The 4 Best Thunderbolt Docks for 2023

Jun 17, 2023

Due to ongoing shortages of our previous budget pick, Plugable's Thunderbolt 4 Hub is our new budget pick if you need more Thunderbolt ports.

Several of our picks are out of stock or available only as preorders at this writing. We stand by our picks, and we think they’re worth waiting for.

Whether laptop owners like it or not, manufacturers including Apple are replacing the ports on their laptops with slimmer, multifunction Thunderbolt and USB-C connectors. If you need to plug in accessories with any sort of regularity, a Thunderbolt dock offers various inputs and outputs over a single cable and also charges your computer. CalDigit's TS3 Plus is the best among them, offering more ports than other docks and excellent performance in a package that takes up little space on a desk.

This dock has the most—and the most useful—ports, including USB-A and USB-C ports and an SD card slot. It can charge a 15-inch MacBook Pro at full speed or a 16-inch model at close to that.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.

No other model offers a greater number of the most useful ports you can expect from a dock than the CalDigit TS3 Plus. The second Thunderbolt port allows you to pass through data from Thunderbolt accessories. You can hook up two 4K monitors at 60 Hz, too, and this is the only dock with S/PDIF audio. And whereas most docks have a strictly horizontal orientation, the TS3 Plus can also stand vertically, minimizing its footprint. This CalDigit model has the best combination of ports, size, and shape we’ve found, though it is more expensive than many other docks.

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Although Monoprice's dock doesn't have as many ports as CalDigit's, this model costs significantly less and has a more impressive array than other docks in its price range.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $144.

Consider Monoprice's Thunderbolt 3 Dual DisplayPort Docking Station if you don't need a Thunderbolt passthrough port for connecting high-speed accessories or an SD card slot, and if you’re okay with fewer USB-A connectors and slightly slower charging than on our top pick. Although that may sound like a lot of sacrifices, the array of ports on this dock is still impressive, especially compared with similarly priced models; nothing else in the sub-$200 range matches it. And with its two DisplayPort connectors, you can run two 4K monitors at once.

The OWC Thunderbolt Dock swaps in more Thunderbolt ports in place of dedicated video connectors and USB ports.

We’ve concluded that most people are better served by the wider port selection on the CalDigit TS3 Plus, but if you prefer the flexibility of Thunderbolt, go with OWC's Thunderbolt Dock. This model has three Thunderbolt 3 passthrough ports, which you can also use as USB-C connectors or for hooking up monitors with the right adapters. You do give up dedicated video outputs, as well as one of the USB 3.0 ports.

The smallest dock we’ve tested packs in three Thunderbolt passthrough outputs.

You save $20 (12%)

Plugable's Thunderbolt 4 Hub is the smallest way to add three extra Thunderbolt 4 ports to your setup—and it's cheap. The port selection is too limited for most people who might require a dock, but if it fits your needs, the performance is good.

This dock has the most—and the most useful—ports, including USB-A and USB-C ports and an SD card slot. It can charge a 15-inch MacBook Pro at full speed or a 16-inch model at close to that.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.

Although Monoprice's dock doesn't have as many ports as CalDigit's, this model costs significantly less and has a more impressive array than other docks in its price range.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $144.

The OWC Thunderbolt Dock swaps in more Thunderbolt ports in place of dedicated video connectors and USB ports.

The smallest dock we’ve tested packs in three Thunderbolt passthrough outputs.

You save $20 (12%)

I’ve been covering mobile and computer accessories for more than a decade. During my tenure, I’ve reviewed more than 1,000 iOS and Mac products, including numerous docking stations over several iterations of this guide.

A Thunderbolt dock is useful if your port-equipped computer—whether Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, or USB4—doesn't have enough ports and connections, or if those connections are inconveniently located. You can run a single Thunderbolt cable from the computer to the dock and put the dock somewhere more accessible.

