Tesla Powerwall alternatives: eight batteries compared by datasheet

Almost everyone shopping for home storage starts at the Powerwall and works outward, which makes the real question a narrower one: what else publishes numbers this good, and where do the numbers differ.

This page answers that from datasheets only. Eight all-in-one systems, each set against what Tesla publishes, using the manufacturer's own figures with the basis each maker states. We have not tested any of these units and nothing here is a measured result. Every number below is traceable to the datasheet cited on the matching model page, and where a maker does not publish something, it says not published rather than a guess.

The baseline: what the Powerwall 3 publishes

Tesla's Powerwall 3 datasheet lists 13.5 kWh of nominal battery energy, up to 11.5 kW of continuous AC output per unit, 89 percent solar to battery to home and grid efficiency, a 10-year warranty, and scaling to four units for power with up to three expansion units behind a Powerwall. It does not state cell chemistry, which is why the Powerwall 3 sits in the unspecified group in our chemistry roundup. What the warranty does and does not guarantee is a longer story, told in how long a Powerwall lasts.

One structural difference to note before the comparisons below. Tesla dropped the explicit 10-second peak power row that the Powerwall 2 datasheet carried, so the Powerwall 3 has no watt figure labelled peak. It publishes surge capability in two other forms instead: a Load Start Capability of 185 LRA, which is the motor-start rating an installer actually sizes a compressor against, and a configurable maximum continuous discharge power off-grid of 15.4 kW, which the datasheet footnotes as available only on PV, only if the on-grid rating is 11.5 kW, and only with an 80 A breaker and appropriately sized conductors. So a peak-power column that reads "not published" for Tesla is a statement about the label, not about the hardware.

That 11.5 kW continuous figure is the hard one to match. Only one battery in this group publishes more.

How we picked the eight

Every model here is an active, currently sold system with an integrated inverter, the same form as the Powerwall 3: one box that both stores and converts, rather than a battery module that needs an inverter chosen separately. That rule is what makes the comparison fair, and it is also what excludes several good products.

Left out on purpose: the SolarEdge Home Battery, Qcells Q.HOME CORE, EG4 PowerPro WallMount, Fortress eVault Max 18.5 and BYD Battery-Box Premium HVS are DC storage modules whose delivered power depends entirely on the inverter an installer pairs with them, so their power figures are not comparable to an all-in-one's. The Enphase IQ Battery 5P is the 10C's smaller sibling on the same architecture, so only one of the pair appears. The Powerwall 2 and the SunPower SunVault are discontinued. All of them are still on the full comparison table. If you landed here already owning the older Tesla unit rather than shopping for a new one, its published figures are on the Tesla Powerwall 2 specs page.

Read efficiency figures before you compare them

The most misused number in this category is round-trip efficiency, because the published percentages sit on different measurement bases and look interchangeable.

Tesla's 89 percent is a solar round trip, solar to battery to home and grid, footnoted on the datasheet as a typical solar shifting use case. It is not an AC to AC figure. Most of the alternatives publish exactly that AC figure instead: FranklinWH states 90 percent grid to battery to load, Enphase states 90 percent AC round trip with a 96 percent DC round trip beside it, Anker states 90.2 percent AC to battery to AC at 77F, and Panasonic states 89 percent AC coupled with 94 percent DC coupled. Others use bases of their own: Generac states 88 percent system round trip, LG's spec page states over 90 percent without a stated basis, sonnen states 85.4 percent as a maximum computed on the SGIP formula, and Savant states 93.8 percent per its specification sheet.

So we do not rank this field on efficiency, and neither should a comparison table that does not print the basis next to the number. What the concept means, and why a few points matter less than people assume, is in round-trip efficiency.

The eight, by the numbers

Each entry lists usable capacity, continuous power, peak power where published, efficiency with its basis, and the warranty with its cap.

