Melee weapons tech

I've seen plenty of solid blades of all types, several lightsabers & heat hawks (thermohawks?) and I've recently made a bunch of frames that use chainswords. So I'm just wondering, what kind of tech is standard for melee weapons? I'm guessing laser weapons are higher tech than solid blades, but is it that lightsabers are super new and rare, or that solid blades are outdated and only used for want of something better? (until you sharpen them to a monomolecular edge, heat them so they glow, or vibrate them at insane speeds) Or something else altogether, maybe some situations make different types of weapons impractical, like if beam weapons don't work underwater?