The Jethro tool is awesome, but pricey. A good alternative is one of these.
The 'problem' with one of these, ie stubby spanners, is that they are not allowed as cabin baggage on an air plane. Everything else in my tool kit was ok - beforehand I was a bit worried about rubber glue. This is of course only a problem if you only take cabin baggage with you ... and use the bike to travel to the airport.
Another issue I had with my ex-stubby 15mm spanner was that it is too wide for removing Shimano's M520 pedals (and my 8mm allen key on the multi-tool wasn't up for the job).