Throughfall was measured in a 500 m2 plot on a forested hillslope dominated by beech and chestnut trees in the Italian pre-Alps using two types of throughfall collectors: buckets and rain gauges. The collectors differed in size, number and spatial arrangement. The results show that despite the order of magnitude difference in the area covered by the collectors, the amount of throughfall measured by buckets and rain gauges statistically similar. However, there were differences in the spatial variability of throughfall and locations of local clusters and outliers. These differences should be considered in future throughfall studies that focus on the spatial variability in throughfall and its influence on soil moisture and soil chemistry and should be tested for other areas as well.