25 Best Chocolate Bars Ranked in 2025

Pretty much everyone thinks they already know what the best chocolate bar is: even as kids, we all had that one candy we’d trade our friends for on Halloween. But you’re about as likely to get people to agree on a single winner as you are to arrive at a definitive answer in the pineapple-on-pizza debate.

The top candy bars remind many of us of our younger years, and some of them are polarizing on top of that: for every diehard Almond Joy fan, there’s an equally ardent hater. 

That’s the problem we’re here today to solve. We’re here to crown the best-in-show, the no-matter-what-your-taste, the single best chocolate bar in the world. We’ll be looking at a huge range of options, from the best-selling candy bars that headline the fun-sized Trick or Treat package to more unsung gems.

Like any best candy bars list, we’ll weigh taste, originality, and, yes, vibes to figure out who deserves to be ranked among the best chocolate bars on the market. It’s a fraught and noble task, but we’re up for it. 

Come with us to figure out which of the top-ranked chocolate bars reigns supreme. 

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• The 25 Best Candy Bars Ranked

The 25 Best Candy Bars Ranked

25. Lily’s Chocolate

“Sugar-free chocolate” definitely sounds like an oxymoron, but Lily’s caters to the hopeful few true believers who want it to work. It’s an admirable quest, one that has garnered this “no sugar added” chocolate company a pretty sizeable fan base.

And if you must have chocolate but can’t have sugar, it’s going to be the best chocolate bar out there just by virtue of being one of so few that fill that niche. Lily’s has a place in the candy bar ecosystem. But it could also definitely be improved. 

The most glaring problem with this no-sugar-added candy bar, ironically, is the sweetener. In order to get away with the lack of added sugar, Lily’s uses plant-based Stevia. And that alternative sweetener might make Lily’s bars some of the healthiest dark chocolate on the market.

But Stevia also has a notoriously funky aftertaste. Lily’s makes a valiant effort to add a low-sugar option to the world of top-ranked candy bars, but the Stevia flavor is just a little too unpleasant to make that happen. 

24. Reese’s Take 5 

Plenty of people love this uber-overstuffed Reese’s creation, and we respect that. Chocolate, pretzels, peanuts, peanut butter, caramel — it’s easier to name a classic candy bar flavor that isn’t in this bar. That is both its pride and its undoing, a fate that makes it rather unique in the world of the best candy bars.

Most classic chocolate bars keep it simple. We all know Twix for its crunchy biscuit and creamy caramel, or Kit Kat for that airy wafer filling. But Reese’s Take 5 stuffs the titular number of fillings into a single dense, nutty bar. 

Some fans love that idea, singing the praises of this busiest of candy bars, but others insist that too much of a good thing is fatal to a chocolate bar. Unlike its circular sibling, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, Reese’s Take 5 won’t be regarded as one of the best gas station snacks anytime soon. 

23. Almond Joy  

This is the highest we could possibly countenance ranking Almond Joy. That it is still one of the best-selling candy bars does nothing for the traumatic childhood associations many of us have with the brand.

Nobody — or at least nobody we ever knew — wanted the sweet old lady down the street to drop an Almond Joy in their trick-or-treat bag. Suffice to say that it’s never been the most popular candy bar, and that kind of undermines the fact that it’s actually a pretty great concept.

It’s a tad sophisticated for a Halloween candy. Coconut and almond are more muted flavors than are typical in a candy bar, which supporters believe to be what makes it one of the best chocolate bars.

But that also doesn’t always sell well to kids, which is how you end up with that childhood bias against Almond Joy. These days, at least we can admit that Almond Joy belongs somewhere on a best candy bars list, even if it’s near the bottom. 

22. Snickers Peanut Butter 

You might be seeing a trend here by now: amped-up new versions of the best chocolate bars don’t tend to perform very well on this list. That’s not to say that Snickers Peanut Butter doesn’t have potential, but when the original Snickers bar is already so good, why would there be a need to switch things up? That’s what sinks Snickers Peanut Butter in the rankings.

Snickers Peanut Butter has a pretty basic concept: sandwich an extra layer of peanut butter between the usual nougat, caramel and peanuts of a Snickers bar. Since the peanuts are already there, it’s not much of a leap. 

