10 Best Socket Organizer in 2022
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Being organized is a key part of having a good working environment, and that doesn’t just extend to office jobs. If you spend a lot of time tinkering with cars, upgrading your vehicles, or just performing regular engineering work, you will be handling a lot of small parts and tools, including a large amount of elusive and easy-to-lose sockets.
Having a place to organize them is important, but their size means that it can be awkward to just pour them into a small box or drawer – this is when socket organizers come in handy. Not only are they a dedicated storage space, but they are specially designed to keep your sockets organized in an easy-to-identify order.
Here are ten of the best socket organizer styles we could find online, with a brief explanation of what makes them good and why they are better than your average, generic socket organized you could buy in any hardware store.
View the Best Socket Organizer, Below.
- Hansen Global 92000 SAE & Metric Socket Tray Set
- Olsa Tools Magnetic Socket Organizer
- Neiko 03969A Socket Holder Rail
- OEMTOOLS 22233 6 Piece Socket Tray Set
- Olsa Tools 3 Pc Set Aluminum Socket Organizer
- Lisle 40120 1/4″ Magnetic Socket Holder
- HORUSDY 80-Piece Heavy Duty Socket Organizer
- MESTUDIO Organizer Drive Socket Holder
- Tooluxe 03966L Universal Socket Holder
- TEKTON 1885 Drive Socket Holder Set
1. Hansen Global 92000 SAE & Metric Socket Tray Set
This 6-piece set of socket trays gives you plenty of storage space, containing one holder for every type of socket you could need while doing regular engineering work. They are split into different sizes for extra convenience when you are putting them away, which has the added benefit of making it easier to identify where different sockets will be at a glance.
Each socket tray is made with ABS plastic that is able to resist most kinds of standard debris, dirt, and oil, and uses larger post bases to ensure a better grip on your sockets.
These socket trays are extremely simple in concept, but provide a great amount of grip and protection while keeping your sockets in one place.
Check Price on Amazon ➞2. Olsa Tools Magnetic Socket Organizer
This three-pack of metallic socket organizer trays boasts a wide range of different socket size holders, allowing it to keep a tight grip on all of the standard sockets you might need. The magnetic base ensures that they will stay attached even if the trays are tipped over, but is still weak enough to make it easy to pull them off when needed.
Each socket holder is clearly marked for easy identification, with special slots for socket designs that take on a longer or thicker shape than others. Not only that, but the magnetic surface is two-way, meaning that it can stick onto the sides of toolboxes or metal desks for faster access.
These socket organizer trays are a great addition to any metal wall or toolbox, acting as a semi-permanent storage spot for your many sockets.
Check Price on Amazon ➞3. Neiko 03969A Socket Holder Rail
These socket-holding rails are specifically designed to hold up to 16 clips each, making a single three-pack hold 48 sockets in total – more than enough for most tinkering work. The nickel plating makes them far more durable than standard plastic rails, and they have holes at either end that you can use to hang them up on walls or tool racks.
The curved design of the rails themselves allows you to easily remove individual sockets without much risk of them falling off naturally, keeping them safe and available at all times.
Sometimes a simple rail is all you need, and three of these socket organizer rails can be enough to hold a small collection of various sockets in a safe place.
Check Price on Amazon ➞4. OEMTOOLS 22233 6 Piece Socket Tray Set
This six-piece set of socket trays offers multiple different ways to store your loose sockets, each of them using a dual organization system that offers both deep and shallow socket storage on either side.
Every socket measurement is labeled to make it easy to tell them apart at a glance, and the two separate colors mean that you can organize your sockets into two groups if necessary. You can even arrange them so that they are organized in ascending order, making finding a certain socket extremely simple.
This six-piece selection of trays is perfect for storing a large number of sockets in a small area, and doesn’t contain any unnecessary gimmicks or extras.
Check Price on Amazon ➞5. Olsa Tools 3 Pc Set Aluminum Socket Organizer
These three socket organizers use a range of different clips to ensure that they can hold almost every standard socket you will need, with their spring-loaded design holding each one in place until you need it. As a three-piece set, they are great for keeping track of different socket types without having to keep them in specific orders, and you can store a total of 58 different sockets at once for maximum accessibility.
