Its August and I have written these articles for fourteen years. They are all over the web, but this year, I am going to simplify stuff and do in all in one article all on this site. There are four price categories: budget, entry level, enthusiast, and high end. See below for how they breakdown.

Rules are pretty simple: I want to get a balanced pair where the knife and the light are roughly comparable. I don’t want to spend 90% on a light and 10% on a knife because one those things will be obviously worse than the other and likely never get used. I also want stuff that is readily available. I love the TRM Neutron 2, but getting one is really tough. Same with something like the limited run Bridgeport Knives 395 v.2. It also doesn’t need to be a knife. I have considered multitools, but generally they are not good enough to justify their weight for EDC. If you work with tools everyday, a multitool as a step saver may actually work.

For the first time, every category has come in at UNDER the price threshold, though one JUST barely. I am also trying to mine the data for value. To that end, I have calculated the difference and then the percentage of the threshold that difference represents. Its crude and of course the real buying power of the difference is higher the higher the threshold is, so it is not perfect, but it will have to do until I can figure out some other empirical way to represent value. Suggestions appreciated.

The last note that I want to put out there is this—instead of focusing on pricing, this year I focused on what and how people are buying gear. Budget stuff is for a person that just wants an upgrade from random garbage. Think of this as stuff you’d recommend to a non-gear person, something like what you find on the Wirecutter. Entry level stuff is stuff you buy if you are interested in gear and what to see what the fuss is all about without draining your fun money account. Enthusiast grade gear is stuff you buy when you are deep in the weeds, know what’s best, and yet you have no concern for rarity, chase status, or gilding. The High End is when you have just gone crazy and price is no object. Obviously, I could have set the high end as anything, but I think $1,000 is fair. If you are spending MORE than that then you probably know enough about gear and your preferences that recommendations from another person are meaningless.

Budget

$50 threshold; recommended gear combined price: $49.50

At this price tier the products represent an extreme compromise. While careful money management can yield truly good stuff, it is not easy. What you will find that is good is usually fundamentally compromised in one way, but decent in others. This is stuff I recommend for people looking for a back up or for folks that are not gear folks, but want something to make it work.

Tool: Victorinox Swiss Army Knife Alox Bantam ($27.95 at DLT Trading)

As the only multitool on this list, the Bantam is extraordinary. It is a single layer tool, with the excellent “large blade” and what SAK aficionados called the 84/91mm combo tool. The 84/91mm combo tool is the secret to the Bantam’s success. It is incredibly thin and incredibly light, and the 84/91mm combo tool is a freebie, being included without adding a layer too the tool. Sure the steel isn’t great, but none of the knives at this price range have good steel. So the question is whether you want a D2 blade on a typical knife or this tool, which does a lot and has virtually no volume.

Alt Pick: CJRB Mini Feldspar ($29.95): The knife you need to get for a budget set up. Note that this put you over the price threshold by $1.04.

Light: Sofrin SC01 ($21.45 at Ali Express)

The Sofrin SC01 is a good keychain sized light. It has onboard charging and an output that is quite decent at 330 lumens. The thing that lands it on this list over a host of similar lights is the fact that it is a staged twisty as opposed to a traditional twisty. In a staged twisty all you have to do to get more light is twist the head of the light more. Its so simple and so elegant that it is my favorite flashlight UI out there. But it is a bit more complicated to build and so it is often scrapped in favor of cheaper alternatives. The fact that the SC01 has this UI makes it an exceptional value.

This is the category that has seen the most change and the items are not new. It just goes to show how difficult it is to FULLY survey the entire gear world, even for someone that does this as a jobby (which is a job and hobby mixed together). The Alox Bantam is exceptionally good. I like it better than the Cadet and a year ago, if you had asked, I would have sworn the Cadet was the best there was. I stumbled on to the Alox Bantam when I feel down a YouTube rabbit hole involving Mint Tin prep kits. There is a whole subculture of EDC folks that live out of their Mint Tins and among them, the Alox Bantam is a frequent choice because of its size, weight, durability, and the incredible versatility of the 84/91mm Combo Tool. That implement is the best designed implement in the multitool world, even over the SAK scissors, the Gerber clam shell cutter, and the Leatherman knife on the Skeletool series.

Entry Level

$100 threshold; recommended gear combined price $80.90. Here the difference between the threshold and the recommendation is $19.10. That represents a 19.1% difference, which is the third largest percentage difference of these four recommendations, making the Entry Level category a good value.

At this price you are spending real money on decent stuff. You can get things that do exactly what you want and last for decades. This stuff will be better than the random lot of things from a junk draw or an grandparent’s tool box you inherited. It won’t be state-of-the-art though.

Tool: Civivi Lumi ($34.95)

Thin, acutely sharp, and pleasing in the both the pocket and the hand the Lumi is a supremely nice little pocket knife. It opens packages and does light food prep well. I wouldn’t push it and do fire prep tasks, but as an EDC knife this is quite nice.

