16 Popular Candy Bars, Ranked Worst To Best

You've had a long day, but you still have to go to the grocery store to get something for dinner. You trudge through the store, picking out various ingredients, before you finally make your way to the checkout line. Once you're there, your eyes suddenly meet the shining beacon of the candy bar section. There, staring back at you, is tonight's dessert — or your snack for the way home from the store. But which candy bar should you choose? With so many options at your disposal, this exercise in treat acquisition can be tricky.

Well, I've tried to narrow down your options by tasting 16 different popular candy bars, all to determine which are worth buying and which aren't. Of course, we all have different preferences when it comes to these treats, so we may not agree on every single product. But hopefully, through my taste-testing experience, you can choose a better one the next time you need a quick pick-me-up. I've ranked these bars from worst to best, keeping both flavor and texture in mind while assessing the quality of the ingredients.

For the chocolate lovers out there, it should come as no surprise that Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar comes in last place in this ranking. The quality of the chocolate is the main problem here. Compared to most of the other bars on this list, this stuff tastes cheap and bland, offering none of the creamy richness you'd expect from other brands. That lack of quality seems to be obscured by a lot of sugar — like, too much sugar — but that excess of sweetness only detracts from the flavor even more.

Even other chocolate bars that are on the cheaper end of the spectrum usually have some other ingredients and textures that can distract from the main attraction. Here, though, the unadorned chocolate is naked and exposed — there's nothing to compete with it. If you haven't had a lot of different chocolate brands out there, it may not seem so bad. But once you expand your chocolate worldview, you probably won't seek out this candy bar very often.

As the only candy bar on this list that doesn't contain any chocolate, it shouldn't be too surprising that Payday is near the bottom of the ranking. A candy bar sans chocolate is just sad, to be frank, and it's not like you're getting amazing quality ingredients with the stuff that is included. The caramel-y center is tough and sticky, making it slightly hard to chew and leaving an unpleasant residue on your molars. I'm almost certain my dentist wouldn't encourage me to eat this on the regular.

The peanuts don't do much to flatter this candy bar either. The fact that those peanuts are quite salty at least makes it more balanced than some, but the end result still isn't delicious. Luckily, the brand does offer a chocolate-covered option, so if you're a big fan of those salty peanuts, it may be worth checking out.

If you ask me, a certified nut lover, peanuts are the absolute worst nut. They lack the subtlety and creamy texture of other alternatives, instead offering a bold but simple flavor that overpowers just about everything it touches. Therefore, no peanut-based candy bar is going to rank high on any list I write. It's understandable, then, why Butterfinger has earned its spot on the lower end of this ranking. Blessedly, this peanut-blasted abomination comes covered with a layer of chocolate, which is why it's not ranked lower. Still, it leaves me with an overall bad impression.

One thing there is to like about Butterfinger is its unique texture, with a peanut-y, layered inside hidden by a relatively thick layer of chocolate. The problem is that the peanut butter is so intense that it distracts from anything else going on in the mixture. This certainly isn't the worst candy bar you could buy, but it's also not great.

I'll just cut to the chase here: Heath bars aren't great. It takes one of the all-time worst candies — toffee — breaks it into pieces, and covers it in bad milk chocolate. Take a bite, and most of what you'll taste is the chocolate itself, as the toffee's flavor isn't very pronounced. But you'll still be left with sticky, flavorless little pieces of the brittle English confection stuck to your teeth. So, not only does it lack the deliciousness that a good candy bar should offer, but now you have to worry about cavities to boot.

No surprise, Heath bars are made by Hershey, which explains the not-so-great quality of the chocolate used in the recipe. There's something more going on than just the chocolate, so it's definitely better than a plain Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar, but you're still better off finding one of the other brands ranked higher on this list.

Are Milky Way bars bad? No, not really. But they're nothing to get particularly excited about, either. This is one brand of confectionery that I never, ever think about unless it sneaks its way into a mixed assortment of those fun-sized bars. The dominant flavor here is the caramel, and there is far too much of it, resulting in a sticky texture that can be difficult to chew. This is not the candy bar, for example, I'd give to someone with braces. The nougat also adds very little in terms of flavor, and it creates a sort of gummy texture that's innocuous but not super enjoyable.

The caramel and nougat are covered in milk chocolate, and it doesn't taste very high-quality. It's also quite sweet, which, when combined with the other ingredients, results in an overpowering sugariness that's just not that appealing. It's not terrible, but there are much better candy bars out there.

