The Best Drip Coffee Makers, According To Rigorous Testing
With so many coffee-making options available, there’s no shortage of opinions on which one produces the best cup. Yet, drip coffee makers remain the most popular choice among Americans, according to a 2021 poll. However, with the wide range of features, designs, prices and brew quality, how do you choose the right one to suit your needs and budget? After extensively testing the best drip coffee makers on the market, I chose the OXO Brew 9-Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker as my top overall pick. I’d confidently recommend it to most buyers for its great-tasting coffee, thoughtful features and general reliability. For those on a budget, my best value pick is the Ninja 12-Cup Programmable Brewer, which delivers superior performance at a more affordable price.
Investing in one of the best drip coffee makers on the market will ensure you brew a consistent and … [+]
The following is a list of all of the winners from my testing process:
For the better part of a month, my living room décor included ten drip coffee machines and ten pounds of medium-roast beans. (Yes, I said “living room”—we won’t talk about why I chose to embark on this project with a kitchen approximately six by eight feet in size.) Ahead, learn more about the results of my caffeinated experiments—and why I’d recommend certain machines over others.
OXO’s Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker is a super-functional machine with premium features at a moderate price, and I drank a smooth and pleasant cup every time I used it. It’s demure in a good way, with a no-frills black-and stainless-steel exterior, a simple digital display and exactly one dial on the front with which to adjust the machine. Setup was straightforward: I inserted the plastic conical brew bed into the machine, attached the silicone mixing tube to the brew-through carafe lid and ran a water-only cycle.
After that, I brewed a full carafe with coffee grounds, which took exactly eight minutes while maintaining a consistent water temperature of 190 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit during the cycle. The stainless steel thermal-insulated carafe kept the coffee at 166 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours after brewing, and the brew timer worked well, too; I prepped the machine the night before so I could wake up to a brewed pot, and the difference in taste between freshly ground beans and those that had sat in a filter overnight was minimal to my palate.
Some other thoughtful features to note were the OXO 9-Cup’s brew pause feature (present in a number of the machines I tried), as well as its freshness timer on the digital display, which runs for up to 60 minutes post-brew to tell you how long the coffee’s been sitting in the carafe. Clean-up was also simple; the paper filter dislodged quickly and easily into my compost bin after use, and the carafe plus the detachable brew bed took just a couple minutes to hand-wash with dish soap and hot water, then air-dry. (The machine will also tell you when it needs to be descaled to remove mineral build-up after a few months of use, which was a feature unique to this machine that I think is pretty neat.)
As for the cons: There are a few, but they’re not insurmountable. First, the machine is a whopping 15 inches tall and 17 inches wide, which might be problematic for people who are short on counter space. Additionally, the brew timer won’t work as planned if the carafe is even slightly out of place (to be fair, the machine warns users when this is the case). Nothing on this coffee machine is dishwasher-safe, either, so keep that in mind. Last, the price is definitely on the higher end of the models I tested. Still, with a two-year warranty, this reliable machine is an investment that’s likely to yield hundreds, if not thousands, of great-tasting cups over the years.
I wasn’t expecting to love the Ninja CE251 as much as I did, but such are the mysteries of product testing. It offers numerous handy features and delicious-tasting coffee for a very reasonable price, making it the best budget option I tested. Setup was simple, requiring a quick wash of the included parts and accessories, then a water-only flush cycle. The shower head-style brewer dispenses water in the same fashion as and at similar temperatures to a much more-expensive machine, and results in a smooth-tasting final product—for reference, I clocked the water temperature at about 195 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the brewing process. It’s also got a conical brew bed that can accommodate a reusable gold-tone filter or a #4 paper filter, and the glass carafe comes with a “Flavor Straw” that protrudes from the lid and ensures that the coffee circulates nicely in the carafe. This means that each mug poured has a similar flavor and extraction level, whether it’s the first or the last in the pot. Note that the total brew time for a full carafe is a fairly lengthy 15 minutes; according to the manufacturer, this is due to a pre-infusion cycle that takes place before the coffee actually brews.
The front of the machine also comes with a number of functions to customize your experience: You can brew the coffee with a “classic” or “rich” strength, or make a small batch of just two to four cups. I found that the flavor didn’t vary too hugely between the “rich” and “classic” modes; they were near the same between the full carafe and smaller-size batch. The brew delay button allows users to program the coffee up to 24 hours in advance (again, I found that the flavor of the beans didn’t suffer significantly from being ground a few hours ahead of brewing). Last, the machine’s “keep-warm” feature can be programmed to work between one and four hours, but brought the coffee’s temperature down to about 159 degrees Fahrenheit even when deployed, lower than other brewers I used. As for some other convenient features: The machine comes with a measuring scoop that handily attaches to a hook on the coffee maker’s body, and it offers a “brew pause” feature that worked moderately well in my tests (it still allowed a few drips to escape from the brew bed and singe on the bottom heating plate). When it’s time to clean the machine, its parts are all safe to place in the top rack of your dishwasher; for heavier-duty jobs, the coffee maker has a “clean” function for descaling.
