The Best Multi-tool

What star.shop is for

star.shop finds the single best product in a category and hands you that one answer, so you can buy with confidence without doing the research yourself. For the best multi-tool, that answer is the Leatherman Wave+. Reaching that decision on your own usually means one of two things: reading a long, thorough Wirecutter or other editorial review — they test extensively and write up every contender, which is excellent but a lot to read and weigh — or piecing together scattered Reddit threads, old forum posts, and reviews yourself. We do all of that reading and reconcile it into the pick above; what follows is how we got there.

A firewall between research and revenue

There is a firewall between our research and our money, and we mean that literally. During the research stage we are blind — deliberately, structurally blind — to whether a product carries an affiliate tag at all, let alone what it might pay. The analysis above happens before any of that is known: the team and tools making the pick have no visibility into commission rates. Affiliate links, where they exist, are added only after the recommendation is locked, and they have no bearing whatsoever on which product wins. Editorial and monetization sit on opposite sides of that wall, the same church-and-state separation a newsroom keeps between its journalists and its ad sales.

In this case, an Amazon affiliate tag is included in the Leatherman Wave+ buy link — we take part in the Amazon Associates program, the same way sites like Wirecutter do — so if you buy through it, star.shop may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That tag was attached only at the very end, after the Leatherman Wave+ and every alternative we considered had been evaluated the same way on the evidence. We're glad to name the best product in a category whether or not there's any money in it for us.

Why this category is hard to research well

A multi-tool is easy to admire on a spec sheet and hard to judge until you carry one for months. What separates a good full-size tool from a bad one shows up in three places that a first-look review rarely captures:

• How you actually deploy it. The single feature owners cite most is outside-accessible, locking tools you can open one-handed without unfolding the pliers. Reddit users describe "the satisfying 'snick' of the pliers flicking open one handed" as the thing that wins, and repeatedly note the practical gap: a Skeletool or Wave lets you get to the knife and saw without opening the whole tool, while nail-nick openers on the Victorinox side are called "a total deal breaker" by some. You only learn whether an opening mechanism annoys you by living with it.
• Whether you carry it at all. The most common failure mode isn't breakage, it's the tool staying home. Owners describe full-size tools as "a bit on the heavy side," "too heavy, and full of stuff I just don't need," and note the standard model has no pocket clip. Multiple people say they lost their tool because the stock belt sheath is flimsy. Weight, carry method, and sheath quality decide whether a great tool is a used tool.
• Long-run build and QC. Because these get daily abuse, real quality only surfaces after years. Owners report Waves carried daily for 8, 15, even 20 years. But the same threads carry a recurring worry that Leatherman's QC has slipped, with one owner noticing a "thinner saw" on a recently bought unit and others swapping to Victorinox over fit-and-finish.

The good evidence lives where people carry these for a living: firefighters, aircraft mechanics, IT techs, tradesmen, and the long-history r/BuyItForLife and r/multitools regulars who own several and can say which one they keep reaching for.

How we research a pick

We don't run our own product tests. Plenty of outlets already do rigorous, independent testing, and adding one more set of results to that pile is less useful than weighing all of them together. So star.shop is a meta-analysis: we synthesize the credible testing and the long-term owner record across every source we can find into a single pick.

• Sources: r/BuyItForLife multi-tool threads, r/multitools' Leatherman-vs-Victorinox debates, and r/EDC "best overall" discussions — heavily weighted toward people who use these at work.
• Recurring independently-reported strengths: outside-access one-handed knife and saw; a toolset (pliers, two knives, saw, file, scissors, screwdrivers) that covers nearly everything; razor-sharp blades out of the box; the 25-year warranty with hassle-free repairs; and a best-in-class accessory ecosystem.
• Recurring independently-reported issues: weight and bulk that push people to carry it in a bag or on a belt rather than a pocket; flimsy stock sheaths blamed for lost tools; scattered reports of slipping QC and thinner saw blades; and painted/black-oxide finishes rubbing off onto hands during heavy use.
• The core tradeoffs buyers weigh: capability versus carry weight (full toolset vs. "the 4 or 5 I actually need"), and Leatherman's usability and one-handed opening versus Victorinox's tighter tolerances and softer, more sharpening-prone blade steel.

One firefighter's line is representative: "Leatherman wave, use it all the time as a firefighter." Another owner: "I've carried a Leatherman wave on my belt daily for the last 15-20 years... there has only been a handful of days I haven't ended up using it." One account like that proves nothing — anyone can love their tool. What moves it from anecdote to signal is the same story landing from dozens of unconnected owners across trades: aircraft mechanics, IT bags, DIYers, search-and-rescue.

The Leatherman Wave+ versus the alternatives we considered

The Wave+ wins as the do-everything full-size pick; the alternatives each win for a narrower buyer.

