Five typing methods, including biotyping (API ID32; BioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France), quantitative antibiogram typing based on actual zone sizes, plasmid typing, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis (with primer M13 and primer set ERIC-2-1026), and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), were compared with a previously performed method of DNA fingerprinting by AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis) for their performance in the typing of blood isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis. Sixteen epidemiologically unrelated strains and 11 sets of four blood culture isolates from 11 patients with septicemia were used. The stabilities and reproducibilities of the patterns, the discriminatory capacities of the methods, and the ability to apply the methods to blood culture isolates were used as performance criteria. All strains tested were typeable by each method, and the patterns were stable and reproducible. The numbers of different types within the collection of 16 epidemiologically different isolates were 5 by biotyping, 14 by antibiogram typing, 4 by plasmid typing, 9 by the RAPD assay (combination of results with primer M13 and primer set ERIC-2-1026), and 16 by PFGE. Within the 11 sets of four blood culture isolates the types found by quantitative antibiogram typing, plasmid typing, and PFGE were unique for each set, whereas by biotyping and RAPD analysis some types were observed in more than one set. The results of biotyping did not correspond with the results of the other methods or the results of AFLP. For 6 of the 11 sets, the results of all methods except those of biotyping corresponded completely. Quantitative antibiogram typing, PFGE, and AFLP proved to be the most accurate of the six typing methods tested.