[jtkung]

This is a hard one -- so many choices.  But I would say one that is amazing for the price and construction is the Joyo Sweet Baby Overdrive. It's a clone of the Sweet Honey OD from Mad Professor pedals, and wow -- this pedal does sound so sweet and sings! Solid construction and pretty noiseless to boot.  It's between $35 and $40 USD so you can't go wrong!

[jtkung]

I recently acquired this pedal for about $40 CAD, and this pedal is incredible.  Low noise, amazing clarity with low-gain distortion. I would say it resembles a Blackface cranked or a VOX. Bright, very chimey and clear, with a smooth low gain distortion that is spongey. And very dynamic. Soft picking and strumming reveal a nice clean, while harder strums yield that chimey smooth distortion. 

It's the best pedal you can get for low gain at this price! Check out the comparison below. 

[jtkung]

Some more comparisons ...

[jtkung]

Listen to the Joyo Sweet Baby OD into a Logidy EPSi that simulates a real speaker cab.  I bet you could just use this setup direct into a mixing board and into the house PA and most people would never notice that there's no guitar amp used. In fact, it might sound better! It can be the ultimate, miniature fly-rig since you only need a pedalboard into the EPSi. And it's in full stereo.