If you want to connect several peripherals to your Thunderbolt computer—displays, drives, printers, and such—a Thunderbolt dock lets you attach them all with a single cable. If you use a laptop as your main computer and regularly move that laptop to and from a desk with multiple peripherals, you can leave all of those accessories plugged into the dock so that when you sit down at your desk, you can simply plug your Thunderbolt cable into the laptop to connect everything instantly.

Thunderbolt docks are ideal for creative professionals and other people who demand a lot from their computers, including the fastest possible transfer speeds and the widest port selection. Most people, however, are just as well served by a much less expensive USB-C hub; such hubs use the same connector and can do almost all the same things, but they don't support Thunderbolt 3 transfer speeds and don't usually include the same quantity or variety of ports.

USB hubs offer the best way to add more functionality to a PC or notebook without many ports, and we have recommendations for almost every situation.

Although USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 use the same USB-C connector, they aren't the same thing, so a Thunderbolt 3 device may not work like it's supposed to if you plug it into a USB-C port. Thunderbolt is more complicated and thus more expensive for computer makers to include, and you’ll find it mainly on recent Macs and higher-end Windows PCs such as our top ultrabook picks. If your computer has USB-C but not Thunderbolt 3, the docks in this guide aren't for you—check out our guide to USB-C accessories.

As this Intel blog post explains, Thunderbolt 3 does everything that USB-C can do and a little more. Specifically, Thunderbolt 3 supports faster data-transfer rates (up to 40 Gbps, versus a maximum of 5 or 10 Gbps for USB-C depending on the device), allows data to transfer in both directions at the same time (useful when you’re connecting a slew of devices through one cable), and can simultaneously transfer data, output video, charge your computer, and daisy-chain other Thunderbolt devices over a single cable.

USB4 (sometimes stylized as USB 4) is now being advertised on Apple's M1-based Mac laptops, among others, and is functionally identical to Thunderbolt 3. Unlike Thunderbolt 3, a specification owned and controlled by Intel, USB4 (PDF) is a royalty-free standard established through the USB Implementers Forum, the industry group that oversees all things USB.

Then there's Thunderbolt 4. As PCMag explains, "Thunderbolt 4 isn't a speed play; it is more about minimum requirements than maximum speeds." It implements double the minimum requirements for video and data but has the same top speeds and specs. We’re starting to see some Thunderbolt 4 docks, and in our testing, they’ve worked just fine with Thunderbolt 3 computers. For the sake of this guide, we consider Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 to be interchangeable.

A great Thunderbolt dock extends the functionality of a computer by offering additional connections, each capable of the fastest data-transfer speeds. These docks are particularly practical for computers that have a limited number and variety of ports, such as the current M1-equipped MacBook Air, but docks are also useful for more conveniently connecting peripherals to a desktop or laptop computer. In evaluating our picks, we looked for the following features:

Thunderbolt docks have always been somewhat niche, so you won't find many. We’ve tested almost every dock that has been released since June 2017. For our 2021 testing, we used a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro to test performance and speeds, and we confirmed compatibility with a 2020 13-inch, M1-based MacBook Pro and an HP Spectre laptop. Specifically, we ran the following tests:

This dock has the most—and the most useful—ports, including USB-A and USB-C ports and an SD card slot. It can charge a 15-inch MacBook Pro at full speed or a 16-inch model at close to that.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.

CalDigit's TS3 Plus offers more ports than the competition—including the most USB-A ports and USB-C ports, plus an SD card slot—without sacrificing other important inputs, which makes it the best Thunderbolt 3 dock for most people. The TS3 Plus supports up to two 4K monitors or one 5K monitor at a full 60 Hz refresh rate, and it's also one of the most compact models available, so it takes up less room on your desk—especially if you stand it up vertically on its end, an option you don't get with most docks. And the 87 watts of power it can send to a connected laptop means it's capable of charging even a 15-inch MacBook Pro at full speed, or a 16-inch MacBook Pro at close to that.

