Wirecutter has been reviewing monitor arms since 2016. In that time, we’ve researched more than 70 monitor arms and tested over 20 with monitors of different sizes and weights. We test monitor arms as we do other things, including essential ergonomic home-office gear such as laptop stands and standing desks: We set up and use each arm side by side against competitors to see which models we would recommend to friends and loved ones depending on their needs.

We also referred to advice from ergonomic experts. For our latest update, we interviewed Lisa Zakhari, ergonomist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, over email to better understand the ideal placement of a monitor.

If you work at a computer for long periods of time, an ergonomic setup with proper screen positioning can help prevent back and neck pain. What is proper? Well, it’s definitely not hunching over a laptop.

Lisa Zakhari told us that no matter what kind of screen you’re looking at, the top of the screen should be at eye level. (If you wear progressive lenses, the monitor height may need to be slightly lower, depending on if you’re looking down into the lenses.) “You want the head to be neutral when the user looks at the monitor,” Zakhari said. (Previous expert advice recommended that the eyeline be 2 to 3 inches below the monitor casing, but that accounted for monitors with much larger bezels than exist today.)

A monitor arm or stand can position one or more external monitors at the proper height for you. But you might not need one. Our monitor picks come with adjustable stands that work for most people in most setups. If your monitor’s stand can’t go as high as you need, a sturdy book or two could provide extra elevation.

Those options, however, take up more space on your desk and don’t let you easily move the monitor left and right, move it forward and back, or rotate it. If you need those features, you should get a monitor arm.

A monitor arm also makes it easier for people of varying heights to share a workstation, since you can quickly move the monitor to make easy, on-the-fly adjustments. You can also do this if you want to show something on your screen to someone else in the room without making them come to your desk and hunch over.

If you have a standing desk but still can’t get the proper monitor height while sitting or standing, a monitor arm can help. However, in most cases these arms aren’t a good option to convert a standard, fixed-height desk into a sit-stand desk. For example, for one of our testers, who is 5-foot-2 and has a desk that’s 29 inches tall, fully extended monitor arms still put the screens below their eye level when they’re standing; a standing desk converter would be a better option in this case.

If you don’t need to frequently change the height or position of your monitor, a stand or riser is a simple alternative. It’s like a shelf or a mini table that you place on your desk to raise the monitor a few inches. Most offer room beneath the top of the stand for your laptop or accessories.

Before you invest in a monitor arm or stand, it’s a good idea to take a few measurements to figure out exactly what you need. We recommend taking the following steps:

1. Look up your monitor model to find its weight.
2. Measure the distance from the top of your desk to your eye level; this can be approximate. Repeat this step if you switch between sitting and standing while working.

When buying a monitor arm:

3. Confirm whether your monitor can use a VESA mount, which is what most monitor arms use to attach to the monitor; Ergotron has a monitor-lookup tool that can help.
4. With your monitor roughly an arm’s distance away, measure the distance from your eyes to the monitor. This is the “arm extension reach” that a monitor arm should offer.
5. Measure your desktop’s thickness.

With all of that information in hand, look at the specs of any monitor arm or stand you’re considering to determine whether it would suit you. We’ve listed these specs for our picks above.

It’s easy to get lost in the jungle of available monitor arms, since most of them look pretty similar and offer close to identical specs. Based on our previous years of testing and writing about monitor arms, here’s what we’ve found takes a monitor arm from passable to great.

• Support for multiple monitor sizes: Because 27-inch monitors have become so common—they don’t cost much more than smaller displays—we consider only monitor arms that can handle a screen at least that size. All the models we’ve tested can work with smaller displays, and a few can even hold larger displays, up to 34 inches.
• Wide range of motion: Everyone has a different body, a different monitor, and a different desk setup, so the wider range of motion a monitor arm has, the easier it is for you to get the perfect placement for your display—especially if more than one person uses it. Vertical movement (up and down) is the most important range if you work at a sit-stand desk, but side to side, forward and back, and rotation and tilt are also crucial for achieving ideal ergonomics for a wide range of people, postures, and workflows.
• Smoothness of motion: We prefer monitor arms that are firm enough to stay put while we work but can reposition easily and don’t require too much force.
• Long warranty: Monitor arm technology doesn’t change radically and doesn’t warrant a replacement every few years. Instead, you can expect a monitor arm to last many years and adapt to changes such as a new desk or display. It’s furniture. So we look at warranty length and customer support to see which companies stand behind their models and the arms’ expected years of performance while holding up an expensive monitor (or two). Note that monitor arm warranties don’t cover damage to the monitor itself.
• Desk mounting and VESA support: We focus on desk-mounted arms for this guide because they’re the easiest type to assemble and don’t require putting holes in a wall. Monitor arms must also attach sturdily to the desk; most secure themselves with a grommet or a desk clamp. A good mount should be adjustable for a range of desk or table thicknesses and widths, and it should include cable-management options, too. For the side of the arm that attaches to your monitor, we confirm whether the arm uses the VESA standard, which just means that the screw holes and locations on screens such as TVs and monitors match the size and layout on compatible mounts—it’s common on most hardware and all of our picks.
• Easy to assemble: Monitor arms should come with clear instructions or supplementary assembly videos online. We favor monitor arms that require fewer tools to set up, too.

