This paper introduces a new method for learning algorithm evaluation and selection, with empirical results based on classification. The empirical study has been conducted among 8 algorithms/classifiers with 100 different classification problems. We evaluate the algorithms’ performance in terms of a variety of accuracy and complexity measures. Consistent with the No Free Lunch theorem, we do not expect to identify the single algorithm that performs best on all datasets. Rather, we aim to determine the characteristics of datasets that lend themselves to superior modelling by certain learning algorithms. Our empirical results are used to generate rules, using the rule-based learning algorithm C5.0, to describe which types of algorithms are suited to solving which types of classification problems. Most of the rules are generated with a high confidence rating.