4 Cheaper Chainsaws That Outshine Stihl In Value

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Stihl chainsaws are beloved by homeowners and professional users alike, but they're not always the best for the price. For one, the company's limited warranty on tools and batteries is not exactly impressive, maxing out at 2 years and often being much shorter. For expensive chainsaws such as these, often coming in at $1,000 if not much more, that's not very good. According to the manufacturer, Stihl tools can be repaired by authorized dealers, but that's not quite as good as having a long warranty.

There are reasons to trust Stihl, of course. The brand has been working with chainsaws for a full century, and it's still an innovator in the field. A few years ago, Stihl entered the world of electric power tools with battery-powered chainsaws, offering some impressively long-lasting (and incredibly expensive) batteries. Stihl products are often considered the best when it comes to pro-grade chainsaws that cut though wood as efficiently as any rapidly rotating chain on an elongated metal bar can. But that's not what most chainsaw users are looking for.

If you need a portable tool for occasional pruning or if you take care of a garden that's not exactly large but still has a few big trees, there's probably a cheaper chainsaw to rival that consumer-grade Stihl you're looking at. Why, you may even find something that's lighter, longer-lasting, or has more features than Stihl's very expensive alternative.

The Echo CS-680 is a reasonably large and quite expensive gas-powered chainsaw from Japanese toolmaker Echo. For $10 more than the $789 asked for the 24-inch bar model, the brand sells the same chainsaw with a bar of 27 inches. The tool supports bar lengths of 20, 24, and 27 inches and comes with an automatic oiler that the brand claims can reduce fuel use. This chainsaw uses a 66.8cc two-stroke engine and has a max throttle speed of 13,100 rpm. On Home Depot, this tool is covered by a warranty of 5 years for domestic use and 1 year for commercial use.

The more comparable alternative from Stihl to the Echo CS-680 is the Stihl MS 391, which has a 64.1cc engine and supports up to 25-inch long bars. The 391's max rpm is 9,500, noticeably lower than the CS-680, and the warranty isjust 1year; that's not what you'd expect based on the similar engine size and higher price of $859.99 of the Stihl. Both tools have a side-access chain tensioner, which makes chain adjustments easier, and both promise to make air filtration more efficient and easier to manage. It's possible that the Stihl MS 391 has some upside we missed, but at least on paper, the Echo CS-680 has it beaten while being almost $100 cheaper.

The Ego Power+ CS2005 is a mid-sized, battery-powered chainsaw with a 20-inch bar and what Ego claims to be a 55cc gas-equivalent motor. Included in the price of $550 is the bar, an Ego 6.0Ah ARC Lithium battery, and the tool itself. According to the toolmaker, this battery and chainsaw can make up to 135 cuts on 6x6 wood on a full charge. The battery is covered by a 3-year warranty while the tool itself has a 5-year warranty.

A comparable Stihl chainsaw, the MSA 300, shares the same 20-inch max bar and has a similar weight (nearly 10 pounds against the 8.6 of the Ego). A similar difference can be seen in the size of the oil tank — 10.5 ounces in the Stihl against the 8.5 of the Ego. The two also share the IPX4 ingress protection rating, while the MSA 300 has a slightly faster max speed of 30 meters per second (67 mph) against the 25 m/s (55 mph) of the CS2005.

Overall, these two chainsaws are very comparable, with the Stihl pulling ahead slightly in some regards. The Ego Power CS2005 is very popular with users and has received positive professional coverage, and while the MSA 300 has few user reviews, it certainly has its fans. Price-wise, however, they're in completely different camps. Ego will sell you the whole kit for $550, while the Stihl comes in at about $850 without a battery — the recommended AP 300S battery will cost you an additional $320. We had to compare this Ego to the MSA 300 because you simply will not find a Stihl kit around $500 that is remotely comparable to the CS2005.

We've compared Husqvarna and Stihl chainsaw brands in the past and found that the former tends to be cheaper, often making it the better option for a homeowner's battery-powered chainsaws. Based on our research, this is still the case. The 225i "Power Axe" by Husqvarna is a 40V battery-powered chainsaw that supports a bar length between 12 and 14 inches. It's sold both as a standalone product and in a kit with a battery and charger. The kit comes in at $380 and, according to the toolmaker, this battery and chainsaw combo support up to 190 cuts of 4x4 wood per charge.

The similarly sized, battery-powered MSA 220 TC-O chainsaw by Stihl supports a bar length between 12 and 16 inches. Just like the 225i, it's a 40V cordless tool that weighs about six pounds and has a brushless motor and an automatic oiler. Unlike the Husqvarna, the Stihl makes no mention of its top chain speed or the horsepower produced by the motor, nor does it say how many cuts you can expect to make with a full charge of a 7.2Ah AP 300 battery ($320, not included with the chainsaw); still suggests pairing the $450 MSA 220 TC-O with the battery.

With that beefy battery equipped, you can perform up to 34 minutes of operation, though the brand doesn't specify in which conditions this time was recorded. Meanwhile, Husqvarna claims the battery included with the $380 kit of the 225i can deal with one hour of light pruning and 30 minutes of firewood cutting.

Now, the chances of a Ryobi tool outright beating a Stihl one are slim, but keep in mind that we're taking this Ryobi 40V 12-inch chainsaw to represent the category of portable homeowner chainsaws. These need to be longer and more powerful than pruning saws, while being lightweight and compatible with a small chain bar. Many homeowners with a large yard need something like this, and with its 12-inch bar, 8.4 pounds of weight, and quality-of-life features like an automatic oiler and easy access bar tensioning, this $200 Ryobi fits the bill just fine. It also comes with a carrying case and 5 years of warranty.

In many ways, the Stihl MSA 160 Battery Powered Chainsaw is just as good: It supports small chain bars, it's lightweight, and it has auto oiling and easy chain tensioning. However, it doesn't come with a carrying case, and chainsaws aren't the kind of tool you can throw in a Milwaukee Packout and call it a day.

Then there's the warranty, which is especially important for non-professionals. Stihl doesn't clarify how long the warranty is on this chainsaw, but it should be somewhere between 3 months and 2 years. If your Stihl chainsaw stops working a couple of years after purchase, you may be down $400, and that's money we bet you won't spend on a second Stihl. If it happened with the Ryobi instead, you'd be within the 5-year coverage of the limited warranty. These factors alone make the Ryobi a great fit for homeowners and DIYers, and that's before we get to the price. The Ryobi chainsaw is $200, half the price of the Stihl, and being part of the 40V Ryobi tool line, its batteries are much cheaper too.

To find these five chainsaws that outshine Stihl models, we first had to decide which Stihl chainsaws we should use as comparisons. We wanted to represent different variants that would appeal to a homeowner, so we selected two sub-$1,000 models (one gas and one battery-powered) a mid-sized electric chainsaw priced at about $500, and a small, inexpensive battery-powered chainsaw, which ended up being one of the cheapest models sold by Stihl.

Finally, we looked at professional reviews and comparisons published by trustworthy publications to find more inexpensive models that were considered, on some metrics (size and weight, features, warranty, etc.), better than the selected Stihl chainsaws upon direct comparison.