5 Harbor Freight Tool Finds That Outshine Milwaukee In Quality And Price

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Milwaukee is widely regarded as one of the best major power tool brands on the market. The company offers a wide range of products loved by home DIYers and professional tradespeople alike. Its cordless power tools are particularly well known for being powerful, durable, and reliable, making Team Red one of the most popular choices for those investing in a battery system.

Harbor Freight, on the other hand, is primarily regarded as a discount retailer. It owns over a dozen store brands that are primarily focused on affordability, rather than design quality and performance. While Milwaukee might be one of the biggest players on the block overall, there are a few rare instances where specific budget models from Harbor Freight outshine Milwaukee in terms of both price and performance.

The term quality can be a bit subjective, particularly when you take things like the predicted longevity of the tool into account. There will always be those diehard Milwaukee fans who will outright refuse to believe that anything from Harbor Freight will ever be able to outperform their beloved red and black tools. That said, by examining the specs and features listed on certain products, and then taking a look at what customers and pro reviews (when available) have had to say about them, we can clearly see that there are a few times when the Harbor Freight tool has the edge over the Milwaukee model.

The Milwaukee M18 Compact Brushless ½-inch Drill Driver (2801-20) is one of the more popular models that the company sells. It has 4.6 stars out of five on the Milwaukee website, delivers 500 in-lbs of torque, has dual speed modes offering 0-50 or 0-1,800 RPM, and retails for $129.00. That said, the Harbor Freight version might be a bit better.

There are two major cordless power tool brands sold at Harbor Freight. Hercules favors higher quality while Bauer favors affordability. The Hercules 20V Brushless 12-inch Drill/Driver (HCB91B) has a lot in common with the Milwaukee drill. It has two speeds, a ½-inch chuck, an all-metal construction with a textured overmold, and an LED worklight. Hercules also matches Milwaukee’s 5-year limited warranty, but this drill has two major advantages. The first is that it’s able to provide up to 1,200 in-lbs of torque. This gives it more than double the raw power for driving fasteners and drilling into dense materials without stalling. The second advantage is that it comes with a detachable side handle for extra support. It also retails for just $69.99.

The Hercules Drill has a 4.7 out of five on the Harbor Freight site, with customers citing power, price, quality, and value as reasons for their positive reviews. There is also a whole host of reports on forums like Reddit from users who claim that the tool outperforms several premium brands at a fraction of the cost. “Improving on previous generations of Hercules 20V Impact Drivers and Drills, the brushless motor not only adds power but value from increased runtime and tool lifespan,” said Eric Jopp of Tools in Action. “This line makes professional-grade tools more accessible to the non-professionals as well.”

The circular saw is another essential tool for woodworking, construction, and home DIY. This comparison is a little more of a toss-up, in which the Hercules only really outshines the Milwaukee if you prioritize the sheer number of cuts you get on a single battery.

The Milwaukee M18 Fuel 7-¼-inch Rear Handle Circular Saw (2930-20) is an impressive tool that costs $299.00. It has 4.4 stars out of five on the Milwaukee website, and promises to generate speeds up to 6,300 RPM. This outperforms the $149.99 Hercules 20V Rear-Handle Circular Saw (HCB72B-1) in terms of raw power, as the Harbor Freight item comes in at 5,800 RPM.

That said, the Hercules saw is able to cut up to 725 times on a single 12 Ah battery, while the Milwaukee cuts 700 on a battery of the same size. Both of these are relatively minor trade-offs, but you might also consider that the non-fuel, top-handled Milwaukee M18 7 ¼-inch Circular Saw boasts significantly less impressive specs with a top speed of 5,000 RPM, and it still costs $229.00, $80 more than the Hercules worm-drive saw.

The Hercules 20V Rear-Handle Circular Saw has a 4.9 out of 5 on the Harbor Freight site. “Very quiet, goes through a 2×4 like butter,” wrote one reviewer. “I used it to cut brick by adding the concrete blade. I also put the chainsaw beam cutter attachment on it, and it did very well.” Pro reviewers are also impressed with the tool’s power-to-price ratio. “This is a bargain, and it’s pretty much the same specs, very similar design as the Milwaukee M18 Fuel,” said YouTube reviewer G-manCan.

Those who are interested in doing more mechanical work will probably want to get themselves a good torque wrench. The Milwaukee M18 Fuel ½-inch High Torque Impact Wrench (2767-20) is a solid option for around $340, which is able to deliver up to 1,000 lb-ft of fastening torque and 1,400 lb-ft of breakaway torque. It also has 4.8 stars out of five on Milwaukee’s website from over 2,000 reviews.

