Not a lot of people know this but the word "strimmer" is actually a 1970s portmanteau of “string" and "trimmer", which gave us some fun new words to play with: he strims; she has strimmed; they are strimming; these are the best strimmers. And they really are the best strimmers.
A grass strimmer will allow you to create tidy, defined edges around your lawn where the grass meets the garden’s borders, ornaments, gazebos and pathways. While strimming may seem like a pretty mundane task, it can make all the difference to the aesthetics of your garden. Hence, if you really want to create a beautifully pruned space, we recommend checking out our top picks in this guide.
We’ve included the best trimmers from entry level to premium, and chosen them based on their features and functionality, whether its a corded model for budget-conscious lawnsmiths, a cordless strimmer for outright convenience or a petrol variant for those with larger lawns. We’ve also included a few brush cutters for cutting back wayward nettles and other obstreperous weeds.
Of course, the best garden strimmer would be useless without one of the Best Cordless Lawn Mower, Best Robot Lawn Mower or Best Petrol Lawn Mower – as these will help keep your lawn looking lush across the board!
And to take it one step further, keep the rest of your plants and surroundings also looking neat and tidy with the Best Hedge Trimmers, Best Garden Shears or Best Secateurs.
If you are revamping your garden or you’re a keen gardener, then we also recommend installing one of the Best Compost Bins in your garden to get rid of all your green and garden waste in an eco-friendly way.
Without further ado, let’s strim…
The best strimmers you can buy in 2023
Why you can trust T3 Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
The Worx WG163 is one of a few two-in-one tools on our list, acting as a grass trimmer and wheeled edger in one. The Worx provides hassle-free conversion between the two modes and uses a handy automatic line feed which means you won’t get slowed down mid-landscaping. It’s also equipped with a telescopic handle bar for a multitude of user heights. A 90-degree pivoting head, meanwhile, makes it easier to trim tricky spots, so if you have lawn furniture, a trampoline or a tricky-shaped garden, this may be the best strimmer for you.
This model comes with two 20v lithium-ion batteries and each one should give you about 30 minutes of running time. In our test it performed really well and was comfortable to use. It's also lighter than most of the cordless competition.
At just £102 – with two batteries no less – the Worx WG163 is a cracking budget option for light day-to-day streaming duties.
You can see how this strimmer stacks up to our number one choice in our Terratek 20V vs Worx WG163 comparison feature.
The first thing you notice with the Gtech GT50 strimmer is how light it is. At 1.85kgs, this model is easy to hold and use, plus it could strim the neighbourhood and still have enough energy left to strim it again. Actually, that may be a bit far fetched since the battery only lasts about 30 minutes. Nevertheless, from experience, 30 minutes is all it takes to trim the edges of a moderately large lawn.
It’s not just the low weight that helps here, it’s the clever design of the GT50’s adjustable handle and cutting assembly. The whole thing is so well dialled, ergonomically speaking, that it feels like an extension of your arms. That’s one good reason for consideration before we even touch on arguably the best bit – the cutting method.
Where most other grass trimmers use annoying ‘string’ spools that always, ALWAYS, either jam up or unravel, this one uses a single hover mower-style plastic blade that just clips on. Sure, the blade wears down and deforms at the tip when you get too close to the bordering brick wall, but it still cuts just as efficiently as a string-based model, only without the agro. Even better, when it’s time to change blades, simply clip on another – Gtech provides a large bunch of them with the product, but they only cost £3.99 for 50.
Sometimes a product comes along that blows the competition over the garden wall. This is one of them.
Make sure you shop our Gtech discount codes to snap up the best deal.
Is there anything more faffish than having to wind springy nylon line around a strimmer spindle? You know the scenario. For some unknown reason the line suddenly stops feeding through while you're trimming so you remove the lid on the line feeder and – zing – the whole lot springs out in one big tangled mess. You then spend the next 15 minutes trying to wind it back on the spool only to discover you didn’t wind it on as well as they did at the factory and now it’s worse than before. So you chuck the whole damn lot into the shed where it still resides to this day.
Ego feels your pain and has come up with the answer – a pro-spec cordless whipper snipper that self winds. Simply grab a decent length of Ego’s industrial strength 2.4mm nylon line, feed it through the head and hold the ‘Powerload’ button. Voila, the entire line is mechanically rolled up in just 10 seconds. This is groundbreaking stuff, dude.