Two Thunderbolt 3 (one passthrough)Five USB-A 3.2 Gen 1

One USB-C 3.2 Gen 1

One USB-C 3.2 Gen 2

One DisplayPort

Gigabit Ethernet

Audio-inAudio-out

S/PDIF digital optical audio

SD card reader

87-watt charging

Almost every other Thunderbolt dock we tested is long and flat, designed to lie horizontally on your desk. The TS3 Plus, in contrast, can sit horizontally or stand vertically. When it's standing on its shortest edge, it takes up only about 6.25 square inches of desk space.

In our USB-A testing with Samsung's Portable SSD T5, we measured average read and write speeds from four of the ports that were about a third slower than what we saw from other docks with USB 3.2 Gen 2 connectors. You may find that to be an issue if you’re transferring data using USB-A accessories, but it won't make a difference for peripherals such as a keyboard or webcam. The fifth port (the lowest one on the back of the CalDigit dock) produced faster speeds. The USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 read and write speeds were almost identical to those of the slower four USB-A ports, while the USB 3.2 Gen 2 port was noticeably faster and in line with every other Gen 2 device we tested.

The TS3 Plus is one of the most compact docks available, so it takes up less room on your desk—especially if you stand it on its end.

In our data-transfer tests using a Thunderbolt 3 drive (a LaCie Bolt 3), the TS3 Plus's Thunderbolt 3 read and write speeds were many times faster than its USB results but—as with all the docks—still a bit slower than when the test drive was connected directly to the computer via Thunderbolt, and slower than the maximum speed LaCie advertises for that drive. Again, these numbers are comparable with our test results across the rest of the docks, and these figures still indicate blazing-fast speeds next to those of most connection types. However, you shouldn't buy this dock (or any dock, for that matter) expecting to see the same performance as you’d get with a direct connection between your computer and the fastest Thunderbolt 3 drives.

The TS3 Plus's SD-card transfer speeds were on a par with those of every other SD-equipped dock we’ve tested but slower than what we measured with a standalone card reader for our guide to the best SD cards.

Most Thunderbolt 3 docks, including this one, use DisplayPort for video output. When the dock was connected to two 4K monitors, we measured a proper 60 Hz refresh rate on both displays; one was connected directly to the DisplayPort, while the other was attached through a USB-C–to–DisplayPort cable plugged into the Thunderbolt port. We didn't test 5K monitor support, but we’re confident in CalDigit's claims.

The TS3 Plus can charge connected laptops at up to 87 watts. Most 13-inch laptops charge at 45 or 60 watts, and even the most power-hungry MacBook Pro models max out at 96 watts, so regardless of which computer you’re using, you’re likely to get full-speed charging or very close to it. Some other docks offer similar charging speeds, but less expensive models usually top out around 60 watts.

Thunderbolt docks require large power bricks, and the TS3 Plus is no exception. The 6-by-3-by-1-inch power adapter is only slightly smaller than the dock itself, but it's not noticeably bigger than the others we saw in our testing. This CalDigit dock (like all the docks we tested) comes with a Thunderbolt cable, so you don't need to buy one separately.

CalDigit offers a two-year warranty on the TS3 Plus, which is as good as the coverage length on any of our other picks.

Reviews of the TS3 Plus have been positive, matching our findings. "Of all the Thunderbolt 3 docks I’ve tested so far, CalDigit's TS3 Plus is my new favorite," writes Eric Slivka of MacRumors. In another review, 9to5Mac's Jeff Benjamin writes, "All of this, coupled with the TS3 Plus’ diminutive design, and 15-ports in total, make CalDigit's latest dock a very compelling option for Mac users." And Mike Wuerthele of AppleInsider calls it "a superb choice."

Cale Hunt, who tested the TS3 Plus with a PC for Windows Central, also praises its performance and versatility: "With 15 ports, great performance, and a small footprint, the TS3 Plus is about the best Thunderbolt 3 dock you can buy today."

