https://www.guitarworld.com/tag/buyers-guides Here's a link to GW. Has what THEY consider to be best guitar amps under $500 on page 2. You'll notice most are modeling type amps. Not a player, however, I prefer hearing tube amps for musical performance and solid state for musical reproduction. Tubes have a better sound when pushed into clipping versus the the harshness of solid state clipping. Tubes produce more pleasing 2nd and 3rd order harmonics. That's about all I got.
You might give a better idea of the type of music you normally play or want to play. And hopefully get some better advice from people who play. This forum section (Backstage) seems to be ignored quite a bit. Maybe this will bump your post some.