Danner vs Thorogood Boots: Differences and Comparison

• Style Variety

Danner offers shoes for leisure and work in its catalog. Meanwhile, Thorogood remains focused on producing highly-specialized boots for professionals in construction, logging, farming, military, law enforcement, firefighting, hunting, and black uniform shoes.

Though you can find traditional and contemporary work boots in both shoe brands, Thorogood offers a wider selection of styles and color options for each style.

Just by comparing Danner moc toe vs Thorogood alone, the former has only 12 styles under the Danner Bull Run Cedar River collections. By contrast, there are about 15 styles of Thorogood moc toe boots on the market

Aside from that, Thorogood also offers cowboy boots and rubber boots for farming and ranching, which are not available at Danner’s.

• Uppers & Linings

Danner and Thorogood fashion traditional work boots out of full-grain leather uppers. Though they used terms like “Crazy Horse” or “Oiled” in product descriptions, both can last 10 to 15 years under rough conditions.

Besides standard leather boots, these brands embraced new technologies and experimented with textiles and other types of leather to produce contemporary designs.

For outdoor work boots, Danner uses Gore-Tex or Danner® Dry, while Thorogood’s Thoro-dry is found in some tactical boots and X-Stream Waterproof™ in leather boots. Performance-wise, linings from both brands can keep out water adequately.

However, in terms of waterproof footwear options, Thorogood is ahead of the game as it sells easy-to-clean waterproof rubber boots with Infinity FD neoprene for those who work in muddy conditions.

When it comes to winter boots, Danner and Thorogood both use 3M Thinsulate since they do not develop proprietary insulation.

• Toes

While Thorogood has the upper hand in terms of style variety, it only offers steel and composite toes—no alloys. Therefore, Danner wins in this category as it manufactures work boots that give you all three options for toe protection.

But if you’re looking for logging footwear with safety toes, you can find them on Thorogood logger boots. So far, we do not see such an option on Danner’s.

Also read: Work boots vs logger boots

• Insoles and Outsoles

Danner includes Ortholite, a third-party insole manufacturer, in the boots it sells. Ortholites are lightweight yet effective in absorbing the shock in each step due to its triple-layer construction.

Thorogood has its very own “Removable Ultimate Shock Absorption footbed on Poron comfort cushion insole,” garnering rave reviews.

Note that we can’t comment more objectively on insoles because each individual has to choose specific designs that address the food conditions that they may have.

As for the outsole’s traction, you can rely on these two competing brands. However, many users have observed that Danner’s treads abrade  faster.

• Size

Do Danner boots run true to size? Do Thorogood boots run large or small?

Overall, both brands are true to size in length and width, but certain types of boots may be loose or snug by design. For instance, pull-on boots are slightly loose around the heels due to the lack of laces.

As for size range, Danner offers US shoe sizes from 5 to 16, whereas Thorogood provides a wide range – from US sizes 4 to 16. Both brands give the option of half sizes.

Boots from Danner and Thorogood come in adjustable widths as well, although the latter brand has more choices. To be specific, Danner has four width sizes (Narrow, Regular, Wide, and Extra Wide), whereas Thorogood has seven: B, D, EE, EEE, M, W, and XW.

• Average Break-in Time & Flexibility

Another difference between Danner and Thorogood is that the latter is more flexible, requiring little to no break-in period. On the flip side, Danner openly admits that its boots are stiff. Several users report that they walked over 30 miles to break them in

• Construction

Both shoe brands utilize the Goodyear welt construction method for most of their footwear collection. This technique ensures long-lasting quality and allows their customers to get their boots resoled.

For the Danner Power Foreman and Mountain Light, however, the manufacturer used the “stitch-down method,” which is more expensive than welt construction.

Plus, the stitch-down method offers better water resistance qualities. Also, it provides the option to prolong the lifespan of the boots by replacing the soles, fixing the leather, and redoing the stitching.

• Manufacturing Facilities

In case you’re wondering who makes Danner boots nowadays, the brand is owned by a Japanese company called Lacrosse Footwear.

But don’t let that confuse you since Danner remains “American,” so to speak. Roughly one-third of its shoes are still made in their original Portland, Oregon factory, while others are manufactured in Italy, China, and Vietnam.

Thorgood outsources some of the shoe production in China and Guatemala but makes 60% of its boots in the US.

• Price Range

Most of Danner’s and Thorogood’s collections range from $70 to $300, but the former has a selection of high-end boots that costs $440 to $560.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Thorogood’s boots are more affordable for workers. Granted, its Power HV Bunker is over $400, but we did not include this model in our comparison since it no longer exists on the official website.