5 Underrated Tool Brands You Can Find At Home Depot

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Home Depot is one of the largest hardware chains in America, so you can always expect to find many of the biggest and most well-known tool brands stocked on its shelves. Top hand tool names like Stanley, Crescent, and Klein, as well as power tool brands like DeWalt, Milwaukee, and Makita, are often showcased on large, colorful displays that draw the eye and force shoppers to take notice. These tools have well-earned reputations for quality, but they aren't the only options that the store sells. Tucked away in Home Depot's many product bays, there are tons of other brands that might not be quite so well known, but which also manufacture tools that are highly regarded by users and professional reviewers alike.

That isn't to say that these brands are complete unknowns. Nearly all of the products that Home Depot carries have a certain degree of name recognition, so dedicated hobbyists and tradespeople might already be familiar with most of what the company has to offer. That said, many of these don't get as many appearances on "best tool" lists in spite of the fact that they make exceptionally highly rated products with both pro and user reviews attesting to their value, design, and performance. Many of them are also store brands that are more affordable, leading some consumers to assume that they are inferior out of pocket. By taking a look at user ratings and pro reviews, you can get a much better idea about which of these brands might just offer more value than their reputations (or lack thereof) would have you believe.

There aren't a lot of premium power tools out there that one might consider underrated, but there is at least one notable exception: Bosch. The German-owned tool company is considered by pros to be one of the best high-end options on the market, and yet it's rarely mentioned alongside the likes of Milwaukee, Makita, and DeWalt. In fact, it's rare that you'll find Bosch's tools with a dedicated display in the big box store. Part of this may be due to the fact that Bosch has a more limited ecosystem when compared to its contemporaries.

That said, just about every tool that Bosch makes is rated over 4 stars on the Home Depot website, with standout models like the 13.5 Amp 1 ⅞-inch SDX Max Rotary Hammer Drill, the 15 Amp 7 ¼-inch Magnesium Worm Drive Circular Saw, and the 12 Amp 2 ¼ HP Plunge and Fixed Base Router Kit being among the top-rated options sold in the store. "I think Bosch is underrated," one Redditor posted in a discussion of the most under- and overrated tool brands. "They have some really quality engineering in their tools, and they also tend to be treated like a forgotten stepchild." Pro Tool Reviews ran a ranking of the best power tool brands recently and placed Bosch right behind Milwaukee, Makita, and DeWalt, with particularly high marks in the Concrete Tools category.

Another reason Bosch tools are often overlooked is that their technical specs sometimes don't appear as impressive as rival brands. Torque Test Channel tested the Bosch Mid-Torque Impact Driver against the Milwaukee M18, however, and found that the Bosch actually performed about 33% better than what the company advertised. 

Calling Ryobi underrated is a bit of a mixed bag. The Home Depot-affiliated power tool company is easily one of the most recognizable brands on the market. It's well known in the tool community, but its reputation can seem a little murky, depending on who you talk to. The issue is that Ryobi's tools are often considered entry-level products that aren't powerful enough for serious craftspeople. While it's true that Milwaukee, Makita, and DeWalt's products often outperform comparable options from Ryobi, it's worth considering other factors, such as the sheer size of the Ryobi catalog, the versatility of the One+ battery system, and the cost-to-performance ratio of its tools.

There are currently well over 300 products in the 18V One+ battery system alone, including tons of underrated Ryobi finds that users swear by. The company also has USB Lithium, 40V, and 80V systems, as well as a selection of corded tools and accessories. "I love how easily accessible it is and the amount of tools they offer. I think it's [an] underrated brand," one Tools in Action contributor stated. You should also consider that Ryobi has separate lines even within the same battery systems. The HP series tools offer more performance than the standard models, putting them more in line with contractor-grade tools. "Ryobi's HP line is 90% the performance of Milwaukee," one Redditor claimed. "And with the sales [...] literally 50% (or less) the cost."

Professional reviewers seem to agree with this assessment. "In our opinion, Ryobi makes excellent tools," says Pro Tool Reviews Editor in Chief, Kenny Koehler. "If you use them for the applications they're designed to work in, you should expect to get years of service from them."

While Ryobi is regarded as one of the best budget-oriented options on the market, one alternative that you might consider if you're willing to pay just a bit more is the "middleweight" option: Ridgid. The orange company's tools don't seem to be quite as popular as their green cousins, but they do have a cult following of users who swear that they are underrated Home Depot tools that are more than worth the money. 

