Water electrolyzers are being developed as a way of storing renewable energy, as a way to produce hydrogen for fuel cell automobiles, and as a route to renewable fuels and chemicals. In this paper the effect of changes in the cathode catalyst on the performance of an anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer with Sustainion® membranes running at 60 °C in 1 M KOH. We choose commercial catalysts for study: Raney nickel from W.R. Grace, NiFeCo and Ni₈Fe₂ from US Nano, NiMoB, FeCoBSi, Ni₈₀Mo₂₀ from Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology (IFAM), and NiMo/C from Pajarito Powder(PP). They are all supported on nickel fiber paper. Surprisingly, Raney nickel showed the best performance. At a fixed cell voltage of 2.0 volts in 1 M KOH at 60 °C, we observe 2.9 A/cm² cell current with the Raney Nickel catalyst, compared to 2.3 and 2.1 A/cm² with the US Nano catalysts, 1.7, 1.65 and 1.1 A/cm² with the IFAM catalysts, 1.5 A/cm² with the Pajarito Powder catalyst, and 0.95 A/cm² with the nickel fiber paper alone. These results demonstrate that catalysts that catalysts that show superior performance in a conventional alkaline water electrolyzer, may not show performance superior to Raney nickel in an anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer.