Rollerblade is probably the most popular brand of inline skates in the world. They are so popular that their brand is synonymous with inline skates, with rollerblades meaning inline skates and rollerblading meaning inline skating. You probably can't go wrong with buying skates from Rollerblade, and they sell a wide variety of skates such as fitness skates, urban skates, speed skates and aggressive (street) skates.
Powerslide is one of the most well-known brands in inline skating as they have been around since 1994. They're pretty reputable and their skates work pretty well, although there have been some comments about their skates not being of the best quality. Like Rollerblade, Powerslide also sells a wide variety of skates, such as fitness skates, urban skates and speed skates. They also have a YouTube channel where they talk about they specs of their products, post inline skating tutorials and videos of professional skaters skating.
Seba Skates is a premium skate company owned by Sebastien Laffargue. They are well-regarded in the inline skating community and are a go-to brand for most skaters, especially for urban and freestyle skates. Every single one of their skates is designed for slalom use, which means they do not sell other types of skates. Their skates are of excellent quality, so you won't ever go wrong with buying one of their skates.
FR Skates is another premium skate company owned by Sebastien Laffargue. FR Skates was created because there was a point in time when Seba was suing their manufacturing partners for not respecting the agreement about Seba's brand ownership (the manufacturing partners wanted to take over Seba from Sebastien). Since the outcome of that lawsuit wasn't known, Sebastien decided to take the team members at Seba, as well as some of their skate designs, and move them to an independent company called FR Skates, which Seba's manufacturing partners didn't have any control over. He did this so that he could at least retain some parts of Seba if the lawsuit didn't go in his favour. In the end, he managed to retain control of Seba and work out a new working agreement with other partners after the lawsuit concluded, hence he now owns both Seba and FR. Like Seba, FR skates are highly regarded among skaters and are another fan favourite in the inline skating community. The quality of FR skates is on par, if not better, than Seba. Like Seba skates, FR skates are mostly designed with slalom in mind and thus their skates are mostly for freestyle and urban purposes. However, they do sell the UFR Street AP (Antony Pottier), which is an aggressive skate with a UFS version of the FR boot. Either way, you can't go wrong buying an FR skate.
Micro is a Swiss company started in 1996 that specialises in scooters but expanded into selling inline skates in 2002. Their skates are of decent quality and are not too pricey, but they aren't really talked about or recommended much by the inline skating community. They do sponsor a YouTuber by the name of Ricardo Lino though, so you can find reviews about Micro skates from his channel. They are mostly focused on urban skates, so most of their lineup is just urban skates, though they also do sell fitness skates, a large portion of those fitness skates caters to kids. Overall, their skates are decent and are priced decently, but aren't very popular.
Flying Eagle Skates is a relatively new company focusing on providing cheap but good quality skates. You'll find that most of their skates are much cheaper than most other brands and their regular skates usually don't cost more than $400. They're getting increasingly popular in recent years due to their low price and good quality. A highly recommended brand if you want a good skate at a low price, or are just looking to try out inline skating. They sell urban skates, speed skates, aggressive skates and even ice skates.
Adapt Skates is a Dutch inline skate company founded by Olga Bouwhuis and Pieter Wijnant which specialises in high-quality, handmade skates. Since their skates are handmade and of high quality, their skates are pretty expensive as well, with the prices starting at $700 for a pair of skates. They make urban skates, speed skates, aggressive skates and wizard skates.
K2 is a large company that specialises in fitness skates. They provide decent skates at a low cost for people looking to skate for fitness or recreational purposes. That said, they also do sell speed skates, though they aren't really recommended much and it's a good idea to look elsewhere if you want quality speed skates. They also sell ice skates if you're into that as well.
Oxelo is Decathlon's in-house skate brand that aims to provide decent skates at a low price. They mostly focus on selling fitness skates, with about half of them tailored for kids. However, they also sell some urban skates for people who want to get serious about skating without spending too much money. Out of all of the inline skating brands, Oxelo skates are generally the cheapest skates you can find, and that includes K2, so they're a good first choice for someone who is just looking to try out skating and aren't sure if they'll stick with it for the long term. It is an excellent brand for beginner skaters.
