WORX vs BLACK+DECKER Cordless String Trimmer: Head-to-Head for Home Lawns

If you have been standing in the lawn tool aisle (or the Amazon tab) trying to decide between the WORX 20V cordless string trimmer and the BLACK+DECKER 20V, I have been exactly where you are. Both brands have a loyal following. Both trimmers sit around the same price. Both promise to free you from tangled extension cords and the misery of a flooded gas engine on a hot Saturday morning. So which one actually deserves a spot in your garage? I have run both through my backyard, and the answer is not as close as the spec sheets make it look.

The short version: the WORX wins this comparison for most home lawns. It edges more cleanly, the line feed is more reliable, and the conversion between trimmer and edger mode takes about five seconds once you learn the pivot. The BLACK+DECKER is a reasonable machine, but it has a few quirks that annoyed me enough to reach for the WORX every single time. I will walk you through the full side-by-side below so you can decide which factors matter most for your yard.

	WORX String Trimmer	BLACK+DECKER 20V
Cut Width	12 inches (adjustable to 10")	10 inches fixed
Battery Voltage	20V Max lithium-ion	20V Max lithium-ion
Estimated Run Time	Approx. 30-35 minutes per charge	Approx. 20-25 minutes per charge
Weight (with battery)	5.3 lbs	5.6 lbs
Edging Mode	Built-in pivot converts to inline edger	Rotating head, no dedicated pivot edger
Line Feed System	Command Feed (button-press, on demand)	Auto bump-feed only
Line Diameter	0.065 inch dual line	0.065 inch single line
Cutting Guard	Adjustable, swings with pivot	Fixed guard, does not pivot
Amazon Rating	4.4 stars, 27,788 reviews	4.3 stars (varies by SKU)

Where the WORX Wins

The single biggest advantage the WORX has over the BLACK+DECKER is the edging mode. That pivot is not just a gimmick. You press a button, rotate the head, and you are suddenly running the trimmer like an inline edger along your driveway or sidewalk. No extra tool, no switching attachments, no getting back on your knees with hand shears to clean up what the trimmer missed. I edged my entire front walkway in about six minutes the first time I tried it, and I have not touched my dedicated weed-spray-and-hope routine since. If clean edges matter to you, and once you see the difference they will, this pivot alone is worth choosing the WORX.

The Command Feed line system is the second thing I appreciated. Bump-feed trimmer line has annoyed me for years. You tap the head on the ground, hope it advances, watch it advance too far and immediately break off, tap again, and eventually give up and use scissors to pull out more line by hand. The WORX Command Feed replaces all of that with a button on the handle. You press it when you want more line. That is it. After two full seasons of that simplicity, I cannot go back to bump-feed, and the BLACK+DECKER is a bump-feed machine.

Run time is also meaningfully better with the WORX. My backyard is about a quarter acre, and trimming the perimeter plus both sidewalks takes roughly 25 minutes. The WORX handles that on one charge with room to spare. The BLACK+DECKER started cutting out on me near the end of longer sessions, which meant charging mid-job or doing a partial pass and coming back. Neither is the end of the world, but it adds friction to a task that should be straightforward. The wider 12-inch cut path on the WORX also helps: you cover more ground per pass, so the battery lasts you through more actual square footage.

Where BLACK+DECKER Wins

In the spirit of being honest: the BLACK+DECKER is not a bad trimmer. It wins on one thing that matters to some buyers, and that is ecosystem compatibility. If you already own BLACK+DECKER 20V tools like drills, saws, or blowers, your existing batteries will drop straight into the BLACK+DECKER trimmer. No new charger, no orphan battery sitting on a shelf. If your garage is already 90 percent BLACK+DECKER and you can add the trimmer without buying any new batteries, that is a real financial case for staying in their ecosystem.

The BLACK+DECKER is also marginally simpler for someone who just wants to grab a trimmer, press a button, and go. There are fewer features to learn. No pivot, no Command Feed button, no dual-width option to toggle. For occasional trim-around-the-mailbox use a few times a season, that simplicity is not nothing. But for anyone doing regular lawn maintenance, the features you are skipping on the BLACK+DECKER are exactly the ones that make the WORX faster and less frustrating to use over the long run.