That’s certainly impressive, but the $197.99 Hercules 20V ½-inch Ultra Torque Impact Wrench (HCB85B2) is able to produce 1,000 lb-ft of fastening torque and 1,500 lb-ft of breakaway torque, just barely edging out the Milwaukee in terms of power. Both tools have friction ring anvils, metal gear construction, and built-in LED worklights. What’s more, the Hercules has multiple speed range settings, offering ranges from 0-600 RPM, 0-1100 RPM, and 0-1600 RPM.

The Hercules Ultra Torque Impact Wrench has a 4.9 out of five on the Harbor Freight website. “This electric gun has not let me down at all,” one reviewer stated. “It has taken out lug, nuts, transmission, bolts, leaf spring hanger bolts–you name it. It has not let me down at all. […] I think it blows out the other impacts [in] my opinion.” Torque Test Channel extensively compared it to models from Milwaukee and DeWalt and found that it was on par in most tests, but particularly stood out in situations that demanded higher RPMs under tension, making it more effective for rusted heavy-equipment bolts.

It isn’t all power tools, however. It’s also worth taking a look at a few of Harbor Freight’s hand tools as well. The company’s Icon series tools are often compared to the premium Snap-On brand tools and truck products, and are regarded as some of the best valued items in the store. The Milwaukee ⅜-inch Drive Ratchet (48-22-9038) is one of the lower-rated tools on the company’s website, only having a score of 1.7 out of five. There are several reports stating that the $45.99 ratchet broke within just a few uses. Oddly enough, the tool has a much higher score of 4.4 out of five on Home Depot’s page, though there are several similar complaints there as well.

The slightly cheaper $42.99 Icon ⅜-inch Drive Professional Low-Profile Ratchet has a lot in common with this tool. It has the same 90-tooth design, 4-degree arc swing, slim head profile, and chrome finish–only the Icon boasts a 4.6 out of five with exceptionally high scores for durability. “If you appreciate high quality and durability at a reasonable price, you will love Icon ratchets,” one reviewer stated.

“I have a full drawer of various brands of ratchets, and my Icon ratchets are my favorite. If you offered to give me a ratchet from the popular tool truck brand or an Icon, I would choose the Icon.” Likewise, Shop Press noted in their review that, while it couldn’t really compete with top-end ratchets from Snap-On, the high tooth count, limited back drag, and convenient direction selector all make it a good tool for the price point. So with all that in mind, this definitely seems like an Icon tool that’s worth buying.

Just about everyone needs a good set of cutting pliers. These are essential for working with wiring and plastics, among many others. Quality matters quite a bit with these, as a cheap pair might not be able to cut through dense materials easily. Luckily, there are quite a few of Harbor Freight’s Doyle tools that are worth buying as well.

The Milwaukee 8-inch Diagonal Cutting Pliers (48-22-6108) are a relatively simple tool that boasts an iron carbide edge, a tapered nose, and a fish tape puller. There are only two reviews for these on the Milwaukee site, but both reviewers identified themselves as professional tradesmen, and both only gave it a single star citing weak wire stripping ability. The tool has a much better 4.5 out of five on Home Depotwhere it retails for $21.97, but there are still dozens of poor reviews complaining about quality.

The Doyle 8-inch High-Leverage Diagonal Cutting Pliers (64570), on the other hand, are only $15.99, and boast laser hardened, beveled cutting edges that can even cut through screws and nails. These cutters have a 4.8 out of five on the Harbor Freight site. “The Doyle brand [cutters come] pre-lubricated and [flop] open freely with a precision hinge joint,” claimed one reviewer. “The quality in the steel seems very well made and cuts wire clean.” The YouTuber Snap Ring Chronicles tested these on multiple materials. “It was able to cut through some really hair-thin wire and some pretty thick nails and screws,” they said. “So, this seems to be a pretty decent diagonal cutter.” They did, however, note that they aren’t insulated, and are therefore not safe for high-voltage work.

Comparing the quality of different tools inherently involves a certain amount of subjectivity. There are a lot of factors that are difficult to account for, and individual needs may dictate which tool is better for a given user. Even so, by examining specs, features, and customer and professional reviews (when available), we can get a pretty decent idea of when value is weighted in favor of one product.

In making this list, we started by examining some of the more popular Harbor Freight tools and comparing them to options from Milwaukee, searching for reasonably comparable products and choosing instances where the version offered by Harbor Freight was both more affordable and offered superior design and/or performance elements.

By doing this, we quickly discovered that although Milwaukee often offers pro-grade versions of these tools, such as the Fuel line, many of Harbor Freight’s pro grade tools are both less expensive and higher performing than those in Milwaukee’s entry-level lines. Having picked several examples of this, we compared specs and prices, making an argument for why the Harbor Freight version might be seen as having superior quality, and looked at consumer and pro reviews to verify that these tools actually performed as described in real world testing.