The aluminum, steel and ABS materials used in the design keep it durable, making it an excellent choice for long-term socket organization.
These socket organizer rails take the standard socket holder design and upgrade it, making it stronger and far more reliable.
Check Price on Amazon ➞6. Lisle 40120 1/4″ Magnetic Socket Holder
This ABS plastic rail socket organizer is able to hold up to twenty-six sockets of various sizes, giving you a convenient place to store your sockets without having to take up an entire drawer.
The open design makes it really easy to identify each socket from a distance, and the magnetic surface in the center keeps them tightly attached to the holder until you pull them off yourself. Due to the durable ABS plastic used in its design, this socket organizer is able to endure a lot of wear and tear without feeling bulky or heavy.
The simple outward design of this socket holder makes it an excellent choice for people who prefer function over form, especially thanks to its ease of use and magnetic inner section.
Check Price on Amazon ➞7. HORUSDY 80-Piece Heavy Duty Socket Organizer
The high storage capacity of this multi-railed socket organizer allows it to carry up to 80 sockets at once, all connected together to prevent them from getting lost. A ball-bearing-based spring-loaded design helps keep them secure, even while traveling, and the almost-universal design means that it works with nearly every major brand and type of socket on the market. Not only that, but it has a built-in carrying handle to make moving it around easier, as well as a strong shelf-style body that is able to hold the weight of all 80 sockets at once.
The design of this socket carrier is a simple twist on a smaller design, making it an amazing tool for storing and transporting a lot of sockets at once.
Check Price on Amazon ➞8. MESTUDIO Organizer Drive Socket Holder
These heavy-duty socket holder rails are built to hold a wide range of different sockets, with the six rails being divided into three pairs of different drives. This allows you to organize your sockets by size easily and keeps them separated for much faster identification.
The universal design means that they can hold almost any brand and type of socket, and you can use the blue and red color schemes to separate your sockets based on size, design, or purpose. The ball bearing-based clips ensure that your sockets will be kept tightly attached during general use, even if you are transporting the rails somewhere else.
These socket organizer rails are a great addition to almost any garage, especially thanks to their heavy-duty materials.
Check Price on Amazon ➞9. Tooluxe 03966L Universal Socket Holder
This tray-based organizer uses four separate rails to provide storage for up to 80 sockets at once, holding anything from 1/2” to 1/4” sockets with ease. The durable materials make it an incredibly useful tool for heavy-duty work and frequent transport, and the specially-created clips are designed to hold onto sockets as tight as possible without damaging them or making them hard to remove. Not only that, but the organizer is corrosion and grime resistant, allowing it to hold together well in environments that would damage other storage methods.
This organizer combines four standard rails into a single body, making it perfect for storing a lot of sockets at once without needing to carry multiple storage tools.
Check Price on Amazon ➞10. TEKTON 1885 Drive Socket Holder Set
These nickel-plated clip-based socket rails are designed to each hold 16 sockets, making a three-pack perfect for up to 48 sockets in total. The easy-to-use design and compact shape make them a great portable option, and they also have hook holes that allow them to be mounted to a wall or another solid surface. The steel body is surprisingly durable, as are the clips themselves, meaning that the holders won’t easily break from long-term use or minor wear and tear.
These socket holders take a simple design and make it out of strong materials, creating a very straightforward option for those who need durability more than design gimmicks.
Check Price on Amazon ➞Socket Organizer Buyer’s Guide
A socket organizer might seem like a simple idea, but there is a lot of different variables and features that you will want to look into before you spend your hard-earned money on one. They are designed specifically for use with sockets, meaning that getting the wrong type can result in you having a socket organizer that you really don’t need. On the other hand, you don’t always need to consider every factor and feature involved, so it is important to know what actually matters before you spent time trying to compare everything you see.
