The vast majority of jump starters can be filed under one of two categories: lithium-ion or lead-acid.

Lead-acid batteries are the sort of older-school, original model of jump starter. They’ve been around for a while and are still in use today. Lithium batteries are newer—they started showing up in the market within the last decade.

As for which is better, for most people, the best jump starters are lithium-ion. There are a few reasons for that:

Lithium jump starters are usually smaller and lighter than lead-acid ones, but are still very powerful. They also last longer in general, and retain their charge longer even when you’re not using them.

By the way, when I say that lithium jump starters are lighter than lead-acid jump starters, I don’t just mean “a little lighter.” A battery-acid jump starter can weigh up to 40 lbs, whereas a lithium one will usually weigh just a few pounds at most. Frequently, even less.

And in addition to being light, they’re also physically much smaller than lead-acid ones, making them significantly more portable.
So why would anyone still buy a lead-acid jump starter?

Well, for one thing, although lithium starters CAN pack an equivalent charge, and are significantly more efficient overall, battery-acid starters still have a generally higher range of power.

Some lithium jump starters can start large vehicles, but overall lead-acid jump starters are more reliable for large vehicles.

As for price, overall lithium jump starters are less expensive than lead-acid ones. However, there are wide price ranges for both, so a high-end lithium jump starter can cost more than a low-end lead-acid one.

Lastly, lithium jump starters may need more charging between uses, and lead-acid ones may hold their charge longer. However, that’s a generalization, and bad lead-acid jump starters will have more difficulty holding a charge than good lithium ones.

So it should go without saying that the best jump starters can be lead-acid or lithium ion—what matters first and foremost is performance.

The engine your car has affects what jump starters you should be prioritizing in your search.

Basically, if you have a bigger engine, you need a more powerful battery. If you have a diesel engine, you’ll also need a more powerful battery than if you have a gas engine.

Sounds simple, right? It mostly is! To give you an idea of what “bigger” means:

• A 4-cylinder gas engine would need 150-250 amps
• A 4-cylinder diesel engine would need 300-450 amps
• A 6-cylinder gas engine would need 250-350 amps
• A 6-cylinder diesel engine would need 450-600 amps

And what if you have an electric car? The process of jump starting an electric car or even a hybrid is not very different from an ordinary gas car.

In fact, most electric cars and hybrids actually have two batteries. One is a lithium-ion battery (usually, or at least something similar), which is the one that gets charged via charging stations and holds the power for electric motors.

The second is usually a lead-acid battery, the same one found in gas cars. The second battery, which is generally smaller and usually 12 volts, powers other car features but also supplies power to the “main” lithium-ion battery.

This second battery is the one you’d need to jump-start, if you need to jump start your electric vehicle. So because of that, the typical range of jump starter power will usually be fine.

You can always research a little more about your specific car model to get a better idea of which jump starters are best for it, however.

But the good news is that most jump starters, and definitely the best jump starters, will usually have enough power to start ordinary consumer vehicle engines.

If you look at the descriptions of all the options here on this list of the best jump starters, you’ll find that they list numbers next to peak amps and cold crank amps, or cranking amps.

Here’s the difference:

Peak amps measure the maximum power a jump starter can discharge. A peak discharge like that will usually happen very quickly, a rapid burst.

In contrast, cranking amps refer to the power that a jump starter can discharge steadily, over a longer period of time. That “longer period” though is only longer compared to a peak amp discharge: usually it’d be around half a minute.

Cold cranking amps (CCA) are not very different from cranking amps—as the name implies. It just refers to the cranking amps needed to power up a vehicle in cold weather. It can also refer to what’s needed to start older vehicles or batteries that are completely dead.

So, how much do you need?

As you can imagine, it varies depending on your vehicle. You could contact your seller or even manufacturer, or look it up online, to see how many amps you’d need.

However, speaking generally:

If you have an ordinary consumer vehicle and you’re jump-starting your car in normal conditions, 400-600 amps would be fine.

If you have a commercial vehicle, especially a truck, you may need 1500-2000 amps.

If we’re talking about CCA, 400-500 CCA amps will jump start most vehicles, even some larger ones (maybe not trucks, but SUVs). If you have a normal or smaller sized car and a smaller battery, you might need just 200 amps or even less.

Both peak amps and cranking amps, including cold cranking amps, are important. As far as it relates to your product search, however, you should keep an eye on both but prioritize a higher CCA rating as it can cover more of your bases.

You might wonder if you need to match your jump starter’s CCA to your car battery’s. The answer is not really, because jump starters automatically limit and cut off power based on your battery’s capacity. So it’s unlikely you’ll transmit too much power.

Generally the best jump starters will have a regular power current and discharge for cranking amps. Also, generally, the best jump starters will have more than enough peak amps and cold crank amps for an ordinary consumer car.