes and glorifies movement above all else — movement lessens muscle tension and increases blood flow, thereby increasing the amount of time your brain operates at a high level, which in turn makes for better work.
Thought up by the late and great Bill Stumpf (father of the Aeron chair) and designed by Jeff Weber with the guidance of a team of 20 physicians and doctors in physical therapy, ergonomics and biomechanics, it uses the human body as its blueprint — a spine with a flexible rib cage bends and turns are you do, and redistributes pressure to lessen tension.
All told, it’s an expensive, luxury office chair, but not because of whims of fanciness and wealth, but because it is a throne built on the idea that a chair doesn’t have to be a health-negative.
Amazon: $1,300+ | Design Within Reach: $1,595 | Herman Miller: $1,595
Honorable Mention: Herman Miller Aeron
The Aeron is the chair against which all other chairs are measured. Not even the worthy competition on this list challenge its status as the most influential office chair of the modern era.
Released in 1994, Aeron is the chair that bookended a shift in task seating design, from a form-first to function-first industry. Its critical, commercial and cultural successes are many. It ushered out clean lines in favor of shapes contouring to the human body, and was the first hugely successful mesh chair. It is among the most customizable designs ever conceived. It’s earned a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art. It’s even 94 percent recyclable, a feature years ahead of its time.
Though the Aeron chair is no longer seating du jour, in style and function, its importance and power is unrivaled.