A Wirecutter editor who uses the TS3 Plus with two LG 27UK850-W monitors and a 2017 MacBook Pro has reported issues where one or both displays don't wake up when the computer wakes from sleep mode: "The solution is usually to unplug one or both of the displays and replug. Occasionally it requires a restart." He has noted similar quirks with the headphone port. Another Wirecutter editor has experienced wake-from-sleep problems with a similar LG display, the 27GN950-B, using direct connections from a PC. We didn't experience these problems in our testing, but we have seen issues with several Thunderbolt docks when connecting two displays directly to the dock.

Although Monoprice's dock doesn't have as many ports as CalDigit's, this model costs significantly less and has a more impressive array than other docks in its price range.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $144.

If you want to spend a little less and don't need to hook up any extra Thunderbolt accessories, Monoprice's Thunderbolt 3 Dual DisplayPort Docking Station is the dock you should choose. Although its port selection is more limited than that of the CalDigit TS3 Plus, it still has plenty of options to suit most needs, including the ability to connect to multiple monitors at full resolution.

One Thunderbolt 3Two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1

One USB-A 3.2 Gen 2

Two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2

Gigabit EthernetOne audio-in/out

Two DisplayPort

60-watt charging

As we expected, the Monoprice dock's ports all performed as advertised, matching the top speeds of every dock we tested. We had no issues running two monitors on the DisplayPort connectors.

Compared with our top pick, the Thunderbolt 3 Dual DisplayPort Docking Station has two downsides. First, because it lacks Thunderbolt passthrough, you can't hook up additional Thunderbolt accessories through the dock. For someone who uses any Thunderbolt accessories, this is an automatic dealbreaker, but plenty of people don't.

Depending on your computer, you may also sacrifice laptop charging speed. The Monoprice dock can power a computer at up to 60 W, which is top speed for pretty much any 13-inch computer. But if you have a more power-hungry machine, such as a 15- or 16-inch MacBook Pro, the docking station will charge your computer at a slower rate. This could be a problem if you’re docking only here and there and you expect your computer to be fully charged when you pick it up, or if you’re running intensive apps that tear through your battery faster than the dock can charge it.

Like all Thunderbolt docks, the Monoprice comes with a huge power brick, as well as a Thunderbolt 3 cable. Its footprint is relatively small next to that of the other docks we tested, which tend to be a bit wider, but unlike the TS3 Plus, it's not made to stand on its end.

Monoprice covers its dock with a one-year warranty. We’ve generally had positive experiences with Monoprice on the whole, as well as with the customer service process, but it's not uncommon for products to go out of stock for stretches of time. We’ve also found that the company doesn't usually design products like this dock itself but rather slaps its branding on a generic design. That's not a bad thing, but it means you may see an identical dock from other companies.

The OWC Thunderbolt Dock swaps in more Thunderbolt ports in place of dedicated video connectors and USB ports.

Four Thunderbolt 3 (three passthrough)One USB-A 2.0

Three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2

SD card slot

Gigabit EthernetOne audio-in/out

90-watt charging

The (theoretical) beauty of a Thunderbolt port lies in its flexibility: It can be whatever you want it to be. You can plug in a high-definition monitor, an audio interface, or a super-fast drive, all using the same port. OWC's Thunderbolt Dock is the model you should choose if you want to take advantage of this kind of flexibility, as it has three Thunderbolt 3 passthrough ports in place of some of the single-use ports that our top pick, the CalDigit TS3 Plus, offers.

If you mainly need additional Thunderbolt connectors, you might choose the OWC dock over the CalDigit TS3 Plus. Although the OWC Thunderbolt Dock doesn't have any USB-C ports, any of its three Thunderbolt ports can serve to connect USB-C accessories. We confirmed this with a Samsung drive connected over a USB-C cable, which worked as expected.

All of the OWC dock's other ports behaved as expected in our testing. Each of the three Thunderbolt ports matched the TS3 Plus's (and every other dock's) speeds, in addition to pushing out 4K video at 60 Hz. We had no problem running two external displays at once using USB-C–to–DisplayPort cables. Results from the SD card slot and the two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the back of the dock matched the highest figures we measured on other docks. This is one of the few docks we tested with a USB 2.0 port, as well; located on the front of the unit, the port is best suited for hooking up a keyboard or mouse, not for fast data transfer.

