The efficacies of the Near Surface Mounted (NSM) and Externally Bonded Reinforcing (EBR) techniques for the shear strengthening of rectangular cross section RC beams are compared. Both techniques are based on the use of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials. The NSM was the most effective technique, and was also the easiest and fastest to apply, and assured the lowest fragile failure modes. The performance of the ACI and fib analytical formulations for the EBR shear strengthening was appraised. In general, the contribution of the CFRP systems predicted by the analytical formulations was larger than the values registered experimentally. The capability of the De Lorenzis formulation of predicting the contribution of the NSM technique for the shear strengthening of RC beams was appraised using bond stress and CFRP effective strain values obtained in pullout bending tests. This formulation provided values 61% lower than the values obtained experimentally.