For monitor stands, we look for models that have the following features:

• A height lift of at least 4 inches: Combined with the height adjustability of a monitor’s built-in stand, a monitor riser of 4 inches or taller offers more versatility than shorter stands. The average height of the monitor stands we’ve looked at is 4.5 inches.
• A monitor-weight capacity of at least 20 pounds: The higher the weight capacity, the more suitable the stand is for large monitors. For reference, our 34-inch ultrawide monitor picks range from 20.3 to 26.9 pounds.
• A width over 9 inches and a length over 15 inches: This size accommodates a potentially large monitor base.

In our last two rounds of monitor arm testing, we researched more than 70 models and tested 17. Our testing process involved assembling each unit and mounting it to a 1-inch-thick desk with the included clamp.

• For the single-monitor arms, we attached the 27-inch Lenovo ThinkVision P27-10.
• For the dual-monitor arms, we attached two 24-inch monitors, the Dell UltraSharp U2415 and U2414H.
• For each arm, we assessed the setup process, the sturdiness, and the range of movement in all directions.

We likewise assembled each of the 10 monitor stands we chose for testing (out of the 25 we researched), took the stand’s measurements, and assessed its sturdiness with a 24-inch monitor on top. We also compared the appearance of all the stands, particularly those with a wood finish.

After testing a few dual-monitor arms, we’ve concluded that the best option for people who have two monitors is getting two single-monitor arms instead. It costs more (for example, nearly $90 more at this writing for two Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arms versus the Fully Jarvis Dual Monitor Arm), and you end up with two arm bases on your desk instead of one. The benefit is that you can position, angle, or rotate each monitor much more precisely than you can with a dual-monitor arm. That’s an important factor, especially if you have two monitors of different sizes or with different VESA mounts.

Also, if your desk is positioned against the wall, you can’t place two monitors side by side unless you bring them forward about 12 inches. That’s too close for ergonomic comfort if your desk isn’t more than 30 inches deep.

Another good option is a monitor stand designed for two monitors, such as the Grovemade Desk Shelf in large or extra large.

If you want an attractive monitor arm that’s easy to set up and adjust, get the Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm.

It’s sturdy enough to support common monitor sizes and weights. The Jarvis arm works with most VESA-compatible monitors—officially it supports displays up to 19.8 pounds and as big as 32 inches. Even though other monitor arms can support as much as 25 pounds, we don’t think most people come up against that limit; our 27-inch test monitor, for example, is just 10 pounds without its stand, and even a 34-inch, ultrawide display can weigh as little as 15 pounds.

However, we did read a review from someone who bought the Jarvis arm for use with a 34-inch curved monitor that weighs 18 pounds, and customer support told them that if a monitor is curved or is shifted too far forward, it reduces the overall weight that the arm can support. If you’re in doubt, we recommend contacting support before purchasing.

It has one of the smoothest and widest ranges of motion among the arms we tested. Compared with the nearly identical (in appearance) Monoprice Workstream 15526, the Jarvis arm moved more smoothly—almost effortlessly—particularly when we elevated or lowered the monitor to a specific midpoint. And it offers a range of motion that should support most workflows: The Jarvis arm has a 13-inch vertical range (about the same as that of the Amazon Basics arm we tested and the Ergotron LX), which allows for a total height of 19.8 inches from the tabletop to the center of the VESA mount. It can extend 24 inches side to side, move 23.8 inches forward from the back of the desk, tilt 90 degrees, rotate 180 degrees, and pan (spin around on the base) 360 degrees.