• FranklinWH aPower 2. 15 kWh usable, 10 kW continuous, 15 kW peak, 90 percent grid to battery to load. Warranty: 15 years or 60 MWh of throughput, whichever comes first. Stacks to 15 units (225 kWh) per aGate. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs aPower 2.
• Savant Power Storage 20. 18 kWh usable, 12.5 kW continuous, 30 kW peak, 93.8 percent per its specification sheet. Warranty: 10 years, warrantied to 73 MWh or 3,650 cycles, with an estimated 75 percent capacity retention at 10 years, and the word estimated is Savant's. The 18 kWh figure is our derivation from the datasheet's 20 kWh rated capacity at its published 90 percent recommended depth of discharge. The only unit here that publishes more continuous power than the Powerwall 3. Head to head: Savant vs Powerwall 3.
• Generac PWRcell. Up to 18 kWh usable per cabinet (9 to 18 kWh), 10.5 kW continuous, peak not published, 88 percent system round trip. Warranty: 10 years or 7.56 MWh per module, and that cap is stated per module rather than per system. Two cabinets reach 11.5 kW and up to 36 kWh. The only battery in our set whose datasheet states NMC. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs PWRcell.
• LG Home 8. 14.4 kWh usable, 7.5 kW continuous, 9 kW peak, spec page states over 90 percent. Warranty: 10 years with 70 percent capacity retained, structured as five years standard plus five more with ThinQ registration, so the second half is conditional on an action you have to take. Scales to 57.6 kWh across four units on one Smart Energy Box. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs LG Home 8.
• Panasonic EverVolt 2.0. Up to 18 kWh usable per cabinet (9 to 18 kWh), 7.6 kW continuous, peak not published, 89 percent AC coupled and 94 percent DC coupled. Warranty: 12 years with 70 percent capacity retained at end of term. Up to 72 kWh across four units. One caveat we flag on the model page: the public spec sheet is dated and marked preliminary. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs EverVolt 2.0.
• Enphase IQ Battery 10C. 10 kWh usable, 7.08 kW continuous, peak not published, 90 percent AC round trip with a 96 percent DC round trip. Warranty: 60 percent capacity at up to 15 years or 6,000 cycles. Per-battery microinverters mean one unit's fault does not take the rest of the storage down. Head to head: aPower 2 vs IQ Battery 10C.
• Anker SOLIX X1. Usable capacity not published; Anker states 10, 15, or 20 kWh nominal per module. 6 kW continuous, 12 kW peak, 90.2 percent AC to battery to AC at 77F. Warranty: 10 years limited. Scales to 40 kWh per power module and up to six systems in parallel. Read the nominal-versus-usable gap before comparing its capacity to anything here. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs SOLIX X1.
• sonnen sonnenCore+. 10 kWh usable at 100 percent depth of discharge, 4.8 kW continuous, peak not published, 85.4 percent maximum round trip computed on the SGIP formula. Warranty: 10 years or 10,000 cycles, covering inverter, modules and cabinet. Offered in 10 or 20 kWh units, up to three systems (60 kWh) per home. The lowest continuous power here, and the highest published cycle allowance. Head to head: Powerwall 3 vs sonnenCore+.

Where each one actually beats the Powerwall 3

On published figures alone, and scoped to the models we track:

• More continuous power: only Savant, at 12.5 kW against 11.5 kW.
• More usable capacity in one cabinet: Savant at 18 kWh, Generac and Panasonic at up to 18 kWh, FranklinWH at 15 kWh, LG at 14.4 kWh.
• Longer warranty term: FranklinWH and Enphase at 15 years, Panasonic at 12, against Tesla's 10. Every one of those longer terms carries a cycle or throughput cap, and Tesla's own 10 years carries an unlimited-cycles allowance for the three uses its warranty names, so the calendar comparison alone is misleading.
• A published capacity retention floor: LG and Panasonic state 70 percent, Enphase states 60 percent, Savant states an estimated 75 percent. Tesla's warranty document states 70 percent at ten years, which its datasheet does not, and most of the rest publish no floor at all.
• Higher published peak power: Savant at 30 kW and Anker at 12 kW publish peak watt figures where the Powerwall 3 datasheet publishes none. Read that as a difference in what gets documented rather than as a ranking of surge capability, because Tesla documents its surge differently: its 185 LRA Load Start Capability is a motor-start rating that neither Savant nor Anker publishes an equivalent for. If starting a compressor or a well pump is the reason you care about surge, compare load-start figures where they exist and ask for one where they do not.

One Powerwall 3 advantage is on the datasheet and one is not. The integrated solar inverter is: Tesla publishes up to 20 kW of solar input on the same unit, so a solar-plus-storage build is one box rather than two. Installer availability is not, and we have no figure to cite for it, so weigh it from the quotes you actually get rather than from anything on this page.

Before you shortlist

Start from your loads, not from this list. Continuous power decides whether a battery can carry your house at all, capacity decides how long, and the warranty cap decides how much of that you keep. If the cap is what you are optimizing for, Powerwall vs sonnenCore is the head to head where the published cycle allowances diverge most. Our whole-home backup guide walks the power side, the warranty comparison walks the term and cap side, and when you want your own numbers rather than ours, run the calculator.