Here is the difference in one line: a jointer makes a board flat and straight, and a planer makes it an even thickness. They look alike and do opposite jobs. For most home shops the planer is the smarter first purchase — you can flatten a face with a hand plane, a sled or a router jig, but nothing else in a small shop brings rough stock to a consistent thickness the way a planer does. So we rank the planer first, not because it is the "better" machine, but because it is the more useful first buy.
The confusion is fair, because the machines look similar and both shave wood. The difference is what they reference. A jointer has a flat bed split over a spinning cutterhead; you push a board across it and it takes a flat, straight surface off whatever high spots touch first, giving you a true reference face and, turned on edge, a square edge. A planer holds the cutter above a flat bed and feeds the board through, cutting the top face exactly parallel to whatever is resting on the bed. That is the catch: a planer copies the bottom face, so it can make a board a perfectly even thickness but it cannot make a twisted board flat.
This is why the planer is usually the better first machine for a home shop. You have several cheap ways to create a flat reference face without a jointer — a hand plane, a router planing sled, or a shop-made planer sled that shims a board flat as it passes through — but there is no substitute for what a planer does, which is bring rough stock to a consistent thickness quickly. A jointer becomes worth it once you are milling rough lumber in volume and want that flat face fast. If you are deciding which planer to add, our benchtop planer roundup covers the models worth buying.
Jointer vs planer: what each one does
Milling rough lumber flat, square and to thickness normally takes both machines in sequence — joint a face, joint an edge, then plane the opposite face parallel and rip to width. But most first shops buy them one at a time, so it helps to be clear on exactly what each tool can and cannot do before you spend.
What a jointer does
A jointer flattens one face of a board and straightens one edge, creating the true, flat reference surface every other operation depends on. It cannot bring a board to a target thickness, because it references only the surface you are cutting — run a board through twice and both faces are flat but not necessarily parallel. Benchtop jointers like the WEN JT630H are limited by width and by short beds, so they flatten narrow, shorter stock well and struggle with wide or long boards.
What a planer does
A planer takes a board that already has one flat face and cuts the opposite face parallel to it, bringing the whole board to an even thickness pass after pass. It is the fastest way to dimension stock and to take a stack of boards to exactly the same thickness. What it cannot do is flatten — feed in a twisted board and you get a thinner twisted board, because the machine faithfully copies whatever face is riding on the bed.
Which should you buy first?
For most home shops, buy the planer first. You can create a flat reference face several ways without a jointer — a hand plane, or a planer sled that shims the board flat as it feeds through — but only a planer thicknesses stock efficiently. Add a jointer later, once you are milling enough rough lumber that flattening by hand or sled is the bottleneck. If you are assembling a first shop from scratch, our essential woodworking tools guide puts both machines in context.
If you are not buying a jointer at all
You still need a flat reference face, and there are three ways to get one without the machine: a jack plane and winding sticks, a planer sled that holds the board immobile while the knives cut, or a router sled for anything too wide for either. How to flatten a board without a jointer walks through all three and what each one costs you in thickness.
How we picked
We do not run a testing lab
We researched published manufacturer specifications, manuals and spec sheets, ran the arithmetic those specs support, and read owner reviews at volume, then scored each tool against a published rubric. The scores are judgments from documented research — they are not measurements we took, because we do not have a lab and we are not going to pretend we do. Where a number came from a manufacturer's document, we name it and link it in Sources.
