Leaf blower vs lawn sweeper

These two tools are not competing at the same job. A blower moves leaves from where they are to where you want them; a sweeper picks them up. Confusing the two is how people end up spending an afternoon making a pile they then have to kneel down and lift.

The short answer

What each one costs to run

That is not an argument that a sweeper is free — it is 95 lb of hardware that needs a tow vehicle and a corner of the garage. It is an argument that on a large lawn the running cost of clearing leaves is the tractor you already own, not a second battery.

Three approaches, on published figures

The sweeper: collection in one pass

The Agri-Fab 44 in publishes the two figures that matter: a 28 cu ft hopper and a 5.6:1 brush-to-wheel ratio. The ratio is what makes it work at all — the brush has no motor, so the gearing between wheel and brush is the only thing spinning it fast enough to flick a damp leaf up into the hopper.

Its limits are practical and absolute. It needs a tow vehicle. It needs room to turn. It cannot work on a driveway, in a bed, against a fence or anywhere a 78 in long implement will not go. And at 95 lb it is not something you reposition casually.

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The blower: reach everywhere, collect nowhere

The EGO LB7650 publishes 765 CFM at up to 200 MPH, a 260 to 580 CFM variable range, 64 dB and 4.6 lb without a battery. It will clear a driveway, a deck, a gutter run and the strip behind a shed, all of which are closed to a sweeper.

What it does not do is pick anything up. At the end you have a pile, and the pile is somebody's job. On a small lot that is fine — a tarp and two minutes. On an acre of oak leaves it is the whole afternoon.

The published runtime honesty is worth noting: EGO gives 15 minutes on turbo and 150 on low, which is 10 to 1. Almost nobody publishes both ends of that range.

#ad Check the EGO Power+ 765 CFM Blower LB7650 price on Amazon — how we're funded.

The blower-vacuum: the middle answer

The RYOBI RY404150 publishes 600 CFM in blower mode, a metal impeller, a 20:1 mulch ratio and over 25 minutes on two 40V 4.0Ah packs. It blows where a sweeper cannot reach and then collects, shredded, so the volume going to the curb is a twentieth of what went in.

The 20:1 ratio is the number that makes it worth considering against a sweeper: 28 cubic feet of whole leaves in a sweeper hopper is about 1.4 cubic feet once shredded. Whether that matters depends entirely on whether you are bagging them or composting them.

RYOBI publishes no bag capacity, no air speed and no weight for this machine, which makes the comparison one-sided in the sweeper's favor on every figure except mulch ratio.

#ad Check the RYOBI 40V HP Brushless 600 CFM Blower/Vacuum (RY404150) price on Amazon — how we're funded.

Which one, by lawn

• Under a quarter acre, no tractor: blower, or a blower-vacuum if you want them collected. A sweeper has nowhere to turn.
• Half an acre and up, with a tractor: sweeper for the open lawn, blower for the driveway and beds. These are complementary purchases, not alternatives.
• Light leaf cover, any size: neither. Mulch them into the lawn with the mower — see best mowers for leaf mulching.
• Hard surfaces only: blower, every time. Our driveway blower page covers the nozzle and CFM question.

If you own both, use them in this order

1. Blow the hard surfaces onto the lawn. Driveway, path and patio first, while the leaves are dry.
2. Blow the beds and the fence line out onto the open grass. A sweeper cannot get within a foot of either.
3. Then tow the sweeper over the whole lawn. One pass collects everything including what you just moved onto it.

The wider sequence for a full fall cleanup is in the leaf cleanup guide, and the three-way comparison with raking is in blower vs rake vs vacuum.

What we cannot tell you

We have not run a timed leaf-clearing trial. Agri-Fab publishes no dump mechanism, warranty or recommended towing speed; RYOBI publishes no bag capacity, weight or air speed. Nobody publishes leaves cleared per hour for any of these tools, and no conversion exists between CFM and collected volume — so the choice here is about what each machine does, not how much faster one is.