The strimmer itself is equally amazing. Although it’s quite heavy, it’s so well balanced that you don’t really notice the weight when using it. What you will notice is how superbly well it performs. Unlike most strimmers that have just one short line spinning around, The Ego ST1511E has two and a combined cutting area of 38cm. This not only speeds up the process noticeably but it also makes it more efficient, which in turn leaves more time for important leisure activities like lobbing water bombs at the kids. Its small unassuming cutter head, meanwhile, features a brushless motor that will likely go on running longer than you will.
Ego’s battery tech is among the very best and this strimmer can be used with a variety of the company’s 56v batteries. The 2.5Ah version provides about 30 minutes of trimming time while its 7.5Ah version goes on running for up to 90 minutes. If you have a large lawn and the financial wherewithal, then this is unequivocally the weed whacker for you.
Since its inception in 1689 – an impressive 334 years – Swedish brand Husqvarna has produced a diverse number of products, from shotguns and sewing machines to off-road motorcycles and a wide range of mostly high-end garden products, including robot mowers, ride-on mowers, chainsaws and strimmers. The company also owns garden watering products brand Gardena.
This new 18v cordless strimmer comes with a number of alluring features including an adjustable spring-loaded shaft that accommodates a variety of user heights, an ergonomic non-variable speed trigger system with a safety on/off switch replete with battery gauge and a five-position handle for different arm lengths.
The main business of strimming is performed by a 28cm dual-line auto-feed cassette. The line itself is lightly crimped every centimetre along its length and this helps the line blade cut it more accurately so you don’t end up with uneven ends. Dual-line strimmers may take a little longer to reload but they offer faster cutting and are more easily able to deal with tough undergrowth.
This strimmer comes with a Power for Alliance 4Ah battery and charger and that means it can be used with any 18v garden tool from a variety of other manufacturers, including Bosch, Gardena and FlyMo.
In our tests, the Aspire performed exceedingly well, cutting through dense nettles with relative ease and making short work of standard grass trimming. It’s well balanced, too, though it does feel a little heavier than some of the other models on this page. Weight aside, the Aspire’s adjustable shaft makes it a great choice for households with more than one gardener, while its ability to scythe through dense undergrowth gives it extra kudos points.
This excellent 30cm strimmer is a top option for general strimming tasks though its non-telescopic aluminium shaft is quite long so it might not be suitable for those of very short stature.
The Greenworks 40V 30cm Cordless Linetrimmer is available with or without a battery so make sure you choose correctly at checkout. The 40V 2.0Ah Lithium Ion battery for this Greenworks will run for up to 20 minutes – and up to 40 minutes using the 4.0Ah version – before needing a recharge. Unless you have a large lawn, we would recommend the battery since 20 minutes is usually more than enough time for most trimming needs. Also, the larger battery will add more weight and therefore make it more tiring to use.
Like all strimmers, this model requires some assembly but everything you need is in the box and it’s all pretty self evident though you may struggle at first working out the orientation of the plastic protector.
The Greenworks is an exemplary performer – its powerful brushed motor tackles all standard garden tasks with ease and it’s not bad with thistles either. Also, it has a variable speed trigger which makes it really controllable in all types of foliage. A flip-down metal wire guard, meanwhile, prevents destroying the line against a wall or fence. Great choice.
This high-end model features a double-line spool which is more efficient than a single line, obviously. The jury’s out on how long before something goes awry with the spooling system but it looks robust enough and, we hope, reliable.
The FSA 57’s 28cm cutting diameter is perfect for larger lawns but you’d be better served with the larger and longer-lasting AK 20 battery (40 minutes) rather than the AK 10, which lasts for about 20 minutes.
The FSA 57 features a length adjustable shaft, an adjustable loop handle and a comfy trigger grip that feels secure in the hand. This grass trimmer is heavier than some others and you will likely feel like you’ve done a workout after several minutes of using it but, hey, it trims superbly well and, given Stihl’s rosy reliability record, it’s likely to go on running longer than most.
This is the cordless model to grab for both general strimming and industrial bushwhacking. At 5.1 kilos, the Ryobi Cordless Brush Cutter isn’t light but you won’t feel the weight when you strap on the excellent harness and grab hold of the bike-style handlebar system that comes with it.
With its four shoulder and waist nylon straps, back support and side protector, the Ryobi’s harness is properly functional. In fact, once you’ve balanced the unit on its pivot point, you’ll find this model is a breeze to use because the cutting head floats a few inches off the ground making the task of trimming pretty effortless. Yes it’s a palaver putting the harness on but once it’s in position the unit can simply be clipped on and off at will.
