Rome Tour Guide Recommendations for Major Sites

Walks of Italy.

I used them for the Coloseum, Palatine Hill, Forum, etc... Fantastic tour. Pay extra and do the tour that takes you down below and to the upper tier that is only accessibly by a guide with a key. Totally worth it!

I also used them for a skip the line tour at the Sistine Chapel; which also allowed us entry one hour before it regularly opens. We were also able to skip the line at the Vatican.

Anything that skips the line is always worth the extra $$$.

Viator offers a number of "skip the line" tickets that are un-guided. IE, you meet at a designated spot & enter as a group, skipping the individual ticket lines. Once inside, you're on your own. I used this for the Vatican museums, which gave us early entry before the masses...and I wanted to proceed at my own pace, spending a bit more time in certain areas and completely skipping others (the borderline terrible contemporary church art near the end, for example). Following this schedule, I ended up in the Sistine Chapel with just a few others; it was sublime.

I've had good luck with Context tours, too.

We use a family friend of my wife's named Sabino Pagano. He is nothing short of amazing and has degrees in history and architecture. Authentic Roman with a larger than life personality and will drive you around in his Mercedes van to all sites for a very reasonable fee. He'll then drop you off at an authentic restaurant and tell the restaurateurs (who he knows) to bring you a family style meal of all his favorite dishes. Even though we've been to Rome twice and used him twice, I can't imagine going to Rome and not using him. He's part of the experience for us. Let me know if you want his contact info.

ETA: Make it a point to do this while you are there. Testaccio is off the beaten path and the culinary heart of Rome even though most tourists are unaware of it. Don't miss it.

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We used Rome in Limo in 3 different itailian cruise ports. Can't recommend them enough!

Let me see if I can find which ones we used.
I did a lot of research on the different companies. So, I can say that I can make a decent recommendation even though I haven't tried different tour companies.
We prefer private/smallest group possible. So, if that's not for you... you can probably dig around a little and find the regular group tours.

We used "when in rome" for our Vatican and Rome tours.
Vatican
Anceint Rome and Coliseums
The times were flexible when we used the private tours.

Wanted to say thanks again for the recommendations. Ended up using walks of Italy for most of our tours... it was worth the money for the major sites... especially the Vatican/Sistine Chapel