Freestyle Skate is a Korean company that specialises in customisable urban and freestyle skates, which means you can contact them to have them customise a model to your liking. They also do sell regular, uncustomised models at retailers and they usually look quite flashy and have a lot going on with the colours. However, they aren't really well-known and there are pretty much no reviews for their skates. Their skates aren't cheap either, costing around $200 for their entry-level skates, like the Freestyle M1 skates. In Singapore, their Freestyle M1 skates seem to be the go-to recommendation for a beginner who intends to get serious about skating, at least in tertiary skate clubs, but there isn't much about them online, which is not a great sign. It also doesn't help that the name of the brand is a style of skates, so you'll just end up finding freestyle and urban skates from other brands when you try to search for their skates and hence, not much is known about Freestyle. In general, you should look elsewhere for freestyle and urban skates as they're much better options at a lower price point, such as the Nexus Phantom.
Nexus is Hvper Sport's in-house brand and they only have one model of inline skate available for sale, the Nexus Phantom. Since it is the in-house brand of a Singaporean skate shop, it is quite difficult to find reviews about the brand, but the Nexus Phantom seems to be quite popular and quite well-regarded amongst Singaporean skaters. At $179, it is not too expensive for a pair of decent urban skates. They are suitable for pretty much everyone and are a good choice for people who are just starting out. The best part about it is that you can get a 20% discount on it if you're a tertiary student in Singapore, which brings the price down to $149.
Impala is mainly a budget roller skating company that happens to also sell inline skates. Their skates are exceptionally bright and colourful. You won't find many dark-coloured Impala skates as they are targeted towards the people who want their skates to double as a fashion accessory. Their skates also have a retro vibe and feel to them. However, they have a pretty bad reputation in the roller skating community due to false advertising and poor-quality skates. There are numerous reports of their roller skates falling apart after about 2 to 3 weeks of normal use, which is terrible for a skate. They also advertise their roller skates as being suitable for skate parks when they are absolutely not. Their products are pretty cheap, but the quality is sub-par so buy at your own risk. For their inline skates, they are suitable for light use on boardwalks and pavements as they aren't performant enough for other uses. You could also convert the Impala inline skates to an aggressive skate, but there are much better options out there. Overall, you should only buy these skates if you care more about aesthetics than performance, are on a budget, and only skate recreationally.
Bont is well known in the roller skating community for their affordable yet high-quality roller skates, unlike Impala. They also make ice skates as well as inline skates. For inline skating, they only do speed skates and hence aren't mentioned a lot as most skaters don't use speed skates, but they seem to be pretty decent and one of the first few brands to be mentioned when recommending speed skates. If you're looking for a speed skate, getting a Bont skate might be a good idea.
Takino is a Chinese inline skate brand that specialises in speed skates. Their speed skates are really expensive, often costing more than a thousand dollars for just the boot, since they include carbon fibre in the design and are of very high quality. They also make speed slalom skates, though it seems like those are only found on their website. The retailers that stock their skates only seem to stock their speed skates. Overall, if money is no object and you are a professional speed skater, then maybe you could consider getting a Takino speed skate. Otherwise, there are cheaper and more suitable options for the average skater.
China Cougar is a skate brand that sells skate products like skateboards, scooters, ice skates, roller skates and of course, inline skates. They only sell fitness, urban and speed skates though. They aren't really well-known and they don't get a lot of mentions in the inline skating community. They seem to be making generic skates that are sometimes rebranded by other less well-known skate brands. As such, they seem to be pretty cheaply made but are still alright. All in all, there are just much better skates from more reputable brands, so you should avoid getting Cougar skates unless it is your only option (which is usually not the case).
