Are you looking for a specific type of shoes, or companies in general?

Thursday Boot Company has wide options for a lot of its inventory (only up to EEE though from what I can see); many of their products are resoleable, but Everyday Gear did a 3-year test on the non-resolable low-top sneakers and had good things to say. And YMMV, but my Jim Green Razorback boots are extremely wide despite not being labeled as such. Solovair's Last 5400 boots are said to be wider, but there aren't any specific size conventions lifted. And you can customize pretty much everything with Nick's boots, but get ready to spend $800.

Hope others can provide better suggestions. I struggle with this myself in the women's section now that I'm no longer shopping fast fashion. Red Wing has D sizing (which is the women's wide and men's average E width) that stops one size below mine, and that's just one example, so I'm stuck with W width for most shoes and brands. So I just live with the pain until they've been broken in

Greetings fellow flipper Friend! I wear a 6E in Dunham brand boots, and for general sneakers / "running" (gym) shoes i wear a brand called "xelero". New balance makes exactly one 6e width shoe IIRC, the 990 i think? It used to come in multiple colors but now just the one color if its a wide shoe.

If it helps, I'm also stuck with very thick feet so my picks also account for that. Center of my sole to top of foot is 3 inches.

As a fellow duck footed person, I've found that Barefoot style shoes offer the widest and most comfortable experience, as they're designed to let the toes splay out naturally instead of scrunching them up to conform to an aesthetic.

Another common feature of barefoot style shoes is that they are extremely flexible, and usually have very thinly padded soles to accomplish that, which can take some getting used to. They also generally offer no arch support (by design), and no heel-drop.

This video does a good job of explaining why they're designed that way.

If you decide to go that route, I'd recommend:

• Freet (Often use recycled material, average pricing, good durability, made in UK)
• Vivobarefoot (Higher pricing, generally more stylish, offer a trade-in program for used shoes which are refurbished/repaired to be resold for cheaper).
• Xero shoes (Average pricing, perhaps slightly lower quality compared to Freet)
• Whitins (Very affordable entry-level pricing, surprisingly well made and durable, downside is they are only available on Amazon).

If you're looking for something that can be re-soled and last the longest, Jim Green make a couple barefoot-style extra wide model heritage boots that can be resoled almost infinitely, but I personally found them to still be a bit too narrow for me compared to a set of Vivobarefoot boots (thankfully their return process was pretty seamless, with free return shipping). They're made in Africa. (EDIT: I just noticed that they now offer an extra wide AnatomX model, which wasn't available when I tried them. That would likely be an ideal BIFL boot for wide-footed people).

Sadly, until Vibram starts buying off congressmen any kind of barefoot style shoes are banned at my workplace

Not sure about reliability and BFL, but Hoka has X-wide sizes. I tried to find what that meant in the standard scale. However, their toe boxes tend to be pretty wide already.

Edit: found on a separate website their X-wide is 4E.

Hm, do they need to be Steel toe? The Jim Green boots are not truly barefoot, as they still have a proper thick tread, they just don't have a heeldrop and are extra wide. Unless your workplace asks for like, a receipt for your boots where they would notice they're called barefoot, they wouldn't be perceived as barefoot from a casual inspection, they just look like a leather hiking/work boot.

The same could be said for the other brands I linked, none of them have like individual toes or anything, they look like normal sneakers, just wide.

I've been wearing 990s in a 14 or 15 6E for a while (12 years or so) for work and exercise, but the newer 990v6 just doesn't hold up or fit quite the same. I'm still wearing a (tightly laced) 15 in them, but I've had trouble finding alternatives, and I definitely feel like I need more of a 14/14.5 with more width (which doesn't exist).

Given how expensive NB has gotten, I'm eyeing whatever other options turn up and wondering if I'll have to go custom. I'll give xelero a look over, though, thank you for sharing this.

For boots I just wear thick socks in my red wings, but that's not too often.

I felt the same on the 990v6, they just didnt fit right and i returned them immediately because of it. Not much better than NB in price but well, thats 6E tax lol.

Xelero ive got the X-GPS in 11 wide (its absolutely wide enough, trust me)

I almost exclusively wear the Dunham boots, they've lasted about 2.5 years now i think? Still going strong. I've replaced the laces once.

Proto from Trippen are pretty wide: https://www.trippen.com/proto