At a glance
I’ve lost count of how many strimmers have been through my hands this year, somewhere around fifteen by the time the petrol, battery and electric batches were all done, which is a daft number for one plot but does mean I’ve now got a proper picture of how the three power types actually compare against each other rather than just within their own category.
Rather than make you wade through three separate round ups to work out which strimmer actually came out on top regardless of what powers it, here are the five highest scoring machines from the whole lot, one list, ranked.
How these scores were built. Every strimmer here has its own full review already on the site, tested over a real season’s worth of use, not a few minutes on a tidy lawn. This list pulls the five best scoring machines from that wider testing, across petrol, battery and electric.
Quick verdict summary
The top 5, ranked
The highest scoring strimmer of the entire fifteen, battery powered with a 56 volt system that doesn’t feel like a compromise next to anything petrol. Never once a line feed I had to fight with, never a single restart problem across a full season.
It costs more to get into than most of the others here, the battery and charger aren’t cheap on their own, but the consistency is what earned it the top spot rather than any one standout feature.
Read our full EGO ST1613E-T review ↗As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Stihl’s own battery system, a 36 volt AK pack, and it shows in how solidly everything fits together compared with most of the budget battery machines I’ve put through their paces this year. Nothing rattled, nothing flexed under load.
It’s a closed battery system, so you’re committed to Stihl’s own packs rather than something cheaper from a cross compatible range, worth knowing before you buy in.
Read our full Stihl FSA 57 review ↗As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The highest scoring electric machine across the whole batch, 900 watts with a dual cutting system that copes with brambles rather than just grass. No charging to wait for, no battery degrading over time, just plug it in and go.
It’s heavy for what it is, you feel the cable’s there the whole time, and the manufacturer’s own spec sheet has an error on the weight figure so glaring it’s hard to take any number on that page at face value.
Read our full BLACK+DECKER GL9035-GB review ↗As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
An 18 volt system designed specifically to share its battery with other tools across Bosch’s wider range, the kind of thing that actually matters once you’ve got more than one cordless tool in the shed and don’t want a different charger for each.
A modest 26cm cutting width keeps it firmly in light trimming territory, not a machine for anything past grass and the odd weed, but it does that job without complaint and the shared battery system is the real reason it scored as well as it did.
Read our full Bosch UniversalGrassCut 18V-26 review ↗As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
A 20 volt PowerShare battery that crosses over with Worx’s wider tool range, 30cm cutting width, and an edging mode that’s noticeably easier to set up than most. The cheapest of this top five by feel and finish, but it scored well because it does everything it claims without fuss.
Not the machine for proper overgrowth, this is a grass and edges tool through and through, but for the job it’s built for it’s hard to fault.
Read our full Worx WG163E review ↗As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Head to head comparison
| Model | Power type | Key spec | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| EGO Power+ ST1613E-T | Battery | 56V, 40cm | 4.4 / 5 |
| Stihl FSA 57 | Battery | 36V AK, 280mm | 4.3 / 5 |
| BLACK+DECKER GL9035-GB | Electric | 900W, 35cm | 4.2 / 5 |
| Bosch UniversalGrassCut 18V-26 | Battery | 18V, 26cm | 4.2 / 5 |
| Worx WG163E | Battery | 20V, 30cm | 4.1 / 5 |
Petrol, battery or electric
What stands out from this top five, and from the wider fifteen it’s drawn from, is that battery has quietly become the strongest category overall. Four of these five top scoring machines run on a battery, and not by a small margin either, the top two spots on the entire list both went to battery powered trimmers rather than the petrol machines with bigger headline power figures or the corded electric tools you’d expect to win on raw consistency.
That’s not the whole story though. The one corded electric machine that made this list, the BLACK+DECKER, did so on the strength of beating most of the battery field on cutting power, it’s the only thing in this top five that took on actual brambles without slowing down. No petrol strimmer made the final cut at all, the best of that batch scored 4.0, a perfectly respectable result on its own terms but not enough to break into a list dominated by battery and one strong electric outlier.
Battery ecosystem matters more than the headline spec. Both Bosch and Worx made this list partly because their batteries cross over with a wider tool range, not just because of raw cutting performance. If you’ve already got cordless tools from a brand, checking whether the strimmer shares that battery system is worth doing before you compare wattage or voltage figures.
If you’ve genuinely got brambles, nettles or a plot that fights back, none of the battery machines on this list quite match what a 52cc petrol strimmer can do with a blade fitted, that category still has its place even though none of them scored high enough to break into this top five. This list is about the best all rounders across everyday garden use, not the single most powerful tool for the worst patch on your plot.
Final verdict and recommendations
For the single best strimmer regardless of how it’s powered: the EGO Power+ ST1613E-T. Consistent across an entire season in a way nothing else here quite matched.
For build quality you can feel the moment you pick it up: the Stihl FSA 57. The closed battery system is the only real downside.
For anyone who doesn’t want to think about charging at all: the BLACK+DECKER GL9035-GB. The strongest corded option by a clear margin, and the only thing on this list that copes properly with brambles.
For sharing a battery across an existing toolkit: the Bosch UniversalGrassCut 18V-26. Light duty cutting, but the cross compatibility is the real selling point.
For the most sensible budget battery buy: the Worx WG163E. Does everything it promises without trying to be more than it is.
The EGO Power+ ST1613E-T tops the whole field, with battery power dominating this list overall. But match the strimmer to the actual job, brambles still want a blade, not a battery, however good the battery’s got.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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