Leatherman Wave+ vs Leatherman Skeletool CX

• Strongest case: Wirecutter's top pick and the community's favorite when weight matters. Owners carry it "nearly every day since they came out in 2007," praise that it's "light enough that I do not really notice it's there," and love outside access to the knife without opening the tool. As one put it: "I only need pliers and a knife 99% of the time."
• Where it loses: It's knife and pliers only — no saw, file, scissors, or the full driver set. People who bought a Skeletool sometimes keep a Wave in the bag for exactly the file/saw/screwdriver jobs it can't do.
• Why the Wave+ won: For a single do-everything tool, the Wave+'s fuller kit covers more without a second tool. The Skeletool CX is the right pick if you want the lightest thing you'll actually pocket every day and rarely need more than a blade.

Leatherman Wave+ vs Victorinox Swiss Tool / Spirit X

• Strongest case: Repeatedly called the highest-quality, tightest-tolerance build in the category — "almost looks like jewelry compared to Leatherman," with owners carrying grandfather-handed-down units for decades. The Spirit X has outside-opening tools, and the whole line "feels rock solid."
• Where it loses: Softer blade steel that "needs sharpening every couple times," a "butter knife"-shaped blade some find weak, and stiff nail-nick opening that several owners call a deal breaker — plus no glove-friendly one-handed deploy on most models.
• Why the Wave+ won: For everyday one-handed use, especially with gloves, the Wave+ is faster and less fussy. The Swiss Tool / Spirit X is right for the buyer who values build feel above all, does light cutting, and already carries a separate folder for a real blade.

Leatherman Wave+ vs Leatherman Rebar / Super Tool 300

• Strongest case: Favored as a near-indestructible, simpler heavy-duty option — "built like a tank," "light and indestructible," used to "bash/pry/etc." The Super Tool 300 "survives everything."
• Where it loses: Simpler toolset, no scissors, and no outside one-handed access to the knife and saw; the Rebar also lacks a pocket clip, a stated complaint from owners.
• Why the Wave+ won: The Wave+'s outside-access tools and broader kit make it the better all-day generalist. The Rebar / Super Tool 300 is right for someone who mostly needs a rugged pliers-and-driver tool for heavy jobs and doesn't care about scissors or one-handed knife access.

What we filter out

• SEO and blog spam — thin articles assembled to rank on Google, often by writers who never used the product, restating spec sheets and each other.
• Junky affiliate roundups — "best of" lists ordered by commission rate rather than time spent using anything, where somehow every product is a winner and there's a buy button on every line.
• Astroturfing and fake Reddit comments — coordinated or paid promotion dressed up as organic enthusiasm. Recent, oddly polished praise from brand-new or low-history accounts gets heavy skepticism, especially in the past year as this has gotten cheaper to manufacture at scale.
• Fake and incentivized reviews — fabricated or comped star ratings, the kind that pile up fast on a new listing and rarely survive contact with what long-term owners actually report.
• N-of-1 blog posts — one person's single unit, briefly used, written up as a verdict. A real signal needs the same story from many unconnected owners, not one enthusiastic account.

Two distinctions matter for this category. First, "I rarely use my Leatherman" isn't a defect — several honest owners admit that around the house "there is almost always a better tool," which is a fit issue about who needs a multi-tool, not a knock on the Wave+ itself. Second, the QC worries deserve weight but not panic: reports of thinner saws and looser tolerances are real and recurring, yet the 25-year warranty and no-hassle repairs (owners describe sending buckled tools in and getting them fixed free) are what keep the pick standing. We separate a preference for Victorinox's finish from an actual failure of the Wave+ to do its job.

Why the recommendation above stays short

Most buyers don't need this whole write-up. The pick, the pros, and the cons are the compressed answer: a capable full-size tool you can open one-handed, backed by a warranty, with the honest caveat that it's heavy and the stock sheath is the thing most likely to lose it for you. This longer section is here for the few who want to see the reasoning and the alternatives we weighed before landing on it.

What the star.shop score means

Every pick carries a 1–5 star score for how good the product is and how happy its long-term owners are, judged against the best in its category and the ideal — never against price; an expensive product still scores high if it's excellent. The scores skew high since these are category winners, but they're not all the same: a 5.0 is rare and means essentially no real flaws, and the score steps down as common complaints or compromises add up — lowest where even the best option in a category is mediocre.

What the badges mean

• Wirecutter — a current Wirecutter pick
• r/BuyItForLife — a favorite among owners who prize long-term durability
• Reddit — a broad favorite across Reddit communities

A pick can carry several. When community consensus clearly outweighs the editorial pick, the community product takes the top spot.

Using this content

You're welcome to reference and cite anything on this page — our goal is to make the best products easy to find for everyone. If you use it, please credit star.shop and link back to this page, and don't reproduce our pages or content.