Snickers bars are very similar to Milky Ways, except instead of just caramel and nougat, they also boast crunchy peanuts. This does bring them in slightly ahead of Milky Ways, since that added layer of crunch is a nice touch that makes for a more texturally interesting candy bar. And if you really like peanuts, this may even be one of your favorites. But overall, it just doesn't come together for me. There's basically no flavor balance here — everything is too sweet, with nothing to break up all that sugar. Even the peanuts taste like they're lacking salt, which is the whole point of eating them in the first place.

Similar to Milky Ways, Snickers don't seem to utilize high-quality chocolate. If you're just paying attention to this ingredient, you're left with a less-creamy texture in your mouth. Admittedly, though, this is probably one of the more filling candy bars on this list, so that's a plus if you're super hungry and looking for a quick, sweet, and easy snack.

Here's another one that's quite similar to both Milky Way and Snickers. This one differs from both, though, in its lack of caramel and peanuts. Instead, it just has that nougat center, which is wrapped in a blanket of milk chocolate. Out of all three of these candy bars, 3 Musketeers is absolutely the best. It doesn't have any of the overwhelming heaviness of the other two, and since it's absent that caramel layer, it doesn't seem as painfully sweet as either Snickers or Milky Way.

However, compared to other less similar candy bars on the market, this is still far from my favorite. Again, the chocolate quality here doesn't taste great, and there still isn't a lot of flavor balance. The fluffy texture is pleasant, but it's not particularly interesting, either. For a mainstream, affordable candy bar that's available just about everywhere, 3 Musketeers isn't bad, but it's far from first place.

Does Cadbury offer the most amazing quality chocolate on the market? No, far from it. But compared to the brands we've covered so far, it's arguably much better. There's actually an element of milky creaminess here, which makes it more appealing than the rougher, blander options on this list. Admittedly, the Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut bar is too sweet — even though that creamy richness offers a nice texture, the sugar content is way, way too high for my liking.

But when it comes to this candy bar, it's not all about the chocolate. The inclusion of dried fruits and nuts — specifically, almonds and raisins — makes for an interesting twist on what would otherwise be a rather boring treat. You have some crunch from the almonds, and the raisins offer a subtle fruitiness along with a chewy texture. It's not a candy bar I would choose if there were plenty of other alternatives, but it's tasty enough that I wouldn't turn it down if it were offered to me.

If I were tasting and ranking actual Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, they would be near the very top of this list. But, alas, they're not technically candy bars, so I had to include Reese's Peanut Butter Bar instead. Some of what makes classic Reese's cups so good is still there — notably, that signature salty peanut butter. But the real joy of the classic candy is the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter. The top layer of chocolate on a Reese's cup is quite thin, allowing the peanut butter to take center stage with just a touch of sweetness. And unfortunately, you won't get that same texture from this bar, since the chocolate layer is quite a bit thicker.

When you taste a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, you're not actually getting much chocolate at all, which allows you to ignore its relatively low quality. With this candy bar, though, that chocolate plays a more important role, so you get more of a sense that it's not actually that good. This confection is decent, but the original it was based on is much, much better.

There are some candy bars out there (looking at you, Snickers) that are just too much. They're too rich, too heavy, and have too much going on. But you won't have that problem when you break into a Kit Kat candy bar. That's because this is an especially light treat, which is why it's ranked higher than most of the other lower-quality chocolate brands on this ranking. Is the chocolate included in this recipe very good? Not really. It's too sweet and is largely lacking the creaminess you'd get from a better brand.

Where Kit Kat really delivers is on texture. The thin wafers under the chocolate are undeniably enjoyable to bite into and offer a light crisp, not a crunch. Plus, breaking the bar into those thin pieces is deeply pleasurable in a way I don't totally understand. When it comes to relatively cheap candy bars on the market, Kit Kat is definitely near the top of the list.

For many of us, learning to enjoy dark chocolate is a journey. We start with milk varieties, preferring the sweet, less creamy taste to the stronger, richer, and more bitter flavors we encounter in darks. But as time goes on, we learn to appreciate that richness more, embracing slightly bitter flavors until some of us go on to become hardcore dark chocolate lovers, often shunning the milk versions of our favorites. Cadbury Royal Dark is a sort of stepping stone between those two realities.