But it’s one more thing on top of the three we already have going on, and it’s not like the original Snickers bar isn’t sweet enough already. Eating a Snickers Peanut Butter is a pleasant experience, sure, but it may be just a little bit too much.

21. Mounds 

You either love coconut or you hate it. Much like Almond Joy, you likely either consider Mounds to be one of the best Halloween candy options or one of the worst. What earns Mounds a few points back over the notorious Almond Joy is the lack of almonds. Now, instead of two controversial flavors, we’ve got just one.

After all, nuts and coconut are two of the most hotly debated ingredients in any dessert. Either you love your brownies with nuts or you can’t stand them; most people either avoid or make a beeline for the coconut truffle in a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates.

Giving one of those two touchy flavors the axe makes Mounds a much more broadly appealing candy bar, hence it’s slightly higher ranking compared to Almond Joy on our list of the best chocolate bars. 

20. Kit Kat  

If you’ve ever had a friend travel to Japan, you’ve probably become aware that Kit Kats are branching out. The trend of unique Kit Kat flavors has started to migrate overseas, making these crunchy chocolate bars some of the most diverse options among the top candy bars.

But we’ll leave the ranking of those novelty flavors to everybody else — what interests us here is how the original bar stacks up. Well enough, all told. There are way more than 25 worthy chocolate bars on the market, so making this list of the best chocolate bars in and of itself proves that. 

Its texture is unique among the best-selling candy bars. It’s lighter and less sugary, which many love. Unfortunately, we find it just a tad bit insubstantial; it doesn’t satisfy us the way many of the best chocolate bars do. 

19. Lindt Excellence 

Lindt Excellence is billed as a chocolate bar for sophisticates. You may not be able to import your chocolate from Switzerland, it posits, but you can shell out a more reasonable sum for this Swiss-founded brand’s premier line of dark chocolate bars. It’s not a dishonest sales pitch: that’s basically what you get here.

The best chocolate bars on this list still top Lindt Excellence in both taste and texture, but it’s a pretty solid bet if you really just want plain dark chocolate. It’s not the best of the best, but it does have a more sophisticated feel than most competitors. It wouldn’t be our first choice, but it also definitely wouldn’t be our last. 

18. Trader Joe’s Mini 70% Dark Chocolate Bars

They may not be the most popular candy bars out there, or even all that well-known, so they lack the iconic status that makes the best candy bars stand out. It’s still solid, though, and surprisingly rich.

If you’re looking for a plain old chocolate bar you can snack on in pre-portioned ease, these are a particularly good choice. At 100 calories per bar (plus all the antioxidants that come with dark chocolate), Trader Joe’s entry for the title of best chocolate bar is also one of the healthiest candy options on the market. 

17. Heath  

We’re big fans of caramel around here, and since toffee is basically caramel’s eccentric older cousin, any toffee-based bar was bound to make a decent showing in our ranking of the best candy bars. 

Heath gets extra points for being an elite baking ingredient: it’s so popular as a mix-in for cookies and brownies (among other treats) that the brand now actually sells busted-up pieces of Heath in bags for baking. 

But on its own, Heath doesn’t quite nail the rich, buttery flavor of toffee. It’s a little flat and can sometimes have a bit of a burnt aftertaste that you really don’t want when it comes to caramel. It’s still tasty, but ultimately better when it doesn’t stand alone. 

16. Hershey’s 

Sometimes the best chocolate bars are the ones that keep it simple. If you’re baking, making s’mores or just looking for a solid, plain bar of chocolate, there’s a lot to like about Hershey’s.

And we’ll give credit where it's due: a plain old Hershey’s bar is delicious, perfectly executing that buttery texture that you look for in a bar of milk chocolate. But there are many higher-quality alternatives if you’re looking for a plain snacking chocolate. Ultimately, it deserves its place among the best chocolate bars mostly because of its versatility. 

