The Best Standing Desks

An electric, height-adjustable standing desk provides the best of both worlds.

No matter how great your office chair is, you’re not doing your body any favors by sitting in it for the whole day. But being on your feet constantly isn’t good for your comfort or health, either.

We favored desks with 30-day refunds (at least), free return shipping, and assembly that’s no more challenging than for IKEA furniture.

Your workspace is highly personal, and that includes your desk. So we looked for models that offered lots of customization options.

Since good desks are a big investment, we think they should come with excellent, fast customer service and at least a five-year warranty.

We selected desks with frames that fit people under 5-foot-4 (the average height of US women), as well as those suited to taller people.

Want a productivity and energy boost? Push a button to raise the desk so you can move a little while working. Feel like leaning back in your chair for some deep focus time? Push another button to lower the desk.

For years, the Uplift V2 Standing Desk has been our pick for the best standing desk for most people. It accommodates a wide range of heights, and it’s stable even at its tallest setting. And it has a greater variety of attractive customization options than you’ll find on any competitor.

Our pick

Uplift V2 Standing Desk

A first-rate, good-looking, customizable standing desk

This is the most customizable desk we’ve ever tested, and it works for a wide range of heights (people between 5-foot-4 and 7 feet).

Buying Options

Of the desks we’ve tested, the Uplift V2 Standing Desk offers the best mix of performance and features. It responds quickly to control-pad input (from your choice of five keypad designs), and it produces minimal wobble, even at tall heights.

It accommodates average seated and standing heights for men and women. But if you’re under 5-foot-4, this desk likely won’t work for you if you don’t use a footrest. In that case, we recommend the Fully Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk or the Fully Jarvis Laminate Standing Desk with the three-stage low-range frame.

We found the Uplift V2’s walnut laminate to be attractive and realistic, and panelists loved the look of the 1-inch curved bamboo desktop, as well. If you’d prefer a different style, Uplift has more than 30 desktop options, including several unusual but expensive wood tops, such as acacia and pheasantwood.

You can also choose from four frame colors, five grommet colors, and three keypad colors, as well as multiple add-on accessories.

The Fully Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk and the Fully Jarvis Laminate Standing Desk have the same frame, with different top options to suit various preferences. These models offer everything we look for in a good adjustable-height standing desk: a wide range of heights to accommodate most people, a long warranty, and stability in line with that of most other desks we tested.

The Jarvis was our top pick for more than four years, and it’s still a great desk—one that’s become even better with frame improvements that have reduced wobbling at all heights.

This desk doesn’t have as many customization options as the Uplift V2. But when it’s equipped with its three-stage low-range frame, it works for people as short as 4-foot-9.

The laminate tops we tested look great but are prone to smudging, so if you can spend a bit more, we recommend the bamboo top.

Also great

Branch Duo Standing Desk

Best for tall-ish folks and small spaces

This desk works well for small spaces, and it has a height-adjustment range that’s ideal for people between 5-foot-8 and 6-foot-5. But the controls aren’t intuitive and have limited preset options.

Buying Options

We like that the Branch Duo Standing Desk comes with a compact, 36-by-24-inch desktop that works well for small spaces, like a home office or studio apartment.

Surprisingly for a small desk, it has a two-tier lifting column that’s ideal for people between 5-foot-8 and 6-foot-5. Most other two-tier lifting columns we’ve found accommodate narrower height ranges, such as between 5-foot-8 and 6 feet. While the Duo’s height adjustment range of 28 to 47.5 inches works best for taller people, even our 5-foot-tall panelists and a panelist in an electric wheelchair said they could adjust it to their liking. (It’s best to find your height preferences and consider your ergonomic setup before selecting a good standing desk.)

But the Branch Duo has only five laminate finishes, and it doesn’t offer nearly as many customizable features as our Uplift and Fully picks. The control paddle can also be clunky to use, and it can’t accommodate more than two presets, which may be an issue in multi-user households or offices.