Second harbor freight and dewalt. I work industrial maintenance and use Pittsburgh impact sockets and wrenches,and dewalt for power tools. No problems at all. If you want tool truck quality,def gear wrench and even icon(their wrenches were tested and proven to beat snap on),for a fraction of cost. I use and abuse a set of icon chrome sockets,and they take a beating and keep going.
I went with Ryobi under the rubric of “if you use it enough to break it then buy a good one”. I have a wall of green tools because most of them are used only occasionally. My hammer drill is the one that is gonna go. And yeah. I will buy something f’in awesome. Because using an underpowered hammer drill sucked.
Depends on what you’re doing, and how often you’re going to be doing it.
For mechanical tools, I like both Harbor Freight and Gearwrench. I like Gearwrench a lot more, but I haven’t managed to break any Harbor Freight tools yet that weren’t air or electric. For basic sockets, etc., it will be fine for almost everyone. (Spend more for torque wrenches though; don’t cheap out on those.) HF tools have pretty limited sizes though; they don’t have anything really large, like about around 25mm. Unless you are a professional mechanic, you probably shouldn’t waste your money on Matco or Snap-On.
For most cordless general and woodworking tools I like Makita. For more specialized powered hand tools I love Festool, but do not try to fill a shop with them. Just get the ones that no one else makes an equivalent of, like their Rotex sanders, or the domino joiner.
For woodworking shop tools–things that aren’t portable–buy old Delta or Powermatic, particularly stuff that is in no way shape or form portable. Trying to do any serious cabinetry on a job-site table saw is an exercise in frustration and wasted material. A tabletop jointer won’t give you good results.
And for hand-powered cutting tool, like chisels, pull-saws, planes, etc… Be prepared to start spending a lot of money. Hand planes alone can set you back a few hundred each, like for Lee Valley ‘Veritas’ planes. And that’s not even getting into the water stones that you’re going to need to keep them working in perfect condition.