Socket Capacity
One of the more important features of any socket organizer is the number of sockets it can actually hold. You don’t always need the maximum possible capacity since it really depends on how many sockets you will actually be using. For example, if you only get involved in occasional mechanics work or see it as a minor hobby, you won’t necessarily need every possible socket you can get, so it is not always worth paying more money for a larger organizer that will never get filled.
On the other hand, if you are buying one for your job or a much higher-tier level of mechanics work, the opposite can be true. It is usually better to have more space than you actually need in these cases since it saves you having to buy a second organizer to accommodate a few extra sockets that you might end up buying. It also makes it far easier to locate them, since they will all be inside the same storage tool rather than split between multiple different locations.
Materials
Like any tool, materials matter. While you won’t generally be using your socket organizer in a way that wears it down quickly, bad materials can dramatically shorten its lifespan in terms of how well it holds up to the stress of carrying and storing different sockets, especially if they are heavy. This gets even more important if it uses design elements like spring-based clips, which put certain parts of the organizer under a large amount of tension.
If your organizer breaks, it could damage your sockets or even harm you directly, which makes it a risky choice for storing many important sockets at once. The more you are trying to store, the more strength you will need behind the organizer’s materials itself, so after a certain point, it is worth upgrading to pure metal rather than metal and plastic.
Purpose
You will also need to think about where you will actually use the socket organizer. Not all of them are designed to be used for traveling or frequent movement, and others aren’t really suited to being kept in one place for a long time. In some cases, they are even meant to be used as a temporary storage method for keeping your sockets out until you don’t need them anymore, making them somewhat useless as a long-term storage method.
For example, let’s say you buy an organizer that relies on magnets – many weaker magnets won’t have enough power to keep your sockets on walls or raised surfaces forever, making them more appropriate as a way to keep them out for a day or two while you work on a multi-day project. On the other hand, if they are designed with a more permanent method of holding on to sockets, they might be better as a long-term storage method or an alternative to a normal storage box.
Certain designs will have things like carrying handles that allow them to be carried around less awkwardly. This doesn’t mean that you have to use them in that way, but it is a good added feature for people who might have to travel with their tools quite often, so you should think about whether or not it will be useful to you.
Socket Sizes
Sockets come in a wide range of sizes, but not all socket organizer designs will be able to accommodate them. Many of them only cover smaller sizes, leaving the more extreme sizes out of the question entirely, whereas others might only be able to store a very specific type size range rather than being adjustable to suit more than one at a time. While this might not bother people who are just working in their garage, since you can find a temporary solution for any sockets that are too big or small to store properly, you will have to find a way around it if you are planning on using your storage method to transport the sockets.
As an example, if your work requires you to bring a wide range of sockets with you to multiple locations, you will want a proper storage solution for all of them rather than having to lump half of them into a backpack. This might require you to buy a larger organizer than planned or buy a second one that you can use alongside it. There is also the exact opposite problem, which can affect people who only need a very specific kind of storage range – you might not be able to find a design that comes without extra sizes, which can result in you having to buy one that is larger than you’d like. There are ways around both of these, but it will take some searching to find a suitable alternative or replacement.
Extra Features
Like most products, there are variations with special features or alternate extras that can change the way you will use your socket organizer, ranging from hook holes and magnetic surfaces to entirely new design mechanisms or removable parts. Not all of them will actually be useful to you, though, so you should make sure you are not paying more money for features that aren’t actually helpful.
For example, if you only do small-scale mechanics jobs and don’t need an extremely varied set of gear, then you probably won’t need any removable parts or extendable storage to provide adjustable fittings or more space. On the other hand, if you are keeping a large number of items around the house and don’t plan on taking them to other locations, then there is no need to get a socket organizer with travel features or more lightweight parts.
Expert Tip
You don’t need to keep all your sockets in one organizer – consider splitting them into different size ranges. While this means you will have to carry multiple organizers, each individual one will be lighter, making them much easier to carry around separately.
Did you know?
Wall-mounted organizers are perfect for dealing with garages or other areas that don’t have much shelf space, and they are often much easier to access in a hurry, making them great for emergency repairs or people with a job that involves the use of sockets often.