Best Keychain Multitool Replacements After the Leatherman Squirt Discontinuation

Introduction

The Leatherman Squirt PS4 is officially discontinued. For a tool that weighed just two ounces and lived on keychains for years, its disappearance left a real gap in the keychain multitool market. The confirmation came quietly, with Leatherman replacing sent-in Squirts with a Micra and a note stating the tool was discontinued, and without the “last call” sale the company has traditionally run for outgoing models.

The good news is that there are still solid options, including one newer tool that has genuinely impressed. Here is a rundown of the replacements worth considering, along with the trade-offs that come with each.

Why the Squirt Was Discontinued

The reasoning behind the discontinuation makes sense once you look at the warranty economics. The Squirt has no screws, so a broken pair of pliers means replacing the entire tool rather than a single implement. Small pliers on keychain tools get abused more than they should, and the scissor spring is badly heat treated, snapping even while the tool sits closed. Under a 25-year warranty, repeated full-tool replacements make the product difficult to sustain profitably.

The Style PS, by contrast, does have screws, meaning broken implements can in theory be replaced more easily. It has not been announced as discontinued, and it remains one of the last travel-friendly plier tools on the market.

The Standout Replacement: Nextool Mini Sailor

The Nextool Mini Sailor has been used in place of both a folding knife and a multitool, and the impression is overwhelmingly positive. The drivers appear properly heat treated; they were tested hard against screws in a board with no visible deformation, which is unusual for inexpensive multitools where soft steel is a common failure point. The smaller flathead also grew on testing: its narrower profile reaches recessed screws and tight spaces that broader blades cannot.

Other details stand out. A built-in SIM card extraction tool doubles as a handy pointed tip, and the scissors are excellent, with real rigidity for cutting through cordage sheathing. The main complaint is comfort: the finger area is short, and heavy pressure digs into the hand during long cuts.

It is not a direct Squirt replacement. It weighs about an ounce more and is larger, sitting more naturally in a fifth-pocket carry than on a keyring. Easy improvements would include swapping the metal spacers for plastic to save weight and opening up the frame around the scissors for better leverage.

Scissors: The Deciding Factor

If scissors matter to your keychain tool, be careful. The Leatherman Snippet, long recommended precisely for its scissor performance, has also been discontinued.

The Micra is now Leatherman’s scissor-based keychain option, but its scissors are disappointing. The blades are highly flexible near the tip, so material pushes the two sides apart, and there is no good way to grip the handles to force the blades together. This is the sixth Micra in use, and modern units simply do not cut like pre-2000 versions with better geometry.

The discontinued Style CS handled this better with thicker blades that could be gripped for clean cuts, which made it a better scissor tool than the Micra for that reason alone. For pure scissor work, the Victorinox 58mm scissors remain the benchmark, cutting through nearly anything with ease.

Victorinox MiniChamp and Rambler

Victorinox keychain tools consistently outperform in this size class: lighter overall, with better scissor, blade, and file quality. The MiniChamp survived the recent discontinuation wave and includes the much-loved pen, making it an easy recommendation.

The Rambler is equally compelling for different reasons. Its Phillips driver is phenomenal, it works great as a pure keychain tool, and it accepts the Rebar bit exchanger, sold separately, which fits diagonally onto the tool and turns it into a driver for Leatherman bits, double-sided bits, or full-size hex bits. That flexibility is genuinely convenient.

Gerber Dime

The Gerber Dime has never quite justified its spot. The package opener is genuinely likeable, but beyond that the tool feels unremarkable, and at around thirty dollars it is no longer competitive on price. It is also only slightly smaller than the MiniChamp, which does more for the same pocket space.

The Travel Question: Leatherman Style PS

With the Gerber Dime Travel discontinued and few alternatives left, the Style PS stands as essentially the only travel-friendly plier option, apart from the Victorinox Jetsetter, which lacks pliers. It remains available and remains a great tool.

An ideal future product would be a travel-friendly version of the Nextool Mini Sailor with the blade swapped for a file, plastic spacers for weight savings, and an opened frame around the scissors. Whether Nextool ever builds that remains to be seen.

Buying Advice

A practical note: buying through Amazon lets you add a four-year warranty on tools like the Dime or the Nextool, with no-questions-asked replacement if the plier head breaks. For cheap tools, that can be more sensible than sending a Leatherman away for weeks under its 25-year warranty, especially since you may not receive back the exact tool you sent.

Right now, the strongest picks are the Nextool Mini Sailor for overall capability, the Victorinox MiniChamp or Rambler for pure keychain quality, and the Style PS if travel-friendliness is non-negotiable.

Conclusion

The Squirt’s discontinuation stings, and the silence around it was handled poorly. But the alternatives are real: the Mini Sailor is an impressive all-rounder, Victorinox still sets the quality standard at this size, and the Style PS keeps the travel-friendly plier niche alive. Pick based on where you carry it and which implements you actually use.