USD is the aggressive skate sub-brand for Powerslide, which is why you don't see Powerslide selling any aggressive skates. USD only makes and sells aggressive skates, but their aggressive skates are some of the best out there, often with multiples of their skates appearing on top 5 and top 10 lists. The prices they charge are also one of the lowest out of all the aggressive skate brands, which makes aggressive skating more accessible to beginners who just want to try it out. The USD Aeon is one of the most popular aggressive skates out there, thanks to its decent pricing and being lighter than pretty much every single aggressive skate out there. Overall, USD is a great brand to go with for aggressive skates and you can't really go wrong with them.
Roces is a company that is known mostly for its aggressive skates. You'd almost always find one of their aggressive skates inside a top 5 or top 10 list of aggressive skates. That being said, they also sell roller skates and ice skates, as well as skates that are meant for fitness and recreational purposes, with quite a few of them being targeted towards kids. However, their fitness and recreational skates are rarely recommended anywhere and there are much better options out there for a lower price, such as K2 and Rollerblade.
Razors is a skate company in California that specialises in aggressive skates. You'll only find aggressive skates from them and their skates are decently priced. You will find that the Razors SL, Razors Shift and the Razors Cult appear on quite a few top 10 lists for aggressive skates, so they're a good choice if you're looking to get an aggressive skate at a decent price.
Them Skates is an aggressive skate brand owned and operated by Jon Julio, and he makes the best aggressive skates on the market today, with the Them Skate 909 coming in first in pretty much every single top 5 or 10 list. Them Skates also sells skates for urban skating, called the Them 80s, but they aren't ideal as they're just the Them 909 aggressive skates fitted with 80mm wheels. Either way, you should definitely get a Them Skate if you are interested in aggressive skating and don't mind paying a premium.
Luminous Wheels is yet another company owned by Sebastien Laffargue and as the name suggests, they specialise in producing high-quality light-up wheels. While the wheels are of very high quality, they are quite expensive, costing about $15 per wheel. You do get what you pay for though, and it's the go-to recommendation for LED wheels in the inline skating community.
Undercover is a sub-brand of Powerslide that specialises in wheels. They make high-quality wheels for urban and aggressive skating which contain their Ultra High Rebound (UHR) compound that apparently provides superior cushioning and increased responsiveness. They are also made in the USA. Their wheels aren't the cheapest, with the price of a single wheel ranging from $9 - $30. However, their wheels are one of the most trusted and well-known by the inline skating community, with them being the reference when it comes to wheel comparisons. If you want to upgrade your wheels, looking through the Undercover catalogue would be a good place to start.
Mushroom Blading is a company run by 4 skaters, namely Joey McGarry, Todd Mcinerney, Joe Garry and Rod Kinney. They specialise in high-quality wheels and have wheels for all styles of skating. Their wheels are not the priciest but are still relatively expensive at about $10 per wheel. The wheels are high quality and are really good for the price. If you want an affordable yet high-quality wheel that performs wheel, you should look into getting Mushroom Blading wheels.
Famus Wheels is a French company that specialises in wheels for inline and roller skates. Their wheels are very different from most other wheels in that they have an aluminium core, which makes the wheels sturdier and feel more responsive. Their wheels are on the pricier side, with each wheel going for about $20 - $30. The additional cost likely comes from that metal core. However, having a metal core also comes with some drawbacks, like needing a bearing press to be able to change the bearings as the bearings are very tightly fitted and aluminium doesn't flex as much as plastic does. Overall, they are great wheels if you want wheels that feel more responsive and look cool (that metal core is sick).
Junk Wheels are, surprisingly, not junk. They are racing wheels made in the USA. Despite their name, Junk Wheels are actually very pricey and don't come cheap, with a single wheel coming in at about $30 to $50. The wheels being made in the USA could explain some of that cost, but it is still far more expensive than most other wheels out there. They claim to be the fastest wheels in the world and are designed to maximise speed. However, they don't get a lot of reviews or mentions, which isn't unusual considering that most skaters would just stick with the stock wheels that come with their skates, but that also makes it difficult to verify their claim of being the fastest wheels in the world. That said, they are generally good wheels, with most reviews about them being positive, but you can probably find cheaper alternatives elsewhere.