Like all the best strimmers, the Ryobi’s trigger features variable speed control which is a boon when scything through different types of foliage. And when the going gets really tough, simply swap the 30cm auto-feed line for the 20cm Tri-Arc brushcutter blade which is capable of annihilating everything in its path.
The Ryobi Cordless Brush Cutter doesn’t come with a battery so be sure to add one at checkout. However, if you have other Ryobi ONE+ power tools in the home, you’ll be pleased to know that the battery this model uses is exactly the same one that’s used for all Ryobi 18v power tools.
This cordless strimmer is a great-value product that combines both trimming and edging capabilities in one strimming package.
What separates this wireless unit from many others is that it comes as standard out of the box with two batteries, meaning that you've got twice the amount of juice for strimming. Each battery last about 40 minutes, so you've got an hour and a half of non-stop strimming power on tap. Battery recharge time isn't particularly fast at 3-5 hours, but we can't see anyone needing more strimming after 90 minutes of action.
Weighing in at just 2kgs, the Terratek 20V Cordless Strimmer is also light, and it comes with a decent 25cm trimming diameter and quick change blades. These blades just snap in and out of the blade housing, making replacing them easy.
Throw in the fact that this system can also edge with an adjustable height of 95cm to 115cm, and comes with a two-year warranty, and it's clear to see it is a very strong all-round package. And especially so at its budget price point.
To see how this model performs against a top-rated rival, then read our Terratek 20V vs Ego ST1510E comparison feature.
This high-end 2-in-1 model ships with a 40cm auto-feed twin nylon line for general trimming duties and a wide cutting blade for dealing with brambles, thistles and other unruly weeds.
At 7.7 kilos, this model is pretty heavy but thankfully it comes with a shoulder strap which, when attached to the balance point, helps reduce the weight on the front so that it effectively floats just above ground level. Just be sure to have the heavyweight battery in place when adjusting the pivot point. The loop handle, meanwhile, comes with a bar extension for a variety of hand positions, though I should add at this juncture that Greenworks also offers a bike-style handlebar version of this model, so perhaps consider that if you think a wider handlebar is better suited to your needs.
Take note that this model is 1.74m in length and it doesn’t come with a telescopic shaft which may be an issue for those of shorter stature. On the other hand, having extra length is a great safety measure because it means the business end is a good distance from the user, especially when using the blade on rough verges. I also like the way this model's motor doesn’t kick in immediately at full speed when you press the variable-speed trigger. Instead, there’s a brief delay in speed which I consider an excellent safety measure, especially when using the blade which is capable of inflicting serious injury.
The Greenworks’ 4.0Ah battery (not included) provides a stupendous 50 minutes of running time which is more than enough juice for even the longest of borders. Its 60v of torque, meanwhile, ensures that nothing will survive the onslaught.
If you’re in the market for a cordless brushcutter that’s as efficient as a petrol-driven model, the Greenworks is about as good as it gets. Granted, it’s expensive to buy – especially when you figure in the price of the pro-spec battery (around £180) – but then again it’s a lot quieter, it runs for ages and it won’t require fuel and periodical servicing.
This Ryobi strimmer is powered by a 2.0Ah lithium-ion battery that delivers about 24 minutes of operation before needing to be recharged – that’s more than enough time for any small to medium size garden. Naturally, though, if you have a very large garden then expect to buy additional batteries or wait for a recharge.
The cutting path of the Ryobi strimmer is 25cm, which is about average. However the lower hand grip isn’t adjustable like other models so you might find it’s not as comfortable to use if you’re short in stature. On the plus side, it does feel light in the hand.
When it comes to clearing nettles, brambles and really long grass on an industrial scale, you need a commercial-style petrol-powered ‘brush cutter’ with handle bars and a full harness – just like this excellent model from Cobra.
The BC330CU is equipped with an efficient 33cc two-stroke engine with a variable speed trigger and a heavy-duty, self-unravelling nylon cord that makes mincemeat of wild overgrown weeds and grasses. Petrol-powered brush cutters are inherently heavy (this one weighs 9kgs) and too unwieldy to use for more than five minutes at a time so having a bike-style handlebar system and a shoulder harness to help balance the weight is a massive bonus.
I tested this model on the verges of our village road and was able to keep going for up to 20 minutes before needing a rest. Its power is astonishing, especially when operating at high revs. Yes, it’s noisy and even a bit scary, but you won’t find anything that’s more efficient at clearing heavy brush. It even comes with a metal tri-blade for cutting through stiff stalks like bamboo and small bushes.
