A table saw rips — it cuts along the grain, making a wide board narrower. A miter saw crosscuts — it cuts across the grain, making a long board shorter. If you only remember one thing, remember that, because it decides which saw you need.
Both saws can, with effort, do the other's job. A table saw crosscuts accurately with a sled you build yourself; a miter saw can rip a narrow strip if you are careless enough to try, which you should not be. But each is markedly better at its own job, and buying the wrong one first means fighting your tools on every project.
Here is the decision in one paragraph. If you build furniture and cabinets from boards and sheet goods, buy the table saw first. Furniture work is dominated by ripping parts to width from wider stock, and a table saw with a good fence is the only machine that does that repeatably. If you build decks, trim out rooms, cut framing, or make anything from dimensional lumber that arrives at roughly the right width— buy the miter saw first, because your work is almost entirely cutting long things shorter and at angles.
The third possibility, which people forget: for a shop that mostly breaks down plywood, the right first purchase may be neither. A track saw handles sheet goods better than either saw here. See table saw vs track saw for that comparison.
Head to head, job by job
Ripping a board to width
Table saw, decisively.The fence sets the width and the board rides against it; every cut is identical. A miter saw physically cannot do this safely — the blade descends onto stationary stock, and ripping requires the stock to move past the blade.
Crosscutting a long board to length
Miter saw, decisively. You bring the saw to the board rather than the board to the saw, which for anything over about 3 feet is far easier and far safer. A table saw can crosscut with a sled or the mitre gauge, but a 10-foot board on a table saw is an awkward, two-person operation.
Cutting angles and compound mitres
Miter saw. That is the whole reason for the name. Setting a repeatable 45 degrees on a table saw means a sled or a jig; on a miter saw it is a detent.
Breaking down sheet goods
Table saw, and only just. Neither saw is really the right tool. A miter saw cannot take a sheet at all. A table saw can, if you have outfeed support and help. A track saw does it better than either.
Joinery — dados, rabbets, tenons
Table saw. With a dado stack or repeated passes, a table saw cuts grooves, rabbets and tenon cheeks accurately. A miter saw can nibble a shallow trench with a stop block, but it is a workaround, not a method.
The accuracy difference nobody mentions
A miter saw's accuracy depends on its fence being straight and its detents being true, and on the stock being pressed flat against both fence and table. A table saw's accuracy depends on the fence being parallel to the blade. These are different failure modes: a miter saw that is slightly off produces a cut that is not quite square, which shows up as a gap in a mitred corner. A table saw that is slightly off produces a cut that is not quite parallel, which shows up as a tapered part — and, more importantly, as kickback risk. Both are checkable in ten minutes with a good square, and both are worth checking the day the saw arrives.
Cost and space, honestly
A capable jobsite table saw and a good sliding miter saw cost roughly the same. Space is where they differ: a table saw on a folding stand stores in about 2 × 2 feet; a miter saw is smaller in itself but only works properly on a station with support wings either side, which in practice occupies a whole wall. Many shops that own both end up building the miter saw into a bench along one wall and rolling the table saw out to the middle when needed.
What we recommend
Furniture and cabinets:table saw first — the DeWalt DWE7491RS if budget allows, the SKIL TS6307 if it does not. Add a miter saw later for breaking stock to rough length. Trim, framing, decks, home projects:miter saw first — the DeWalt DWS779 if you cut wide stock, the Metabo HPT C10FCG2 if your stock is narrow and the budget is tight. Both, eventually: almost everyone. The order is the only real question.
What we could not verify
We have not run comparative cut tests between these four saws. Blade sizes, rip capacities, amperages and bevel capabilities above are the manufacturers' published specifications. The comparison itself is a mechanical argument about what each saw geometry can and cannot do, not a lab result.
