I really like the Forest Farm, although figuring out how I want to lay everything out is more difficult, and I like the four corners farm because there’s so much room. Meadow lands farm is pretty cool too.

I love the beach farm, sure its not the best for "farming" but once you get going its a really fun farm to build around.

Forest farm. Because I like forest irl. 😆

Maybe my choice is boring, but I always choose the standard one. More space for planting and building.

The Forest Farm just has so much going for it compared to the rest. It's not fair really cause it's meant to help level up your foraging just like the others help with their own skill, but the damn foragbles are so cute compared to a geode sticking out of a rock. Then you have pretty much unlimited hardwood from tree stumps that keep respawning until you put something in the area. Also, Summer time on any other farm: really no change Summer on the forest farm: Beautiful. The trees have little flowers like the mysterious woods or orange trees do. Gets me everytime.

Standard. You can get ores, hardwoods and fish with bit of inconvenience. But, farming space is set and there is nothing you can do to increase it. And, standard farm offers the most farming space by large margin.

I like the river farm. Fishing is a good source of income early on. Farm on the larger islands. House your animals in the smaller ones. https://imgur.com/3I2DdF9.jpg

The forest farm is good. Easy hardwood and foragables

Forest & Hilltop are my two favorites.

I really like Hilltop. Standard was kinda intimidating to me.

Hilltop and Forest, for Hilltop ; There is not much tillable tiles and the structure is weird. But for designing it's gotta be one of the best and challenging farm layouts. Same with Forest but Forest is much more beneficial since you need alot of hardwood to repair the ginger island boat, and foragebles to level up your foraging.

I have tried all of them, and standard is my preference. I like setting up my mainland farm to grow recurring crops harvested by juminos. This is easier if you have large areas not broken up by features. The other maps have features that break up the map and make it harder to place things efficiently. Four Corner is not so bad, but River and Beach are hard for this.

That being said, I plan to randomly select the farm type on future saves, since it is not like my farmer got to choose what type of farm he inherited.

Four corners for the natural division into sections with lots of walls to place buildings and trees against (I dislike having things behind buildings or trees as it's difficult to see unless you are close). Also, it has a few bonuses without being too overpowered.

Other than that, I really like Forest. It's cozy and it gives plenty of bonus resources.

I've played all of them except Wilderness.

I've played 4 Corners twice and liked it, but I don't like where the return terminal is for the farm totems.

Forest was pretty, but a challenge because it has fewer tillable tiles than most of the others except Beach Farm.

Beach Farm I had loads of livestock because the place is ideal for growing loads of grass/hay. The washed up resources were fun to unpack and it was nice to find coral etc every so often.

The other two were more of a challenge because their layouts are a little bitty, especially Riverland, but they look nice when completed.

The quarries on Riverland Hilltop and Four Corners are really useful, and so is the extra forage on Forest and 4 Corners.

This time I've gone back to the standard Farm and found it quite relaxing - it's easy to set up, easy to get around, easy to farm livestock and arable.

edit = a mistake was fixed.

Wilderness. The layout is really nice, and the enemies are just an added challenge that don’t bother you that much. Spices things up a bit, really. Plenty of space for crops, one nice big lake in the middle, a view over the trees on the right and a nice cliff side on the left with another pond/lake that cuts off, little corner there where you can put your animals.

Standard Farm. I like to build my fields and such without having any obstructions on my way.
That said I also like the Mountain Farm quite a lot.

I usually pick a theme for my playthrough and then pick a farm that matches the vibes, so the vineyard has the hilltop farm, the adventurer has the wilderniss farm, the fishergirl has the beach farm...

But my first farm was the riverland farm and I do still have a soft spot for that one xD

4 corners is great when you can get around it plus easy to sort things out though forest is reasonably good too but was a bit limiting for me

If counting mods then Immersive farm remastered 2 is my favourite due to the size but without mods 4 corners

Beach farm is the prettiest imo

I love the forest farm. It's trouble at first with all the trees that you need to clear to make room but after you level up your axe, it's great.

Best? Probably four corners. You get the quarry from hilltop and the hardwood source from forest farm, plus there's still quite a bit of tillable land (I believe it's second only to standard farm).

For your second farm I would just pick the one you like the most. You're familiar enough with the game mechanics you don't really need any benefits.

Four corners! More space than I know what do with, but I prefer the flat land over ponds and cliffs

Forest farm is my favorite with Four Corners a close second.

Four corners or standard. Standard has a tiny bit more space, but four corners is amazing for organization.

Standard farm type for me, tons of flat land and it's easy to clean up with paths and fences. The Forrest type is probably my favorite, but I can't ever get it to look the way I want.

Here's My rankings:

~7: Four Corners - at first it's cool to have the separations and you can specialize each area to a different activity (e.g. farming quarter, ranch quarter, processing quarter, tree quarter) but then the barriers get really annoying and it's also annoying to place buildings. It also seems oddly claustrophobic.

~6: Hilltop Farm - Really annoyingly split up map, the farmable areas are very thin, I really don't like the river running through the middle, and the plateau to the south of the house is terrible. If the river was straighter (like it came out near the northern path as a waterfall near the cave mouth and went more straight) and the southern plateau wasn't there, it would be a lot better.

~5: Wilderness Farm - The cliff is a neat touch, it feels very interesting but the giant pond in the south west corner is a big waste and the protrusion on the west side is also very odd. Maybe if there was a second cave in the protuberance it'd be neat.