15. Skor 

The better toffee bar, albeit one that may be hard to find in the average candy aisle. Unlike Heath, Skor hits all of those buttery, salty notes you’re looking for, and it does it without the weird burnt-sugar taste you sometimes get with its main competitor. If you’re looking for the best chocolate bar with a toffee filling, Skor is definitely your best bet — if you can find it, that is. 

14. Three Musketeers  

Three Musketeers is criminally overlooked. Sure, there’s nothing flashy about its plain nougat filling. But doesn’t that airy, almost spongy texture count for something? It is our very objective and official opinion that those who find it boring simply aren’t appreciating how utterly unique Three Musketeers is. 

There’s really nothing else that tastes quite like it, even among the best chocolate bars in the business, and we’re huge fans. A relative lack of popularity sinks its ranking, but we think you ought to give this fluffiest of candy bars a second look. 

13. Whatchamacallit 

This hard-to-find vintage candy bar fills a surprisingly rare niche: the crunchy chocolate bar. Sure, you can grab a Kit-Kat or Nestlé Crunch any day, but it’s not quite the same as this crispy peanut-butter-and-caramel creation. 

No, this is crunch with substance, and so few of the best chocolate bars fill that niche. If you’re getting a little bored with chewy caramel or smooth dark chocolate, Whatchamacallit is a perfect change of pace. 

12. Baby Ruth  

Baby Ruth is a simple bar: just peanuts and caramel enrobed in chocolate. Sounds like a recipe for one of the best chocolate bars on the market already, and it is. This is one of the best bars for caramel fans, because that really is the bulk of what’s inside. 

And the brilliant use of salty peanuts anticipated the salted caramel craze by several decades. Our only knock against it? Using halved nuts rather than smaller slices is a little bit much. 

11. Milky Way  

Here’s another ubiquitous but ambivalently liked pick on our list of the best chocolate bars that we think people are sleeping on. 

Much like Three Musketeers, many people find Milky Way a little dull. Some think the caramel-nougat combo is too sweet. Others think it just lacks a little je ne sais quoi. 

We would argue two things: first, try freezing a Milky Way, and then come back and tell us you still don’t get it. And second, simplicity is an underrated virtue these days. Milky Way doesn’t do much, but it doesn’t need to. 

That contrast of textures is enough to carry the bar on its own, all the way almost into the top 10 ranks of this list of the best chocolate bars. 

10. Snickers  

Maturing is realizing that Snickers is just a Milky Way with peanuts. We jest, but that really is the substance of this iconic chocolate bar, so of course it had to follow closely on the heels of its nut-free cousin. 

Adding peanuts gives Snickers a little savoriness, which is almost always a smart move when you’re working with such a sweet base flavor. We’re convinced it was these caramel bars with peanuts that first gave some brilliant confectioner the idea to salt a batch of caramel. 

Although it’s inexplicably not always as well-loved as some of its peers, Snickers has an indisputable place among the best chocolate bars. 

9. Butterfinger 

Texture is the name of the game with Butterfinger. The slightly salty peanut butter flavor of this bar isn’t novel, even if it is delicious — what is innovative is the texture. It’s crumbly, flaky, and feels so much lighter than it is. 

And any bar that leaves you wondering how they did that deserves a spot amongst the best chocolate bars in our book. Peanut butter isn’t everyone’s favorite, so Butterfinger doesn’t have quite as much mass appeal as some competing options on this list of the best chocolate bars. 

But it does have something deliciously unique to offer. Few other candies melt in your mouth like this one. 

8. Take 5  

Before Reese’s did its own Take 5, there was this vintage bar with nearly the same ingredients. Unlike its predecessor, though, this one managed the tightrope walk of balancing five flavors in a single bar with ease. 

Although it can be difficult to find these days (you’ll probably have to order it online), its cult following attests to its status as one of the best chocolate bars out there even now. 

7. Nestlé Crunch  

Crispy rice sounds like a bizarre chocolate add-in, but man, did Nestlé know what they were doing when they threw some into a vat of milk chocolate to make this bar.

Although often overlooked for its seemingly plain flavor profile, Nestlé Crunch is doing things with texture that few of the best chocolate bars even attempt, and the result is insanely delicious for those who bother to take notice. Great for when you want a basic chocolate bar with a little something extra.