The OWC Thunderbolt Dock offers the same ports and specs as Kensington's SD5700T dock for a lower price. The difference between the two is the power supply. An OWC representative told us that its dock can provide 90-watt charging to a laptop (which we confirmed), but that the speed drops to 60 watts if you’re running three bus-powered devices on the Thunderbolt ports. The Kensington model, on the other hand, maintains full power even if every port is loaded up. We think such a situation is rare enough that we have no qualms about recommending the OWC model, but if you have heavy-duty needs, note that we were otherwise impressed with the more expensive Kensington.

OWC offers a two-year warranty on the Thunderbolt Dock. At this writing, in early March 2021, the company is selling the dock on a preorder basis for individual production runs.

The smallest dock we’ve tested packs in three Thunderbolt passthrough outputs.

You save $20 (12%)

Plugable's Thunderbolt 4 Hub is the best budget option if you need multiple Thunderbolt ports rather than a range of single-function ports. It has the least diverse port selection of the models we recommend, but it's also the smallest pick here by far.

Read and write speeds on the Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Hub.

In our tests, the Thunderbolt ports were able to support two 4K monitors at 60 Hz when we connected them using USB-C–to–DisplayPort cables. The Thunderbolt data rates were also comparable to what we saw from everything else we tested.

The Thunderbolt 4 Hub does stand out in terms of design, as it's smaller than any other dock we tested. The Thunderbolt-to-computer port (which supports 60-watt charging) is located on the front, with the other three Thunderbolt ports and the power input on the back. Like every Thunderbolt dock, this Plugable model needs to be plugged into an outlet, and it comes with a sizable power brick. Plugable also includes a Thunderbolt cable and a USB-C–to–HDMI adapter.

If you need a budget pick with more ports: CalDigit's Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub offers the same three Thunderbolt passthrough ports as the Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Hub, plus three USB-A connectors. It has been in and out of stock over the past several months, and the price has increased dramatically. But if you can find it and the port array matches your needs, it's a good option.

If you plan on loading up every port for peak performance: Kensington's SD5700T has the exact same port selection and layout as the OWC Thunderbolt Dock but costs significantly more due to how it distributes power. "Kensington has engineered the power distribution to allow users to fully load the dock and not lose any power to the host laptop," a company representative told us via email. "The SD5700T is a bit more expensive as it uses a larger PSU [power supply unit] but we guarantee fixed power, so you can load up the entire dock and get full speeds (Dual 4K @ 60Hz, 40Gbps, 90W PD and Gigabit Ethernet)." This Kensington model might be a better buy than the OWC, but most people wouldn't get much, if any, benefit for the extra cost.

Sonnet's Echo 11, slated for an April 2021 release, has the same ports and specs as the OWC Thunderbolt Dock. We can't recommend it before we test it, but if it performs just as well as the OWC model, it’ll be worth considering if you need a dock with multiple Thunderbolt ports.

HP's Thunderbolt Dock 120W G2 supports two displays but can only mirror the same image on both rather than extending the image across the two, which isn't nearly as useful as a true dual-display setup. We also dislike that its cable is permanently attached—if something happens to the cable, you have to replace the entire dock.

Anker's PowerExpand Elite requires a USB-C–to–dual-HDMI splitter to connect to multiple displays, something our picks can do without an extra purchase.

We didn't test Brydge's Stone Pro because it offers fewer USB-C and USB-A ports than our picks and no additional benefits, for the same price. Similarly, we skipped over Razer's Thunderbolt 4 Dock Chroma, which has one fewer USB-A port than the OWC Thunderbolt Dock and costs a lot more. It does have RGB lighting, though, if that's your thing.

CalDigit's USB-C Pro Dock, with one fewer USB-C port and no USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, is more expensive than our budget pick from Monoprice. We were otherwise impressed with the dock—it offers an SD card slot and faster, 85 W charging. If you need either of those elements, it's a good pick.