Light: Lumintop FWAA ($45.95)

Anduril is a blight on the flashlight market. Anduril II is a marked improvement. Its good enough for me to recommend a light with it. And if you are going to get a light with it, the Lumintop FWAA is the one. Its very good, very simple, and very bright. It tailstands, has a decent clip, and is very small for its battery format (1xAA). I wish it had onboard charging, but at Entry Level pricing, you have to compromise on something. Another compromise here—the emitter array has about as much throw as a T-Rex in centerfield.

There is a lot of good stuff here and it can be had fairly cheaply. The Lumi, for one, is an outstanding value. If you carry this knife you will like it. The light is a great upgrade over the the plastic tube that comes free with batteries. I am pretty pleased by the quality of gear for Entry Level and if this stuff doesn’t draw you further into the hobby, I am not sure what will.

Enthusiast

$500 threshold; recommended gear combined price $206.45. The difference is $293.55, which is a 58.7% difference, making this the largest percentage difference of the four groups and making this the best value by a large margin.

This IS state-of-the-art stuff without gilding or extravagance. Its just great stuff that will blow the average, non-gear person away. Hand them your torch and they will be amazed and ask how this level of performance is possible.

Tool: Hogue Deka in Magnacut ($131.45 at Blade HQ)

This is the knife of knives, the steel of steels, and a tremendous value. If you are in the know you know this is the knife to buy. As I mentioned, there are better knives, knives like the Neutron 2 or the Bridgeport, but they are not readily available. If you have a money burning a whole in your pocket, and NEED NEED NEED a knife, go buy this one. It will not disappoint. And, of course, ignore the morons on line that complain about the handles being too squishy. They are fine and very light. There is no use case where you will squeeze the handles hard enough to squish them and it the squishiness will matter.

Light: FourSevens Ti Mini Turbo Mk. 3 ($75 at FourSevens.com)

Sure there are brighter lights and lights with clickies, but this light is so small, so capable, and so easy that its hard to carry something else, even when you have a collection chalked full of gems. You can get more than this light, but you never NEED more than this light.

This is the sweet spot on the spectrum and always has been. Going lower represents compromises like no PM steels. Going higher means you are paying for stuff that will not alter your user experience. The value proposition here is really crazy, especially because the Deka is very clearly priced to get under the Bugout. That move by Hogue is a good one. The Bugout is one of the best selling knives of the last five years and the Deka in Magnacut is markedly better in every way. The light here is not a new fangled thing, but it just works so well and takes up such little pocket space that it is hard to ignore.

High End

$1000 or more; recommended gear combined price $720. The difference is $280, which is 28.0% difference, making this the second largest percentage difference and making this the second best value.

Gear at this level is beyond even what an enthusiast will need. It is usually something that has great bones AND gilding, like some pretty nice handle materials or some crazy exotic steel or rainbow trash metal—aka Mokuti. Or it is a heritage brand or grail item. In short, there is no rational reason to buy this stuff, but boy is it awesome.

Tool: Chris Reeve Small Sebenza 31 ($425 at KnifeCenter)

There are a handful of knives I’d choose over the Small Sebenza, like the Vero Engineering Mini Synapse, the Triple Aught Design Compact Dauntless from Hinderer, or the Sharp by Designs Micro Evo 2.0, but so many of those knives aren’t readily available. They come in “drops” to make us feel like they are scarce or rare. And it works—they get gobbled up pretty quickly. Even the Small Sebenza is relatively hard to get, but it is available, if you know where to look. The plain jane Sebenza 31 is an outstanding knife with great ergos and nice materials. It still has that unique “bank vault” feel that people have raved about for three decades.

Light: Laulima Hoku Clicky ($295 at Laulima Metalworks)

While a first run batch sold out quickly, if the twisty version is any indication these will be in stock enough to count as readily available. This is THE light, a simple design that is delightfully easy to carry. It tailstands and has a dead simple UI. Its bright enough to hit any spot in your yard, yet has a runtime on low long enough to be very useful. After years of searching for that perfect torch, I think this is it. The BOSS 35 is also something I would consider, but seeing as the Hoku Clicky carries better, its the one to get.

BTW, if you are really looking for a price no object recommendation, the light and saber pair in the last picture would be my recommendation. Finding a knife under $2,000 that has a better design and fit and finish than the Thys Meade Dino is not possible. If you think Shiros have good action or you believe the Roosevelt is the pinnacle of deployment, you need to handle a knife from Thys. It reset all of my standards. And he will build it to spec, so you can do things like just a plain blue G10 handle, instead of having to shell out bucks for crazy materials that will make you carry the knife less.

Amazon Links (note, the links below do not necessarily have the best prices, those are listed above):

Victorinox Alox Bantam