Not to mention, there are pluses to loving an often-overlooked candy bar. Fans of this pick for the title of best chocolate bar will never find that everyone else has already eaten every bar of their favorite chocolate from the communal candy dish. 

6. Toblerone  

There’s no way Toblerone should be able to taste the way it does. If all it contains are nuts, honey and chocolate, where is that chewy, almost nougat-like texture coming from? Why that hint of caramel instead of honey? 

We have no answers to those questions, but we do have a deep and intense love for these funky triangular Swiss exports. And we have no idea why Toblerone is so often regarded with indifference. It’s not the fate that one of the best chocolate bars out there deserves. 

5. Kinder Bueno  

U.S.-based chocolate lovers often think of European chocolate as inherently fancier than the domestically produced stuff, and that’s sometimes true. No one has to explain that a good bar of Swiss or Belgian chocolate beats just about everything else. 

But recently, more down-to-earth Euro favorites have been making headway in the American market — and it’s honestly not a stretch to say that Kinder Bueno, one of the most successful products, is among the best chocolate bars in the world. 

With a unique, ridge shape, a layer of crunchy wafer, and a smooth hazelnut filling that’s definitely not Nutella (the only context in which most of us will ever taste hazelnut), Kinder Bueno is something totally new. 

The American candy bar market is so saturated with peanut butter and caramel that it’s easy to see the appeal of something so unique — and trust us when we say that texture is addictive. Bueno indeed.

4. Tony’s Chocolonley  

Besides making some of the most ethically produced chocolate on the international market, this brand consistently puts out some of the highest-quality chocolate bars your grocery store will sell. 

Although Dutch-based Tony’s Chocolonely is still a relative newcomer to the American market, you’ll likely be able to find it in supermarkets.

And, you’ll get lots of choices as we rank almost all Tony’s Chocolonely flavors among the best chocolate bars on the market, from classic milk and dark chocolate bars to milk caramel sea salt, dark milk with pretzel, and even white raspberry with popping candy. 

3. Ghirardelli  

The end-all, be-all of plain chocolate bars, at least in the U.S. market. If all you want is a square of plain, well-made grocery store chocolate, it’s incredibly hard to beat this iconic San Francisco chocolatier’s extensive catalogue of chocolate bars. 

They’re great for baking, making hot chocolate, assembling a much-classier-than-necessary s’more or, of course, for snacking. Those filled squares aren’t the only Ghirardelli products worth a little corner of your grocery budget: they’re also a go-to outlet for some of the best chocolate bars in stores. 

As an added bonus, this classy pick for the title of best chocolate bar is one of the best Valentine's candy choices if that pricey box of truffles isn’t looking feasible this year. 

2. Twix  

There’s nothing that quite compares to the first bite of a Twix. First, that crunch as the biscuit gives way; then, your teeth sink into the top layer of dense, chewy caramel — it’s a top-10 dessert experience, no question. 

Twix embodies so much of what’s great about candy bars: the satisfying multilayered sweetness, the balance, the contrast of flavors and textures in a self-contained package. It doesn’t quite top this list of the best chocolate bars, but it sure is close. 

1. 100 Grand 

Criminally underrated, a near-perfect piece of candy: if you’ve never reached for the one with the cheerful red wrapper in a mixed bag of fun-sized chocolate, go. 

It’s like caramel enrobed in a Nestlé Crunch bar, except better (more puffed rice equals a better crunchy-to-chewy ratio, an essential in this case), and we’re unashamed to admit that we’re obsessed. 

We have no idea why 100 Grand never seems to come up in discussions of the best chocolate bars, but we’re doing our best to right that ship. It’s what the Platonic ideal of a candy bar deserves. 

More likely than not, there’s at least one placement on this list of the best candy bars that had you scratching your head. Our opinions on candy tend to run deep, starting from the Halloween that we first fell under the spell of a Hershey’s bar or bit into an Almond Joy and decided we never wanted to taste one again. 

But that’s the fun of a list like this — the debate will never really be over. So we can give it our best shot, but really, who’s to say what the best chocolate bar is in the end? 

For even more ways to explore your favorite foods, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.