When the power goes off in winter, two very different pieces of kit get talked about as the answer, and they are not really competing for the same job. A gas canister — the screw-on or pierceable cartridge that feeds a portable camping stove — is stored chemical energy for heat. It boils water and cooks food quickly and cheaply, works the instant you connect it, and a couple of canisters take up almost no space in a cupboard. What it does not do is run anything electrical: it is heat, not electricity, and it must only ever be used with proper ventilation because any gas burner produces carbon monoxide.
A portable power station is a large rechargeable battery with real mains sockets, USB ports and often a 12V output. Charged in advance from the wall (or topped up by solar), it keeps phones, a router, lamps, a laptop or medical devices such as a CPAP running through an outage, silently and safely indoors. What it will not sensibly do is cook: heating elements draw enormous power, so boiling a kettle can flatten a mid-sized station in a few brews. In short, one makes heat and one stores electricity, and a well-built winter kit usually wants a bit of both.
