Should I get a power station or a generator for home backup?

A battery power station if the outage is short and the machine has to run indoors in silence; a fuel generator if it has to run for days or carry heavy loads. The battery is limited by its stored watt-hours, the generator by the fuel you can keep.

The two machines answer the same question — keep things running when the mains stops — and they fail in completely different ways.

What a battery station is limited by

A station stores a fixed quantity of energy, printed in watt-hours, and once it is spent the machine is a box until something recharges it. Its second limit is the inverter inside: a continuous wattage that decides what can be plugged in at all, regardless of how much energy is left.

In exchange it makes no noise, produces no exhaust, works indoors, and starts by pressing a button.

What a generator is limited by

A generator makes energy for as long as it is fed, so its limit is fuel and maintenance rather than capacity. It also produces exhaust, which is why it is an outdoor machine, and noise, which is why makers publish a decibel figure at a stated distance — a figure that only compares to another one measured the same way.

Where the two meet

A great many households end up with both, and the pairing is deliberate: the battery covers the first hours quietly and instantly, and the generator takes over if the outage is still going the next morning, recharging the battery while it runs.

What to settle before choosing

Write down the loads that genuinely must keep working, in watts, and how long each one has to run. That list turns into watt-hours, and watt-hours turn into either a battery size or a tank size. Choosing a machine before that list exists is how people end up with a station that cannot start their pump.