~4: Beach Farm - Feels super fun. I wish the cliffs to the south west were flat or it was just more islands to keep up that beach feel. I would have liked a ring of sprinker-able ground in the middle up on a hill with beach all the way around, like you're on a tropical island. I really like the stuff washing ashore.

~3: Standard Farm - It's very wide open and allows for the maximum amount of customization. The pond at the bottom I wish was a little bigger and a little more to the west but it's great overall.

~2: Riverland Farm - This has almost more of a beach feeling than the beach map. It's got nicely sized islands that are fun to fit buildings and crops onto. Lots of good crab pot areas with straight shores.

~1: Forest Farm - This map has everything! Easy hardwood, occasional map goodies (foragables) two secret paths, special seed producing bushes, and enough room for a big field south of the greenhouse and animals near the ponds.

If you are on pc and like mods there’s an amazing forest mod that has multiple levels for coops/barns and orchards and plenty of crop room :)

Aesthetically hilltop farm, functionally standard farm. For both, probably forest farm

I think it depends on the persons objective. Enjoy decorating? Forest or beach might be objectively the best. Want to focus on animals? Meadowlands might be objectively the best, I think it's largest from memory and starts with purple grass/coop. In terms of pure productivity, standard has the most tillable spaces so would be objectively the best.

4 corners. A little of everything.

Standard farm has the most room, but you don't see dozens of reddit threads asking "what to fill this space with" in other maps. And not everything should be about money.

I just finished a perfection farm on the forest map and the hardwood never stopped being useful. Great foraging XP, let me get the stable pretty early, and later in the game I bought some woodchippers and consistently got 100-150 wood per day from the hardwood.

The best one objectively is River lands because it gives me less options for where buildings can be and therefore less choices and therefore less anxiety.

👍

I'm going to sound crazy but wilderness farm - hear me out. It's decently large, has a big pond (for crab pots) and little nook spaces that are perfect for sheds and barns. I got my first perfection on a wilderness farm, hence I love it so, also the monsters spawning is a massive bonus because if you get an iridium wildling guy (wth are they called?) or an iridium bat, you get decent iridium very early game.

I love the Forest Farm. I really enjoy finding forage on the farm and getting to chop 8 stumps every day. I also just really like the look of it. All the trees bushes

Meadowlands or four corners. Lean towards four corners for crops, since meadowlands has some annoying spots that can't be tilled, but it's my personal favorite.

I like the beach farm specifically because there is limited farm space, so I don’t get tempted into planting more. 200 tiles is still 8 iridium sprinklers. 

Also it’s pretty, and it gets random boxes of stuff.

These, they're in every farm around the edges but on four corners they're right in the middle and destroy the aesthetic

I'm in the minority but I really like the river farm myself. Once I have the greenhouse and then Ginger Island I don't really need a ton of tillable soil on my main farm. For me the river farm works best for a rancher-style play: the small islands are great for coops and barns: they keep the animals more or less contained without fences, and there's always good fishing available.

Four corners, it has a decent amount of space and several benefits, no annoying terrain, shortcuts, and organization already included. I just hate the pink trees.

I agree Forest has a lot of perks, especially early game- there is foraging and renewing hardwood right on your farm. Plus, it’s very pretty. Probably my favorite.

Wilderness actually has a nice layout, yes, even with the big lake smack in the middle. For some reason, I just find it easier to design. The far left of the map is the perfect place for multiple barns and animals. It also happened to be my luckiest save. There is a way to turn off the monsters at some point, and you can believe I did that asap. (The napalm ring + monsters = destroyed fences, crops, etc.).

4 Corners is great- lots of space neatly divided up, with little bonus in each area. Keep one corner kinda wild for a year or two, and you will have a great supply of wood, hay and probably mushroom trees.

Hilltop: it doesn't have a lot of space so it is good if you are looking for a playstyle change it also has a helpful mineral deposit with every one and geod spawning ot is rare for omigeods and uranium to spawn even late game this is a pretty good farm (this is my current farm so I might be a bit biased) Beach:if you like fishing and don't mind watering crops this is perfect you can't place sprinklers but there is a ocean right behind your house this isn't the best farm but like I said if you don't mind not having sprinklers it is pretty good Riverland: this has very little space it is good for fishing like the beach farm but it is hard to find space for coops and barns let alone large scale fields(I know it is the same for hilltop but hilltop has 2 large plots of land that work well) Forest:it has foragables and a 1 large plot to grow seeds on so if you don't mind not having the largest fields this is a nice one to pick(I don't know alot about this one) Four corners: (I don't know alot about this one either) It seems decent if you don't mind walking a long was it has some pluses the others do put on a smaller scale it is good for separating crops and animals etc

TELL ME IF I MISSED ANY

4 corners is good for keeping the plants and animals separate though I do crops in 2 areas and animals in one so unsure on the last area

River farm and hilltop farm and beach don't have a lot of space so if yoir looking to change you playstyle forest farm has one big plot of land but if you want giant amounts of crops growing at the same time wouldn't recommend but it has foragables and other pros I don't know much about four corners but it dose seem like a good farm if you were to have the will to walk so far

Every farm is great, but my absolute favorite in vanilla Stardew is the forest farm.

It looks good no matter what, it matches the rest of the world wonderfully and I really like all the early game hardwood! It feels really spacious too, I think it's bigger than all the other specialized farms.