Like all small petrol engines – both four- and two-stroke – this one benefits most from being used with Aspen fuel which you can read more about in our guide to the Best Petrol Lawn Mowers.
Granted, it may take you a while to get the engine to idle properly – an issue that affects most two-stroke engines – but once it’s been running a few times, the engine settles down and runs perfectly every time you pull the start cord.
The Cobra BC330CU is far too over-engineered for normal grass trimming purposes but if you have a large property with lots of overgrown borders and pathways, you may not find a better petrol-powered contender for the money.
If you don’t have a huge garden to trim or much money at all to spend on a unit, this corded Bosch strimmer is a strong choice: the 23cm cutting area isn’t as big as some rivals, but neither is the price tag. It weighs just 2.1kg, too, meaning it is easy to handle.
The spool is a single line job with semi-automatic feeding and it’s fine for grass up to 15cm high, although the lack of a heavy-duty option means that’s about the only growing thing you’ll want to tackle with this unit.
It is a corded strimmer as you would expect from this price point, but you get a six metre cable in the box so you've got some reach. For small gardens where all you want to do is trim grass, this is a decent fit. Bosch is also an incredibly popular and reliable brand so you can feel confident that it will last a while.
There’s more to this heavy-duty electric Black & Decker trimmer than meets the eye, not least that it’s lighter and more manoeuvrable than you might think on first glance – but there’s also the fact that it’s part trimmer, part edger. Despite it's size and shape, it's easy to use and reaches even the trickiest of edges.
According to Black & Decker, all it takes for a professional, precise finish is a quick switch to vertical mode, and the innovative Wheel Edge Guide will do the rest. In the arena of cheap corded strimmers, this one is well worth a whirl.
There's a lot of value in the Flymo Contour 650E electric line trimmer, not least because it can act as both a grass trimmer and edger in one unit. It’s equipped with 10 metre cord and delivers a mid-tier cutting width of 30 centimetres, which will be more than enough for most gardens. This is especially true as this model delivers a dual auto line feed system, meaning that it is more robust than cheaper strimmers.
The downsides to this strimmer are really only two-fold: firstly, it is not cordless, so you have to deal with a power cord, and secondly its build is very ABS plastic heavy. This makes it lighter to use, though, admittedly, but it does the job well even if it doesn't look too impressive.
This electric edger is far from a one-trick pony, offering up strimming as well as edging capabilities for all-round neatness in the garden. Using EasyEdge technology, the spring-assisted change support promises to make switching between modes easy, and the live tool indicator lights up when plugged in so you know you’re safe to start.
Reviewers loved how powerful it was on both fronts, while the protected spool cover means that it won’t get away from you and accidentally mulch your prized begonias – good to know! Of course, as it's not cordless, you will have to deal with a cable so keep that in mind when you add it to your basket.
UK-based Cobra waltzes onto the lawn with a cracking strimmer that is both light in the hand and ergonomically styled for effortless strimming. It’s infinitely adjustable from shaft and handle to base and even comes with a pair of wheels for edging lawns to OCD perfection (simply twist the head 45˚).
This model features two cutting speeds: Eco and Turbo. To use, hold in the ‘on' button for a few seconds and it will default to Eco mode which is ample for most strimming needs. If the grass is really long or straw like, switch it to Turbo mode and it’ll slice through it like butter.
Unfortunately, the ‘on’ button is quite easy to turn off accidentally with your thumb mid strim so bear that in mind should it suddenly cut out and you start panicking that it’s run out of juice. You can safely expect between 25 and 30 minutes of strimming time per charge and a charging time of around two hours. It comes with one 24v battery.
Cobra produces a wide range of great garden machinery and this model’s a case in point. Being of British origin, you should have no issue sourcing its products and spares.
Some of us dream of freedom. Freedom from the shackles of corded strimmers. Freedom from the limits of battery technology. Freedom to cut whatever we damn well please, wherever we want to damn well do it, while making a whole bunch of noise. And that means we dream of petrol-powered strimmers like this excellent all-rounder from Stihl, the company of choice among pros.
The Stihl FS40 is equipped with a 27cc two-stroke petrol engine, a 0.34-litre fuel tank and a short, easy-pull starting cord. When it comes to serious hacking back of all lengths of grass for long periods of time, this 38cm petrol beast is a perfect choice.
Being petrol driven, you can use it anywhere and, being of Stihl origin, you can be sure it’ll run reliably for many years. Tip: use Aspen 2 two-stroke fuel mix for extra reliability, better performance and fewer emissions.
- Now that you're garden is in order, why not cook up a storm with one of the best pizza ovens?
