How Owners Mix Milwaukee Packout and Klein MODbox

Modular tool boxes are a commitment. Every box you add has to click onto the ones you own, so the first one you buy quietly decides the brand of the next twenty.

The trouble starts when the other brand does one thing better. In one plumbing thread, Milwaukee's Packout was the default and Klein's MODbox was the alternative people asked about. MODbox's drawers are the part owners bring up.

The two systems don't lock together. Their makers are also in court with each other.

If you own one system and want a piece of the other, is mixing them a real way to work, or a fiddly compromise? The people to ask are the owners who already do it.

What a plumber who owns both buys

In r/Plumbing somebody asked for alternatives to Packout, and a plumber answered with the setup they actually run:

I have both Packout and Modbox. The red organizers feel a little more robust. The orange toolbox drawers are more sturdy. Therefore I buy the red organizers and orange toolboxes.

u/donniedc, in r/Plumbing

That's one owner's split, not a verdict. Other owners who run both argue with it. What's useful is the shape: buy each brand for the part it does well, then deal with joining them.

The joining is the part they keep small. They use an adapter "if I absolutely need to connect them". That sounds like two stacks that mostly live apart.

The orange half of that setup is Klein's drawer boxes, such as the MODbox 3-Drawer. The plumber keeps their battery tools in a large single drawer: "my drill, driver, hackzall, SDS, and oscillating saw with room to spare". They call the system legit, and say "with the sales they run it's a no brainer".

They added one caveat themselves. They do mostly service work, and the boxes "don't go on site very often". A box that lives in the van has an easier life than one carried up scaffolding every day.

Is Klein MODbox better than Packout?

Owners who run both don't agree, and they disagree about different parts.

In an r/KleinTools thread, an owner of both said "the Klein boxes feel more sturdy". Then they gave Milwaukee the other point: "the Milwaukee boxes seem to hold more". That's feel against capacity, which isn't quite the plumber's split.

Another owner in the same thread went the other way on the drawers. They "much prefer the PACKOUT rolling drawer". The bottom drawer on their MODbox needs a hard pull, and then it "comes flying out at you".

So the drawers the plumber calls sturdier are the ones somebody else finds annoying. None of the three calls one brand better at everything. All three keep both.

ToolGuyd is more cautious. Its early-2024 roundup of modular systems put MODbox fifth of five. The reviewer found "the designs and executions to be well-done" and called the accessory rail "novel and effective".

The reviewer also called MODbox "very electrician-focused right now", and said it wasn't a system they'd buy for their own use yet. The roundup says nothing about mixing the two.

How do you connect Packout and MODbox?

With a plate that neither brand makes. Every adapter we found is a third-party design. One maker, Lipich Engineering, says so on its own page: "not affiliated with Milwaukee or Klein Tools".

Lipich sells one plate for putting Packout on top of MODbox and another for the reverse. Similar plates turn up on Etsy and eBay. There's also a printable file for anyone with a 3D printer.

A different owner in the r/KleinTools thread has one in use. They run the rolling MODbox and the two-drawer. They "got a plate modifier" so all their Packout small organizers sit on top. That's the plumber's split in one stack.

Lipich's plates are 3D-printed in PETG plastic. They cost a fraction of what either brand's boxes do.

Reviews on the maker's own page say they fit and hold. Those are buyers' reviews on the seller's site, though, so weigh them as that, not as an independent test.

Nobody can promise what happens when a half-red, half-orange stack on a printed plate drops off a tailgate. The plate's maker says it's nothing to do with either brand. The plumber's habit of connecting only when they absolutely need to is probably the right instinct.

Is Klein MODbox being discontinued?

Part of it already has been, and you should know that before you buy in.

Milwaukee and Keter sued Klein, claiming MODbox infringes Packout patents. In December 2025, ToolGuyd reported that Klein's full-size lidded MODbox toolboxes had started reading "no longer in production" on Klein's own site.

ToolGuyd updated the piece a day later. The International Trade Commission had made an initial ruling that certain MODbox products infringe Milwaukee's Packout patents. A final decision was expected in mid-January 2026.

We looked for that final ruling and couldn't find one reported. As far as we can tell, the lidded boxes are gone and the case isn't over. Nothing we found says what happens to the drawer boxes.

The drawer boxes are the ones still listed. Klein's own page for the 3-Drawer had no notice on it when we checked. An owner in r/KleinTools went through Klein's catalog and found the "no longer in production" note only on the lidded boxes.

The same owner pointed out that the drawer boxes use "the same cleat connection" the case is about.

If you're buying into MODbox now, the drawer boxes are still current. The lidded boxes, the rolling toolbox among them, are not. The part that makes any of it stack is the one being argued over in court.

Start with whichever system you already own. Then buy from the other brand the way the plumber does: red Packout organizers for the small parts, an orange drawer box for the tools. Wait for one of Klein's sales before you buy the orange half, and join the two stacks only when you have to.