Just so you know: You need about a 1-inch clearance at the back of your desk to accommodate this arm, and at its most compact setting it brings your monitor about 5 inches toward you. This is why we recommend taking measurements for your workspace before you purchase any monitor arm.

It’s easy to adjust. Like most monitor arms, the Jarvis arm requires you to do some fine-tuning with the included hex key to get the tension on the arm just right, but it’s responsive and simple to adjust. It also has a handy storage slot in the back for the hex key—something that most other arms we tested don’t offer—so the tool will still be there if you need to make minor adjustments in the future, such as if the setting loosens over time or you switch to a new display with a different weight.

It has a long warranty. Fully’s 15-year warranty is the longest of any of the monitor arms we tested aside from the Ergotron Trace Single Monitor Mount, which costs more than three times as much.

This coverage should keep you comfortable whether the arm is attached to your current desk and monitor or your next setup years down the line. Because monitor arms have small moving parts and are large objects not easily swapped in or out, a long warranty can provide peace of mind.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

• In our experience, the Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm was slightly more difficult to set up than the Ergotron LX, even though Fully has improved the setup process since we tested the previous version.
• The Jarvis arm is also difficult to set up alone, because you have to mount the arm to the desk before attaching the monitor. The task is possible to do solo—we suggest using boxes or books to hold the monitor in place while you tighten the arm joints—but an extra set of hands makes the process easier.
• Although we found the Jarvis arm to be more stable than cheaper models, like other monitor arms it wobbled more when a large monitor was extended far forward or to the side than it did when the monitor was closer to the base. We also had to take care when swiveling the monitor 360 degrees because the slim base and its clamp threatened to shift on our 1-inch desktop.
• Tilting the monitor up or down requires more force and adjustment with the hex key than simply raising or lowering the monitor.
• None of the models we tested—including the Fully Jarvis arm—impressed us with their cable management. Fully’s arm comes with cheap-feeling plastic pieces that snap and slide onto the underside of the arm to manage cables. They’re a little more difficult to align than similar designs on other models, but since this is something you should rarely have to adjust, we don’t think it’s a dealbreaker.

If you have a monitor that’s larger or heavier than what the Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm can support, we also like the Ergotron LX Desk Monitor Arm. If you’re taller than 6 feet, we recommend the Ergotron LX Desk Monitor Arm Tall Pole, which can raise a monitor more than 5 inches higher than the standard Ergotron LX or the Jarvis arm.

They support bigger monitors and wider desks. Both the LX and the LX Tall Pole offer the same capabilities as the Jarvis arm, but with support for larger and heavier monitors up to 34 inches (versus the Jarvis arm’s 32 inches) and 25 pounds (versus the Jarvis arm’s 19.8 pounds).

Both LX arms also have a slightly longer reach than our top pick: They can extend forward about 2 inches more than the Jarvis arm, which is better for people with desks that are deeper than 30 inches, and they can lower to below desktop or tabletop height, if that’s something you need to do.

They perform as well as our top pick. We found little difference between the Ergotron LX and Fully Jarvis arms when it came to their smoothness of motion, their range of positions, and their sturdiness. Wirecutter senior staff writer Kimber Streams has been using the Ergotron LX since 2017 with a 27-inch monitor. “It works well for both sitting and standing heights, and has cleared off a ton of room on my desk compared to having a monitor on a stand on books,” Kimber said. “It’s also incredibly convenient to be able to move the monitor all the way back, off my desk, to have room to work on other projects.”

The LX can raise a monitor 15.4 inches from the tabletop (measured at the center of the VESA mount), extend toward you 25.6 inches, and move left to right within a 25-inch horizontal range. The LX Tall Pole version can raise a monitor as high as 25.6 inches, higher than the other monitor arms we tested and better for people who are taller than 6 feet. Two testers—one 6-foot-2 and the other 6-foot-4—found that regular-height arms weren’t tall enough for them.

Installation is easy, and Ergotron backs the arms with a long warranty. The Ergotron LX is slightly easier to install than the Fully Jarvis: We were able to set up the LX without any hiccups or frustrations, and as with most arms we tested, setup took about 20 minutes in total.

The Ergotron LX has a long, 10-year warranty.

If you need only to lift your monitor rather than also reposition it horizontally or front to back, the Amazon Basics Adjustable Computer Monitor Riser Desk Stand is the best, well, basic option for most people. This monitor stand can accommodate a range of height needs, it’s stable, and it’s available at an attractive price.

