Algae have created a lot of interest in recent years due to their high potential for yielding oil that might be used for biodiesel production while capturing CO2 and helping clean the environment. However, to reach high productions, more efficient photobioreactors are required. Different kinds of photobioreactors configurations have been proposed but only a few of them show high productivity levels. This article presents a comparison among various promising photobioreactors by evaluating the light regime, mass transfer and scale up to achieve an efficient operation of mass algae cultures. Finally, a promising configuration for reaching high productivity is determined.