English articles usually treat the nakiri and the santoku as two equal choices. In Japan they are closer to a parent and a child. The santoku was developed out of the nakiri, and it then took its place as the everyday household knife. Knowing how that happened answers most of the question of which one to buy.
The santoku came out of the nakiri
Tojiro, a knife maker in Tsubame-Sanjo, describes the origin of the santoku on its Japanese site. In my translation: in the Showa era, as kitchens got smaller, people wanted a knife that did not need to be swapped for others, and the santoku developed by taking the straight edge of the nakiri, long used in Japan, and the tip shape of the gyuto, which came to Japan in the Meiji era.
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, a knife shop in Sakai, tells the same story in more steps. Households used to cook with a nakiri and a deba. The bunka knife looked like a nakiri with its front corner cut off at an angle, because a square blade was awkward for cutting through the sinew in meat or getting into fish. As meat was served at home more often, the santoku spread into home kitchens. The same shop describes the nakiri as the knife you often see in old kitchen scenes in television dramas.
So when you hold the two side by side, the santoku is a nakiri with a point added. The name says what the point was for: santoku means three virtues, meat, fish and vegetables, in one knife.
What the nakiri still does better
The straight edge is the reason to own one. Tojiro lists the differences in four lines: the nakiri has a straight edge, the santoku a curved one; the nakiri meets the board along its whole length, the santoku tends to leave a gap near the tip; the nakiri is rectangular, the santoku triangular; the nakiri is for vegetables, the santoku for everything.
Ichimonji makes the same point about the gap. Because the edge is straight and the blade is tall, it sits level on the board, and fewer pieces are left joined at the bottom.
Tojiro also says how to use it. The basic motion is to bring the blade straight down onto the board, not to push it forward and back. If you chop that way already, the nakiri rewards it. If you rock a knife on its tip, the way many Western cooks are taught, a nakiri has no tip to rock on and you will fight it.
What the nakiri is bad at
Tojiro is direct about this. Because the tip is not pointed, it is a little awkward for splitting broccoli into florets or opening a bag or a pack. It is not meant for cutting through bone, or for cutting frozen food straight out of the freezer.
The first two are small things, but they come up every day, and they are the reason the santoku won in Japanese homes. A knife that also has to trim chicken, score a fish and open the packet the fish came in needs a point.
Tojiro recommends it as a second knife
This was the part I did not expect. In the list of people a nakiri suits, Tojiro includes people who cook a lot of vegetables, people who do a lot of fine shredding and thin rounds, people who like cooking, and people who already own a santoku.
A maker that sells nakiri is telling buyers that the nakiri goes next to a santoku, not instead of one. I think that is the honest answer to the nakiri or santoku question: if you are buying one knife, buy the one with a point.
A nakiri is not an usuba
The two are often mixed up in English, and they look alike: both are rectangular and made for vegetables. Japanese knife shops separate them by the edge. Honmamon, a knife and tool shop, and Ichimonji both say the nakiri is double-edged and the usuba is single-edged, ground on one side only. Honmamon adds that the usuba is thinner and sharper, suited to peeling and fine work, while the nakiri is better for big vegetables like cabbage and napa cabbage. The quickest way to tell them apart, it says, is to look at the back of the blade.
This matters because a single-edged usuba steers in the cut and needs to be sharpened in a different way, which I went through in single bevel vs double bevel. If you want a home vegetable knife, you want a nakiri.
The confusion reaches Japanese export shops too. Hocho-Knife, which I link to below, files the Sakai Takayuki INOX PRO nakiri under the knife type Vegetable Knife, Usuba, while its own description of the same knife says double edged. Go by the edge description, not the category.
The same series, side by side
To compare like with like, I looked at the two knives in one series, the Sakai Takayuki INOX PRO, on Hocho-Knife on 30 September 2026. Both are AUS-8A stainless with a stainless steel handle, both double-edged, both 180mm.
The santoku is 315mm long overall and weighs 160g. It costs $115.99.
The nakiri is 320mm long and weighs 185g, which is 25g heavier, from the taller blade. It was on sale at $128.99, marked down from $154.99.
The extra weight is not a flaw in a knife that is lifted and dropped rather than pushed, but you will notice it in the hand.
On steel, Ichimonji recommends stainless for beginners, because vegetable juices and moisture make a nakiri discolour and rust easily, while noting that experienced cooks still like carbon steel for its sharpness. A vegetable knife spends its life wet and in contact with acidic juice, so for most people I would take that advice. The general household size, according to the same shop, is 165 to 180mm.
Which one to buy
If it is your first Japanese knife, or your only one, buy the santoku. It does almost everything the nakiri does, and it also does the things the nakiri cannot. That is the reason it replaced the nakiri in Japan, and the reason a nakiri maker recommends a nakiri to people who already own one. The longer version of that choice, including the gyuto and the bunka, is in gyuto vs santoku vs bunka.
If you already have a santoku or a chef knife, you cook a lot of vegetables, and you chop by bringing the knife straight down, a nakiri is a good second knife. It will not do anything new, but it will do shredding and thin slicing more neatly than a curved edge can.
If you rock your knife on its tip, skip the nakiri.
For the rest of the choices, in the usual sequence, see how to choose a Japanese knife.
The two knives
The santoku is the one I have recommended in several articles as a plain, inexpensive first knife: the Sakai Takayuki INOX PRO santoku 180mm at $115.99, in stock when I checked on 30 September 2026.
If you want the nakiri to go next to it, the matching knife is the Sakai Takayuki INOX PRO nakiri 180mm, $128.99 on sale, also in stock on the same date. The sale price may not last, so check it before you buy.
Disclosure
I have four approved affiliate partnerships: two with knife retailers, Hocho-Knife and SharpEdge, and two with Japanese language-learning companies unrelated to knives. This page carries two tracked links, both to Hocho-Knife. At about 10 percent, that is roughly 12 dollars for the santoku and 13 dollars for the nakiri at the sale price. My recommendation for most readers is the cheaper of the two. My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources, checked on 30 September 2026: the Tojiro Japanese articles on the santoku and on the nakiri, the Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide Japanese pages on the santoku, the bunka knife and the nakiri, the Honmamon article on the usuba and the nakiri, and the Hocho-Knife product pages for both knives.