OK, here's the deal.
When you buy tools at Home Depot and Lowes, you're often buying a re-engineered version of the tool, designed specifically to lower the cost.

For example, a Milwaukee Sawzall has a very different gearbox with plastic inside when you buy the Home Depot model.

Husquavarna has entered into the homeowner market with a similar strategy of reengineered products to hit lower prices.

The same is true for the Echo Brand chainsaws (which are made by Kioritz in Japan). If you want a saw that lasts, you buy from a company that sells top-end landscaping equipment to pros. It might be the same brand, but it's the engineering that matters.

Stihl is a solid performer, and until recently, it was the sole brand we used in the Fire Company. You won't find Stihl using lower-end versions of the product just to get to a price that puts them on the shelf at the Depot.

However, one of our members has a family business that has been selling landscaping power equipment for 75 years (yes, 75 years) and we recently got some Shindawa chainsaws from them, and they are far and away the best saws I've ever used. They are the only chainsaw on two of our trucks (we roll with a Stihl and a Shindawa on the largest engine)

So, Echo - from a landscape power tools place,
Stihl from anywhere and Shindawa would be my advice. I own a 16" Echo chainsaw, I really have no trouble with it at all, and it gets some hard use. The Shindawa is used in just terrible conditions and is superior in every way to all the others.