It's quite a bit richer and more bitter than other Cadbury candy bars you'll come across, but it still offers quite a bit of sweetness. Although this isn't the best-quality chocolate of all the options on this list, it's quite a bit better than many of them, offering a rich creaminess that's undeniably tasty. There's not much going on here besides the flavor of the chocolate itself, but that's earned this candy bar its spot in the top half of this ranking.

If Cadbury's Royal Dark Chocolate bar is dark chocolate for beginners, then Ghirardelli Intense Dark 86% Cacao is for experienced aficionados. It's not for the faint of heart — you're getting a lot more bitterness than sweetness. For me personally, that's not a bad thing. With that bitterness comes complexity and richness, which makes this a particularly nice candy bar to enjoy with a cup of coffee. Its lower sugar content also makes it easier to enjoy a square or two and put the rest away instead of devouring the whole thing. Since the flavor is so intense, it's hard to take a lot of it all at once.

There are creamier, richer candy bars on the market, yes, and this particular choice doesn't offer much in the way of texture — it's just chocolate and nothing else. That's why there are others that I've ranked higher. But when you're looking for a solid dark chocolate bar that's not too sweet, this one should definitely be on your list.

This may be controversial, but I absolutely stand by my opinion that Almond Joy is one of the best candy bars on the market. The quality of the chocolate is questionable, which is why it's not ranked even higher. But since it comprises such a small part of the confection, it's not too much of a problem. The main thing this candy bar has going for it is the texture. Under a thin layer of milk chocolate, you'll find soft, pillowy, almost gooey shredded coconut, sweetened to perfection. It's super sweet, yes, but not so much that you'll feel like brushing your teeth immediately afterward. Then you add in the crunch of the almond, and you can understand why Almond Joy absolutely takes the cake when it comes to texture. Eat it in two bites for maximum deliciousness!

Unfortunately, Mounds — Almond Joy's dark chocolate counterpart — does not come with almonds, which would make it possibly the greatest candy bar of all time. Alas, we'll have to settle with Almond Joy's milk chocolate coating ... but I certainly can't complain too much about that.

Sometimes, when you go down the candy aisle at your local grocery store, you need something unique, something different. There may be plenty of bars to choose from, but when you're searching for something that's just a slight departure from the norm, you might want to try Lindt Excellent Chili Dark Chocolate bar. Yes, it's just what it sounds like: A dark chocolate bar spiked with a subtle heat from chili. Don't worry — it isn't super spicy. Rather, you're just getting a hint of the chili, which provides a gentle kick that makes every bite that much more appealing.

This is a very approachable dark chocolate — even if you're not a big fan of it in general, the bar is still worth a try. And since you can't find chili-spiked dark chocolate from every brand, this confection gets bonus points. Sure, it may not have a lot going on texturally, but when you're dealing with such an unusual flavor for a candy bar, texture is less important than usual.

Plain old sweet caramel is out, and salted is in. It works so much better than the unsalted variety because you're not just dealing with an overly sticky sweetness mucking up your candy bar. Rather, you get a balanced and complex flavor profile that makes you look forward to each and every bite you take. Mix that salted caramel with a thin, dark chocolate coating, and you have a candy bar that rises above the rest. That's exactly what you're getting when you choose this Lake Champlain treat.

The quality of the chocolate here is obviously quite high, with its luscious, almost velvety richness and depth of flavor. But it isn't too dark — at just 57% cocoa, it's accessible even to dark chocolate newbies. Give it a try if you're looking for an alternative to the lower-quality candy bars out there. You won't be disappointed.

When it comes to chocolate quality, you're not going to find a lot of options at your local grocery store that are better than Tony's Chocolonely. Yes, this stuff is pricey, but it's worth it if you want to have the best possible candy bar experience. The chocolate is delicious all by itself, and the crunch of the pretzel and slightly sticky but restrained toffee creates a super-interesting combo of textures. It absolutely takes the top spot on this list.

Instead of being broken up into identical squares, you can break-off different, irregularly sized pieces of chocolate from this bar for a more engaging candy-eating experience. Sure, you'll pay more for it. But considering that the brand offers higher prices for cocoa farmers, it's definitely worth spending that extra cash if you have it.

I tasted all of these candy bars at the same time, on their own. They are ranked according to texture, flavor, and quality of the ingredients used, with a particular focus on how well-balanced the flavors are. Richer, creamier, and more complex candy bars tended to rank higher than their simpler, lower-quality counterparts. Chocolate quality was specifically taken into consideration, considering it's in all but one of these candy bars.