Line Feed: Why It Matters More Than You Think

Most trimmer reviews gloss over the line feed system. I would argue it is the detail that separates a pleasant Saturday task from a swearing-in-the-heat one. Bump-feed systems require you to tap the trimmer head on the ground at just the right angle to advance the line. Too soft and nothing happens. Too hard and you break off three inches of line in one shot, burning through your spool in half a session. The WORX Command Feed removes the guesswork entirely. You press the button on the handle when the line looks short. It advances a measured amount. You go back to trimming.

Over a full season, I probably spent a cumulative 20 extra minutes fussing with bump-feed line on trimmers that use that system. That does not sound like much until it is happening at the worst moment, usually when you are halfway through a job and starting to sweat through your shirt. The WORX Command Feed is the kind of thing you do not appreciate until you have used it for a month and then have to borrow someone else's bump-feed trimmer.

After the first week with the WORX, I realized I had not thought about the line feed once. On my old bump-feed trimmer, I thought about it every single session.

Edging Quality in the Real World

I have a concrete driveway that meets a grass lawn along about 80 feet of border. Before I had a trimmer with a true edging mode, that border looked ragged by mid-June every year no matter how often I trimmed. The WORX pivot changes that completely. You rotate the head to the inline edging position, hold the trimmer so the guard is on the concrete side, and walk the border at a steady pace. The line cuts a clean vertical slice into the turf overhang and deposits the clippings on the driveway side. Fifteen minutes later, that border looks like someone came out with a dedicated straight-blade edger.

The BLACK+DECKER's rotating head can sort of approximate edging by tilting the trimmer on its side, but you are fighting the machine's balance the whole time, and the results are uneven. It takes longer, looks worse, and your wrist gets tired before the job is done. The WORX pivot is a genuinely different category of function, not just a marketing label on a feature that barely works. If you want your lawn borders to look intentional rather than accidental, the pivot makes that possible in a way the BLACK+DECKER simply does not.

Battery and Weight: Practical Day-to-Day Differences

Both trimmers are lightweight by gas-tool standards. The WORX comes in at 5.3 lbs with the battery installed, the BLACK+DECKER at 5.6 lbs. Neither will wreck your shoulder on a normal trim session. The weight difference alone will not be your deciding factor here, but it is worth noting that the WORX is the lighter machine of the two, which does matter if you have wrist or shoulder limitations and your sessions run long.

Where battery performance shows a real difference is on larger lots or on weeks when you let the lawn go a little long and the trimming session stretches past the typical 20-minute pass. The WORX consistently lasted my full session without any throttle drop. The BLACK+DECKER noticeably lost torque near the end of a longer run, which forced me to slow my walking pace to maintain cut quality. If your lawn is under a third of an acre and you trim every single week, the BLACK+DECKER will probably finish the job. If you are doing more than that, or if you are the type who lets a week slip by and has heavier growth to cut through, the WORX gives you more confidence that you will finish without stopping for a charge.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the WORX if you care about clean edges, want to use one tool for both trimming and edging without buying a separate edger, or have a lawn that takes more than 20 minutes to work through. The pivot edger and Command Feed system are not fancy add-ons. They are the reason this trimmer feels like a step above entry-level even though it competes at the same price. For anyone who takes their yard seriously, even a little, the WORX earns its place in the garage.

Buy the BLACK+DECKER if you are already deep in their 20V battery ecosystem and would be running batteries you already own from other tools. In that specific scenario, the ecosystem savings might be worth the trade-off on features. But if you are starting fresh with no existing batteries on either platform, there is no compelling reason to choose the BLACK+DECKER over the WORX. Same voltage, comparable price, genuinely worse edging, and a line feed system that will frustrate you within the first month of use.

For most home gardeners and homeowners, the WORX is the straightforward pick. It does everything the BLACK+DECKER does, plus it pivots into a real edger and feeds line when you tell it to. Those two features alone make the Saturday lawn routine shorter and less annoying, and after enough sweaty Saturdays in the yard, that is exactly what I want from a tool.