LED vs incandescent Christmas lights

Buy LED for anything outdoors, anything large, and anything on a timer - the power, heat and chaining advantages are decisive at scale. Keep incandescent for one case only: a real tree, viewed close up, where color rendering is the whole point and the run is short enough that power and heat are manageable.

This is an unusual comparison in that one side wins nearly every column and still loses the argument for some buyers. Incandescent is CRI 100 by definition - a continuous blackbody spectrum - and holiday LED sets almost never publish a CRI figure at all. On a tree full of red and green, that difference is visible.

Chaining. This is the practical advantage people underrate. An incandescent run hits its circuit limit after a small number of sets, which is why old displays needed several outlets and several extension runs. LED sets draw so little that you can chain far more from one point - which changes what is possible on a roofline without any new wiring.

Heat on anything flammable. A real tree dries out over weeks. A wreath dries faster. Incandescent bulbs put a warm point source directly against that material. LED does not, and that is a genuine safety margin rather than a marketing line.

Six weeks of runtime. The energy difference per hour is small; over a long season on a timer across a whole house, it compounds. The arithmetic for working out what any light costs to run is in what it costs to run your lights.

Color rendering, and it is not close. An incandescent filament emits a continuous spectrum and renders every color faithfully - CRI 100, by definition, because incandescent is the reference. LED holiday sets emit a spikier spectrum and, almost without exception, publish no CRI at all. On a tree hung with red and gold, a continuous spectrum makes those colors look right in a way a cheap LED set does not.

Repairability. An incandescent set fails one bulb at a time and you replace that bulb. A great many LED sets fail at a section or a connector and the honest answer is to replace the set. Longer life, worse outcome when the life ends.

Price. The incandescent sets here are the cheapest on the page, by a clear margin.

The incandescent reference: the Minetom 100-count clear set. Twenty feet of genuine incandescent, and the cheapest set named on this site.
Who it is for: anyone who thinks LED sets look wrong and wants to compare directly, and anyone lighting a small real tree. Who should skip it: anyone running a long outdoor display, leaving lights on unattended, or lighting a tree that has been up for a month.

A full tree in incandescent: the PREXTEX 200-count set. Forty feet and 200 bulbs - one box finishes a 6 or 7 ft tree.
Who it is for: a traditional living-room tree where the glow is the whole reason. Who should skip it: anyone who leaves the tree lit while out, and anyone with a dry or artificial tree they want lit for six weeks.

The LED answer for wrapping: the Brizled 5mm wide angle set. The wide-angle lens is specifically what fixed the old complaint that LED tree wraps looked harsh from the front and dead from the side.
Who it is for: anyone going LED on a tree and wanting it to look right. Who should skip it: anyone chasing incandescent color rendering - no LED set here publishes a CRI figure to argue with.

The LED answer outdoors: the Brizled C9 set. Warm white, large bulb, and low enough draw to chain properly along a roof.
Who it is for: every outdoor run. Who should skip it: indoor tree use, where C9 is far too large.