It easily adjusts to three heights. The stand is 2.87 inches tall by default, and you can raise it further to 4.25 or 4.9 inches with the two leg extensions. Those extensions are cleverly designed: Insert them one way, and you get the max height, or you can flip them around for the middle height. You can also store them on the underside of the stand when you aren’t using them.

It’s a good size. Measuring 16.1 inches long by 11 inches wide, this Amazon Basics riser is suitable for a single monitor with a large base, but it doesn’t take up too much room on a desk. The space beneath the top of the stand is wide enough for you to stash books or other small items; measuring 11.6 inches or 12.3 inches wide, depending on which side of the leg extension you use, the space beneath the stand could accommodate a 13-inch MacBook too (but only if no cables are attached).

It’s very sturdy. This ABS plastic stand is designed for monitors that weigh up to 22 pounds. In our tests, it didn’t wobble, and the rubberized legs didn’t slip around on the desk—two issues we found with other monitor stands that cost more.

It doesn’t look boxy or flimsy. We wouldn’t call this cheap monitor stand beautiful, but its curved edges and slightly textured matte-surface top are nicer looking than its online photos suggest. It has an Amazon Basics logo on the front, but none on the back.

The Grovemade Desk Shelf is a premium monitor stand with a premium price, designed for those who want a one-of-a-kind addition to their workspace.

It comes in several sizes and materials. Unlike similar stands, which typically come in one or two sizes and up to three finishes, the Grovemade Desk Shelf is available in four sizes from 18.5 inches to 58 inches long. All of the versions support up to 50 pounds and have a 9-inch width and 4.5-inch height.

It looks great. Each Grovemade stand is unique because the company handcrafts them from hardwood, plywood, or powder-coated engineered wood (with three options for each type). Even the cork legs are hand-stained, with Japanese calligraphy ink.

We liked the minimalist look of this stand and preferred the warm walnut tone of the unit we bought over the more matte, grayish tone of a similar stand from Balolo. Note, though, that depending on the length of the wood, its age, and other factors affecting any given monitor stand, you could get one that looks different from the manufacturer’s photos or ours.

The desk shelf comes with an aluminum middle shelf for additional organization, and Grovemade offers a desk-tray add-on for an additional cost.

It’s the sturdiest stand we tested—once we got help from customer service. The Grovemade Desk Shelf doesn’t wobble, and small rubber pads on the bottom of the legs keep the whole thing from slipping.

However, the first unit we got had a slight wobble on the left side, which could have been due to a poorly fitting cork leg. When we contacted Grovemade’s customer service, the representative promptly offered either a partial refund or a free replacement with free shipping. This happened outside of the company’s 15-day return/exchange policy window; the warranty is six months.

If you’re willing to pay three times as much as the price of our top monitor arm pick for the absolute smoothest adjustment: The Ergotron Trace Single Monitor Mount moved more effortlessly, both vertically and horizontally, than the Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm and the other monitor arms we tested. It was the easiest model to raise and lower or to swivel from left to right for sharing the screen with someone else in the room. It also has a wider column to reduce wobbling.

But in addition to costing significantly more than our picks, the Trace arm has a bigger desk footprint, and the cable-management system that wraps around the front of the arm could be an aesthetic dealbreaker for some people.

If you want an inexpensive monitor stand with built-in organization: Take a look at the IKEA Elloven Monitor Stand, which has a compartmentalized bamboo drawer. Made of thin sheet metal in black or white, this stand has a 4.25-inch height and can support up to 44 pounds.

We found it to be sturdy but had some concerns about its build quality; the unit we bought had slight uneven gaps between the edges of the metal frame and the sides of the drawer, and the stand’s lack of padding on the bottom means it can slide and potentially scratch a desk. If you’re able to check it out in a store, you can better assess whether it’s right for you.

If a monitor stand that you can outfit with optional add-ons for your phone, laptop, or other accessories appeals to you: The Balolo Setup Cockpit is the one to buy. Made of solid walnut or oak wood, this stand supports up to 50 pounds (like the Grovemade Desk Shelf) and has a 4.7-inch height.

Its claim to fame is its modularity: You can easily attach any of nearly a dozen stands and holders, ranging from $40 to $90 each, to the Setup Cockpit via predrilled holes.

