Sliding wear performance of carbide-free bainitic steel is significantly affected by microstructure. This investigation is an attempt to find a correlation between microstructure and wear resistance of carbide-free bainitic steel and compare the results with that of a conventional tempered martensitic microstructure. Under predominantly adhesive wear conditions, carbide-free bainitic microstructure with the highest amount of retained austenite offers the best wear resistance. This is mainly attributed to the more pronounced work hardening and TRIP-effect of carbide-free bainitic microstructure austempered at higher temperature. Therefore, higher initial bulk hardness is not the only indicator of wear resistance. Moreover, when both oxidation and adhesion are active, a microstructure with an optimum content of retained austenite and bainitic ferrite shows the highest wear resistance