The port selection on Plugable's TBT3-UDC3 almost mirrors that of the Monoprice Thunderbolt 3 Dual DisplayPort Docking Station. This model swaps one of the DisplayPort connectors for HDMI and offers faster, 96 W charging, but it also costs significantly more.

Cable Matters's Dual Monitor USB-C Dock is more expensive than our budget picks but has fewer ports.

Plugable's TBT3-UDZ and Kensington's SD5600T are identical docks. Both cost the same, or more, than our top pick and don't have any extra Thunderbolt ports.

Both Anker's PowerExpand 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Mini Dock and OWC's Thunderbolt Hub have three Thunderbolt 3 output ports but only a single USB-A port.

CalDigit's USB-C HDMI Dock is short on ports, especially for its price.

Cable Matters's Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station with 60W Power Delivery and Promise Technology's Thunderbolt 3 Dock TD-300 were runner-up picks in a previous version of this guide and are identical to one another aside from their paint jobs. Each model costs less than our top pick from CalDigit but offers the same number of USB-A ports (five) and an SD card slot. However, unlike our top pick, these docks lack USB-C ports and an S/PDIF output, can't charge larger laptops such as the 15- or 16-inch MacBook Pro as quickly, and use combined audio-in/audio-out jacks instead of separate jacks. They also have HDMI 2.0 video output instead of DisplayPort; it's difficult, but not impossible, to get a Mac to output 4K resolution at 60 Hz over HDMI.

Like CalDigit's USB-C Pro Dock, the Kensington SD5550T works with both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C computers. This Kensington dock is more expensive, and although it has one more USB-C port, it lacks an SD card slot and charges at only 60 watts, which may be too slow for heavy-duty use with a 15- or 16-inch computer.

The Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock has two USB-C ports and adds SD and microSD card slots. But it offers only two USB-A ports and one DisplayPort connection, in a relatively wide design, and it carries a high price tag.

The OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt 3 Dock has the same ports as our top pick from CalDigit, plus a microSD card slot. OWC's model performed just as well as our pick across our tests but takes up much more desk space. The two docks usually cost about the same, so you should stick with the more compact CalDigit model unless you value a card reader above desk space.

Plugable's TBT3-UDV was a previous top pick, but it commands a relatively high price and doesn't have an SD card slot or USB-C ports. The only extra feature you get for your money is a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter, but that typically costs less than $10 if you were to buy it separately; most people are likely to find the extra ports and card reader in our top pick to be more important.

Elgato's Thunderbolt 3 Dock provides 85 W charging but has only three USB-A ports and no SD card slot. It also tends to be more expensive than most of our picks, and you can't position it vertically, so it takes up more desk space.

StarTech's Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station and Iogear's Thunderbolt 3 Quantum Docking Station offer identical ports—USB-C, DisplayPort, Ethernet, and audio, but only two USB-A—in the same layout but have no high-speed laptop charging. They’re not worth the cost considering that more full-featured docks are available in the same price range.

We didn't test StarTech's TB3DK2DPPD since it is larger than our top pick, costs more, and doesn't include an SD card slot. This dock has the same design and ports as StarTech's less-expensive TB3DKDPMAW, but it supports 85-watt charging and comes with a USB-C–to–DisplayPort cable in addition to its Thunderbolt 3 cable. We don't think the included cable makes this model worth buying.

Jason Ziller, Thunderbolt™ 3 – The USB-C That Does It All, Intel, June 2, 2015

Eric Slivka, Review: CalDigit's 'TS3 Plus' Dock Gives You 15 Ports, 85W Charging, and an SD Card Reader for $250, MacRumors, September 5, 2018

Jeff Benjamin, Hands-on: CalDigit TS3 Plus – the best Thunderbolt 3 dock for Mac?, 9to5Mac, February 8, 2018

Mike Wuerthele, Hands on: $249 CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 3 Plus is a great port expander for new MacBook Pro owners, AppleInsider, January 30, 2018

Cale Hunt, CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 dock is about as good as it gets, Windows Central, April 16, 2018

Nick Guy

Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It's impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.

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