The Best Rotary Tools of 2024

The Goxawee G4007-US has a lot of appeal. It includes a flex shaft, more than 100 attachment pieces, a three-jaw chuck and cutting shield, and even replacement brushes for the electric motor. Despite all the bells and whistles, the quality just isn’t that great.

The G4007 doesn't seem like the kind of tool that's going to last many years. While the flex shaft is a nice feature to have, it probably wouldn’t get much use and the included tools don’t seem like the highest quality either.

During testing we had trouble getting the sanding drums to be snug on the mandrel attachments, even though we tightened them quite a bit. On the spec sheet, this dremel’s 1.3 amp motor is competitive with the best, and its speed control dials between 8,000 to 30,000 rpm. However, we still think it’s best considered as a light-duty, occasional-use tool.

The WEN brand has been around since the 1950s but has more recently started popping up with value-priced tools of all kinds. The price of the WEN 2305 is a bargain, especially considering it includes the 80-piece accessory set, flex shaft, and a hard shell case. The tool itself doesn't feel flimsy, but it did feel cheaper than some others during testing. Its 1 amp motor is down on power as well.

The WEN 2305 and its included tools are probably fine for lighter jobs, though the assorted attachments don't have the same gloss of quality as higher-priced kits. Its case is also smaller than others, providing less room to grow. But for the price, the savings have to come from somewhere, and this kit is likely to satisfy many buyers' occasional needs with DIY projects around the house.

Ryobi tools are smartly-designed with above-average quality. The Ryobi 18V One+ Cordless Rotary Tool fits that description perfectly. It's also one of two rotary tools we tried that uses a cable drive between the motor and the tool itself, which locks you into a benchtop workspace scenario. That said, the benefit of the flexible cable drive is that the tool itself is small in your hand, so it felt more like using a pen than a power tool.

The tool itself is great at the small stuff like buffing, engraving, sanding, and carving up close. We also liked that the mechanical bits are easily accessible in another housing that you can attach to the back wall of a workstation for regular use. What’s great about Ryobi is that 18V One+ batteries power an entire family of tools, so many people may already have a battery and charger they can use for this tool. If not, you’ll need to add the cost of those items to the price of the tool itself, which makes the Ryobi kind of expensive compared to the other choices here.

While quality and design put this rotary tool above the bargain options, and it’s pleasant to use on the light-duty tasks it's best suited for, it choked on harder tests, and it's not meant to be as portable as others we tried.

Walmart’s tool brand, Hart, offers a large lineup of outdoor equipment, power tools and more, including a cordless rotary tool. Thoughtfully designed and well-made, we think that this rotary tool is best suited for the hobbyist craft bench. That's because of its design that uses a flex shaft between the motor and tool end. There's also a slot in the side for storing the case of tools and tool holders on the front of the unit for commonly-used attachments. Designed for a fixed installation, you could easily hang this up as part of a tool bench.

The 20V battery also makes for a clean installation without having to string cords everywhere. That said, we did have a few nitpicks with this tool.

The downside is that the Hart 20V cordless rotary tool is definitely not suited for more difficult tasks. The shaft drive is more delicate than the direct motor drives of other units we tested so it just doesn’t have the power. It's also on the expensive side, and that's just for the tool itself as no battery or charger comes with it. You end up spending quite a bit to get the tool, battery, and a charger.

For delicate work in the hobby shop, the Hart Cordless Rotary Tool may be just the thing, but it's expensive and less versatile than the others we tested.

With 5 amps of power, the Dewalt DW660 is the strongest rotary tool we tested. Rugged, chunky, and designed for lots of hard use, there's little doubt that this tool would hold up to daily action. On the other hand, this tool's mission in life is mostly as a rotary cutting tool, using spiral bits. It’s also well-suited for cutting through sheets of material when matched with the right bit.

Included with this tool is a cutting depth guide, and the large tool-free collet is durable for longevity and easy tool changes on the fly. Despite clearly being designed for hard work, the DW660 isn't a versatile rotary tool, but it isn’t meant to be.

Most notable about this tool is that there’s no speed control, and it's larger and heavier than other tools we tried,.hat makes it harder to control for fine detail work. It's got a lot of muscle and the included 1/4" collet lets you use die grinder tools with it, so. if your needs are in the trades and not the hobby shop, it’s worth a look.

Offered by Harbor Freight, a company known for their low-priced quality tools, the Chicago Electric variable speed rotary tool may not be as fully-featured as some of the competition, but it’s readily available in-store which makes it quite convenient.

Despite its 1.3 amp motor and 8 to 35,000 rpm speed range, the Chicago Electric variable speed rotary tool still didn't feel as powerful or as high-speed as other models during use. It did fine with lighter-duty tasks, but it struggled with more challenging tasks like cutting shapes out of plywood. Quality of the tool, case, and attachments all lag behind the leaders, but there are lots of favorable reviews from buyers who had their expectations met and were happy with the price they paid.

Makita tools are popular, so we tried hard to include the brand in our testing. The GD061 is the closest we came up with, but it's much larger, heavier, and more rugged than anything else we tried. It's a true die grinder, the kind of tool that originally inspired the original Dremel and created the rotary tool category in the first place.

The Makita GD0601 was the largest and most impressively well-built tool we tried. It's also heavy and the 3.5 amp motor is more powerful than any others, aside from the Dewalt. The 1/4" collet (the sleeve and nut that secures attachments to the tool) is a signal that it's not suited for the delicate tasks that you might use smaller rotary tools for. On the other hand, it had no trouble with our hardest tests.

If you feel as if you'd be pushing one of the smaller choices to its limit, this heavy-duty Makita is worth considering. Its speed isn't variable, but the fixed 25,000 rpm no-load speed is within the capabilities of every tool here, and it has a lot of torque behind it to do the work.