At this writing, the company is having some fulfillment issues, with shipping delays from Germany, and the unit we received was missing a screw for one of the legs; the replacement screw arrived over two weeks later. Aside from those shipping and replacement hassles, the Balolo Setup Cockpit is a great-looking stand that costs slightly less than the similar Grovemade stand but offers fewer size and wood options.

Monitor arms

Many competing monitor arms share the same designs. In our testing, we’ve found that most monitor arms have nearly identical instructions and parts—but aren’t necessarily equally sturdy. The cheaper versions with shorter warranties typically don’t perform as well.

The Monoprice Workstream 15526, for example, looked identical to the Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm, just with less helpful installation instructions and a one-year warranty versus the Jarvis arm’s 15-year warranty. We found positioning the monitor at different heights more difficult, regardless of how much we turned the hex key. The dual-monitor Monoprice Workstream 15525 likewise failed to hold our test 24-inch monitors in place, no matter how tightly we adjusted the arms.

We used to recommend the Amazon Basics Single-Monitor Mounting Arm, which is nearly identical to the Ergotron LX Desk Monitor Arm. But the Fully Jarvis arm generally costs the same, offers similar features, and has a 15-year warranty instead of Amazon Basics’s one year of coverage.

The Fully Jarvis Dual Monitor Arm looks and works exactly like the Jarvis Single Monitor Arm, but because of issues we encountered while trying to get two monitors to line up precisely (with or without substantial clearance behind a desk), we recommend going with two single arms instead.

The Vivo Dual V002K, a Jarvis arm look-alike, also failed to secure our test 24-inch monitors properly, with the monitors sinking to the bottom of the arm. The arm’s plasticky construction also gave us pause.

Ergotron’s Trace Dual Monitor Mount has a cross-bar design that can keep two monitors side by side and move them in one motion. Because of its $500 price tag at the time of our research, as well as our late discovery of less expensive dual arms such as the Uplift Desk Crestview Align, we decided not to test the Trace Dual Monitor Mount until we had additional similar models to compare it with.

The Ergotron LX Dual Monitor Arm suffers from the same issues we found in other dual-monitor arms.

We tested the Herman Miller Flo Monitor Support for a previous round of testing and found it difficult to set up and adjust. Although the Flo arm has cable-management options superior to those of our top pick, we don’t trust this mount with a valuable monitor. In our tests, its desk clamp wasn’t sturdy even when fully tightened, and its mounting plate is made of plastic instead of metal. Plus, the Flo arm usually costs twice the price of our top pick and doesn’t provide an option for very tall people.

The Vivo Single Monitor Desk Mount and the Vivo Dual Monitor Desk Mount were both significantly cheaper than similar offerings from other companies. Although their prices were appealing, we found them harder to set up, and they covered fewer angles than our picks.

The Ergotech Freedom Arm HD was harder to set up than our picks and required more parts. Adjusting the tilt of the monitor was more difficult, too.

In our tests, the Uplift Monitor Arm required a desk-imprinting clamp and proved to be harder to lock down at just the right height. Compared with our other picks, it was difficult to set up and adjust.

We considered testing the North Bayou F80, an Amazon best seller, but found that it had a more limited vertical range at just 9 inches. Our picks are more adjustable and support a wider range of people and desk setups.

Monitor stands and risers

We found that most monitor stands, despite being simple objects—essentially, a shelf for your desk—tend to have flaws on close inspection. Uneven legs, poor-fitting parts, or even cracks in the tops are par for the course.

The IKEA Vattenkar Laptop/Monitor Stand, for example, wobbled from back to front and side to side, which is a shame because we liked the minimalist birch-wood design and the versatility of the inner shelf. If you find one in a store that doesn’t wobble or flex when you push on the top, it could be a good buy.

Height adjustable from 4.6 inches to 6.5 inches, the Monoprice Workstream Universal Monitor Riser Stand 16250 is one of the tallest stands we tested. However, this metal stand is a pedestal for your monitor rather than a shelf, so it offers no space beneath for storage. The unit we tested had misaligned holes, so it was impossible to put together.

The 3M Extra Wide Adjustable Monitor Stand MS90B is similar to the Amazon Basics stand but costs twice as much, doesn’t have storage for the leg parts, and looks more plasticky.

The large model of the Office Oasis Original Bamboo Monitor Stand we tested had a loose center leg that was too short to touch the desk. The top also started splitting just days after we received it. We found a few similar complaints in Amazon customer reviews.

This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.