There are dozens of Ridgid tools, with most of them seeming to average somewhere between 4.3 and 4.7 stars. People particularly seem to like their bundles. The company's 18V Brushless Drill and Impact Driver, Angle Grinder, Finishing Nailer, ⅜-inch Ratchet, 6 ½-inch Circular Saw, Oscillating Multitool, Track Saw, Impact Wrench, Rotary Hammer, Router, and Reciprocating Saw combo kits all currently have a 4.8 out of 5 rating, with some of them boasting thousands of reviews. In a forum discussing the best power tool brands to invest in, there were a handful of outliers singing Ridgid's praises among the sea of DeWalt, Milwaukee, and Makita fans. "I have used Ridgid tools for over 10 years now," said one contributor. "They are good for the money and come with [a] lifetime warranty. I have used it a few times to get some tools repaired, and if they were unrepairable, they were replaced, no questions asked."

Several pro reviewers seem to agree. "When it comes to professional power tools, I think Ridgid is one of the most underrated power tool manufacturers," says Tools in Action. "We have done a lot of tool fights over the years, and each time Ridgid has been one of the top performers, if not the top performer. Ridgid tools are of high quality, offer great features, and reasonably priced."

There are a lot of people out there who assume an affordable store-owned brand's products must be of inferior quality to those made by more independently recognizable brands such as Milwaukee, Craftsman, and Irwin. This might be true in some cases, but certainly not regarding Husky. The brand has a massive range of products, ranging from basic hand and garden tools to tool chests, tool carts, work benches, modular storage systems, totes, floor jacks, air compressors, and pneumatic devices.

In fact, Husky's catalog is so extensive that it's difficult to get an accurate gauge of an average customer rating, though a good deal of them seem to hover in the 4.3-4.7 star range. "I think people sleep on Husky," a Reddit contributor from the aforementioned discussion about under- and overrated tool brands stated. "I know it is cheap and just the Home Depot brand, but every single Husky tool I have, [I] beat the crap out of and they still work great. I've had a folding utility blade from Husky for like 12 years, and it still works perfectly." It isn't just customers that feel that way, either.

"I have long believed Husky to be one of the most underrated tool brands out there," says Tool Guyd. "They offer a range of offerings, with most perfectly hitting the sweet spot balance of quality and value." This opinion isn't restricted to the company's tools. There are multiple reports of people praising its storage solutions, too. "Over the years, we have done a wide variety of tool boxes and mobile storage solutions by Husky," claims Tools in Action. "Husky has greatly improved the quality without raising the prices like crazy. In fact, for tool boxes, they are probably the best bang for your buck over the competition."

Power tools are easy to get excited about, but a lot of projects succeed or fail by virtue of simple measuring devices. The humble level is one such tool. You might be able to find plenty of cheap plastic levels in the bargain bin, but getting a quality level made of sturdy materials can save you from a lot of headaches down the line. That doesn't mean you should throw affordability out the window altogether, though. 

You might not know the name Empire Level, but head to your local Home Depot and you'll almost certainly see the brand's many blue and silver products hanging on its shelves. It offers over a dozen different types of levels as well as other measuring tools such as squares, protractors, chalk lines, and plumb bobs in a wide range of sizes and price points. These have garnered a quietly growing reputation in pro construction and home DIY circles for being a solid discount option. With a handful of exceptions, nearly all of Empire's tools are rated in the 4.6 to 4.8 range on Home Depot's site, with the top reasons for positive reviews regularly citing the three most important qualities in a measuring tool: accuracy, durability, and value.

Pro Tool Reviews recently made a list of recommendations for the best bubble levels, and Empire models were suggested in two different categories. The Empire Level em75.10 was cited as the Best Torpedo Level, and the Empire Level e75 Series was cited as the Best Value option. Likewise, Taobao recommended Empire as the fourth best bubble level brand on the market, stating that it "focuses on affordability without compromising reliability."

Classifying a tool brand as underrated can be tricky and somewhat subjective. It not only assumes that there is a baseline value placed on the brand's products by the average consumer, but also suggests that this baseline value isn't an adequate representation of that brand's real-world value.

To make this list, we looked at the various tool brands that Home Depot carries. We started by ruling out many of the most popular mainstream brands and attempted to focus on brands that are either slightly less known or that have received undue prejudice due to their being store brands, and thus being considered "cheap."

Once we had a few options picked out, we reviewed consumer opinions on the Home Depot site as well as several popular tool-focused forums. We attempted to find brands with products that consistently ranked highly and that customers often referred to as underrated, or otherwise claimed to be a better value than what most people would have you believe. We then verified these claims by seeking out professional reviews from reputable publications that offered similar observations.