九轮至尊刹车轮, or God wheels in English, are probably the best wheels for sliding and are highly recommended by sliders. The unusual thing about these wheels is that they come ready to slide, with zero break-in time. When new, these wheels have a powdery feel on the surface and are extremely smooth. These wheels probably slide better when they are new than when broken in, which is rare for inline skate wheels in general. Inline skate wheels usually come with a sticky surface and slide poorly until you grind off that sticky layer after breaking them in by doing T-stops. Hence, most slide wheels also slide poorly when new and need breaking in, but these wheels surprisingly don't. There are multiple different versions of these wheels which are designated by their colour. The 4th generation wheels have a hardness rating of 88A and have two colours, red and white. The 5th generation wheels have a hardness rating of 89A and have two colours, green and pink. The 6th generation wheels have a hardness rating of 93A and only have a black colour. The best wheels to buy are the 6th generation black wheels. The 4th generation white wheels are great too, but the black wheels wear down slower thanks to their higher hardness rating. The 4th generation red wheels should be as good as the white ones but are much harder to find. The 5th generation green and pink wheels don't slide as well as the 4th and 6th generation wheels, despite having a higher hardness rating than the 4th generation wheels. Also, these wheels are extremely cheap since they come from China, with each wheel costing roughly SGD 2.40 (with bearings and spacers included, as there is an option to skip those and pay less), making them ridiculously cheap compared to most other brands of inline skate wheels. However, these wheels coming from China make them more difficult to buy, as they are only available through the Chinese shopping platform called TaoBao, which is entirely in Chinese. A decent understanding of Chinese is required to navigate the site, so you can have a friend who understands Chinese to procure the wheels for you if you don't. These wheels should be bought in bulk, as the shipping from China may not be cheap. All in all, if you are a slider looking for great slide wheels, you can't go wrong with 九轮至尊刹车轮.
Wizard is the company that spawned the style of skating called wizard skating. It is owned by Leon Basin, who is also the owner of the inline skate retailer Shop Task. The Wizard shop mainly just sells their wizard frames, which are produced and designed by them. The other things in the shop are just top-quality liners, boots, wheels and bearings from other companies such as Intuition and Seba that you can find elsewhere. Their products are incredibly expensive, which is quite understandable given that all of their products are premium and of top quality. Overall, unless you want the best of the best and want to burn a huge hole in your pocket, you should be buying from somewhere else. And yes, that includes their proprietary frames as well.
Like Wizard, Endless is a company that specialises in frames, specifically wizard frames. Endless frames are far cheaper than their wizard counterparts, though their frames are different from the original wizard frames. However, they're far cheaper than wizard frames which makes wizard skating more accessible to a much larger group of skaters. Their frames are about half the price of regular wizard frames, which means you can try out wizard skating at an affordable price. Similar to Wizard, the other products in the Endless shop are mostly just products from other brands, except for the Endless wheels. If you're looking to give wizard skating a go, you would do well to pick up an Endless frame.
Kizer is a sub-brand of Powerslide that specialises in frames, mostly aggressive skate frames, but they do sell a few freestyle and wizard frames. Their frames are pretty affordable, especially when compared to the other frames out there. If you want to change the frames on your aggressive skates or try out wizard skating, you should see if Kizer can meet your needs before going to other brands.
MyFit is a sub-brand of Powerslide specialising in liners. Their liners are excellent and are a good upgrade to the stock liners that come with your skates. They are quite expensive, but it is probably worth it if you want more comfort out of your skates and don't want to pay the premium price for Intuition liners. Of course, MyFit liners would never match up to the far more pricey and premium Intuition liners, but they're great for their price. These liners are also one of the big reasons skaters choose to buy Powerslide and USD skates over skates from other brands, as they are more comfortable.
Intuition Liners is a company that specialises in premium boot liners for all kinds of boots for various activities, such as skiing, mountaineering, snowboarding, ice skating and inline skating. Their liners are known to be the best in the world and many swear by them. They cost a fortune, but it is definitely worth the money for the additional comfort.