Abstract Wear resistance is a fundamental property which defines the lifetime of cutting tools, but the investigation of wear performance of alternative hard materials for traditional WC-Co composites are recent. The present work evaluated the pin-on-disk wear behavior and mechanical properties, i.e., hardness and fracture toughness of spark plasma sintered Al2O3 matrix composites with additions of 5, 15, 25 or 30%wt of niobium carbide NbC. The wear resistance was observed to increase as a function of the NbC content, even though the hardness reached a plateau at 25%wt NbC. The composite behavior was compared to that of other alumina composite tool materials proving to be a promising material for applications such as ceramic cutting tools. The composition A95N5 presented the best combination of values of wear rate: 8.9 mm3/N.m, hardness equal to (17.36±1.72) GPa and fracture toughness of (3.2±0.6) MPa. m1/2.