Honda is still the best for portables, and hands down the quietest.
The inverter ones are very stable as well.
I run a champion for a remote ag well that doesn’t have power to it. It’s cheap and gets the job done, its loud, and when the voltage goes haywire, I replace it.
Haven’t heard anything good about Generac portables. I’m an Aligned Contractor for Generac, and I think their HSB are fine, but I dont think their portables are quite as good.
Harbor freight is disposable, pretty much everything they sell.
The Costco/Big Box Mart brands are hit and miss. I don’t personally have experience with powerhorse, firman, Westinghouse, and the like, but I’ve installed plenty of MTS for customers who use them sporadically. I think it comes down to how much you’ll be using them.
Northstar from Northern Tool are actually pretty good. They are loud, and don’t throttle down with decreased output, but they run Honda motors and have been good for me.
Before I installed the Generac at my ranch, we ran about 5 generators every time power went out. All were Honda or Northstar.
Longest outage we had was three weeks. We lose power about a dozen times a year, from 1 day to a couple weeks.
