This is the big question you’ll want to answer before moving forward. Chances are you know if you need a full-on docking station rather than just a USB hub, but I’ll explain the differences in case you’re on the fence. A simple USB hub will handle most people’s needs, as it will expand the potentially very limited ports of your laptop. If you own a MacBook Air, for example, a USB hub functions as a multiport adapter to get you HDMI, USB-A, and more. They’re intended to be portable, and many of these hubs even include HDMI to connect an external display.

A laptop docking station will do quite a lot more. These devices are meant to be stationary on a desk, enabling you to access your entire workstation setup with just a single USB-C cable. The docking station is meant to stay put and have all your monitors and accessories plugged into it. Because of that, they require significantly more power and are often bundled with a large power brick. They are often quite expensive. So, while both accessories connect your laptop to more ports, they serve two different functions.

There are now lots of docks and hubs that blur the lines, offering multi-monitor support in a very small package. These can be useful, but a full docking station will still give you the fastest transfer speeds, the most ports, and better external display support all through a single cable.

Figuring out the right connections you need for your setup can be daunting, and the confusing, arcane USB terminology only makes it worse. You can check out our explainer on parsing USB terms here. For the short version, here are the basics you should keep in mind:

Check your ports’ speeds, and don’t rely on version numbers. For a lot of confusing reasons, ports labeled as USB 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2 can all have the same speed or wildly different speeds. For this reason, docking station manufacturers have recently started opting to add speeds (usually written like “5 Gbps”) directly onto individual ports. Use the faster ports for transferring data, and slower ports for things like your keyboard and mouse.

Thunderbolt is best for lightning-fast data transfers or high-res displays. Thunderbolt is like a supercharged version of USB, and it even uses USB-C ports. However, Thunderbolt ports are also capable of transferring massive amounts of data. This makes it ideal for tasks like moving uncompressed video files around, as well as 4K (or even 8K) displays or lower-resolution monitors with extra high refresh rates.

Keep in mind your power needs. Most laptop docking stations will have some form of power connector and USB Power Delivery (or USB-PD) that can send power through to your laptop. You’ll also sometimes see this referred to as “pass-through charging.” Most devices you connect will require their own power as well, especially if you want to connect monitors or charge your phone and tablet. If you plan to connect a lot of power-hungry devices, make sure your docking station can handle your needs.

Upstream and downstream ports. You’ll often see USB ports labeled either as upstream or downstream. The data either flows up to the source (your PC or docking station) or down from the source. An upstream USB port means it’s meant for transferring data from a peripheral (like an external drive) to your PC, whereas a downstream USB port only works in the opposite direction.

All the docks in our recommendations are compatible with both Mac and Windows, unless otherwise noted. But there are lots of hubs and docks out there that have certain limitations on Mac, such as only supporting mirroring mode in dual monitors. That’s not a problem on Windows.

On lower-end Macs, there is a limitation on the number of screens. There is a way around this if you use a dock that supports DisplayLink. This software can create a “virtual GPU” that tricks the system into allowing for additional displays so you can drive more displays than are typically allowed on a MacBook Air, for example. In my experience, however, the performance can be shoddy, and you may run into issues with latency.

The first Thunderbolt 5-capable PCs, docks, and accessories came out in 2024. Thunderbolt 5 can now handle three 4K displays at 144 Hz (or two 4K displays at 240 Hz) and can deliver up to 240 watts of power. That’s dramatic, up from the 100 watts of Thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 5 allows you to fully juice up more powerful devices, such as gaming laptops or the 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pro.

Thunderbolt 5 docks are all backward compatible, so there’s no worry about outdoing the peripherals you currently own. As is true in many scenarios, buying the latest specs is often worth it to avoid having to upgrade later. However, the adoption of Thunderbolt 5 has been slower than I’d hoped. And if you don’t have a Thunderbolt 5 laptop to connect to, you won’t get the full benefit that Thunderbolt 5 offers.

While there’s a breadth of Thunderbolt 5 docks out in the world (many of which you’ll see on this list), the biggest disappointment has been in the lack of Thunderbolt 5 accessories. It’s still very difficult, for example, to find a Thunderbolt 5 SSD to achieve those faster speeds. Thunderbolt 5 docks are sometimes only marginally more expensive than previous-generation options, so they’re often worth buying for the improved display support or higher power delivery. For example, CalDigit’s TS5 is only $20 more than the TS4.