As with all appliances, the CE251 is not without its limitations. The glass carafe and heating element setup that only works moderately well is, of course, one of them, and the slowness of the machine is another. The removable water reservoir in particular is something I’m going to keep a special eye on during longer-term testing, as reviewers of the product have suggested that it loses its seal over time and causes water to leak everywhere during the brew cycle.
Slick and streamlined is the name of the game here: The Ratio Six is a gorgeous, well-designed machine that simply produces excellent coffee. Setup is as simple as it gets (and Ratio gets bonus points for packing the stainless-steel machine and its mostly metal parts in completely recyclable, plastic-free materials). The machine comes pre-rinsed and flushed, so it’s ready to roll—a thoughtful touch that only applied to this machine and the Technivorm Moccamaster. Just place a flat-bottom filter with your weighed coffee grounds in the filter holder and screw on an optional heat shield, stack that on top of the insulated thermal carafe, fill the water reservoir and press the coffee maker’s single button. That’s it.
The machine then goes through a short blooming cycle to hydrate the grounds before brewing with a shower head-style water dispenser. You get a full pot in about eight minutes, with water temperature just shy of 200 degrees Fahrenheit—right on the money from the SCA’s point of view. What results is a really great-tasting cup with a lot of the nuances that come from pour-over brewing methods. It’s also a cup that stays conveniently warm in its thermal carafe for several hours with the insulated lid (even four hours after brewing, I found that it measured a solid 168 degrees Fahrenheit).
Despite its clearly considered design, the Ratio Six coffee maker has a few quirks. First off, the machine does one thing well, but one thing only. If you want a brew timer, different configurations for brew strengths or even a half-brew setting (like many of the other machines I tested), the Ratio Six is not going to give that to you. Next, the water reservoir has a very tiny opening with a small, stainless steel twist-off lid, which makes fill-up slightly slower and messier than it could be. And last, there are a couple detachable parts that don’t neatly fit into the otherwise streamlined setup, namely the plastic drip catcher and thermal carafe lid. And none of the machine’s parts are dishwasher-safe, so you’ll spend some time hand-washing after each use. But these are just small quibbles—the Ratio Six is really an excellent coffee maker, through and through.
The Breville Precision Brewer is a force. With its 14-cup yield, this machine is among the biggest of the coffee makers I tested, so it’s not necessarily the best choice for small households (or kitchens). But that large size comes with a large number of useful features, with precise customization offered just about every step of the way when brewing. Not only can you adjust brew volume, temperature and time from the digital menu on the front of the machine, as well as the strength of the coffee that brews, but the Precision Brewer also comes with two interchangeable brew baskets based on how much coffee you’re making (conical for eight cups or fewer, and a basket-style bed for up to 14 cups). The machine also has a setting for cold brew and iced coffee, making it the only one I tested that had these extra functions.
The setup here was a bit more complex: The Precision Brewer comes with a pH testing stick, which you’re instructed to use to test your tap water before it brews (the pH of the water affects the acidity of the final cup of coffee). You’re also asked to soak and then insert a disposable water filter in a designated slot in the reservoir tank, but it needs to be replaced roughly every two months. And then you’ll run a water-only flush cycle. All this said, the brewing process itself was very straightforward. While it brews—totaling a time of 11 minutes, including a blooming cycle, and at a preset temperature of 195 degrees Fahrenheit—the coffee flows into a thermal carafe via a brew-through lid that’s tricky to screw on. The taste of the coffee was good, clear and unmuddied; it also stayed nice and toasty in the carafe, at a temperature of 165 Fahrenheit, for at least four hours post-brew with the lid in a locked position.
Of course, this machine’s hefty size isn’t for everyone; as mentioned, it’s also rather finicky to set up and get going. I also found that the water reservoir didn’t fully empty during the machine’s brew cycle. What’s more, for such a premium product with so many detachable bits and bobs, a one-year warranty seems a bit limited; I’d expect more robust coverage for a coffee maker as high-end (and costly) as this one.
Other Coffee Makers I Tested Or Considered
Bona Vita Connoisseur 8-Cup Coffee Maker: While I didn’t actually test this machine in my trials, the Vetted team had previously selected it as our best drip coffee maker overall, and it’s long been a favorite among readers for its simplicity and quality. However, when evaluating models to test for the purposes of this guide, I felt the machine did not stand out enough from the rest, both design and feature-wise.
Technivorm Moccamaster KBGV Select: Don’t get me wrong—this machine is truly excellent, and revered for very good reason. Its design is slim and streamlined (bonus points for the numerous colorways available) and it produces really great coffee in just four to six minutes for a full carafe with a unique copper-coil conducting system. This particular model utilizes a glass carafe with a bottom heating element; while this keeps the coffee hot for two hours without burning it, I felt that for such a significant price point, a thermal carafe (and less plastic in general) should have been the expectation.
Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker: This high-tech machine from GE has quite a lot going for it: It’s SCA-certified and attractive to boot, with a largely metal exterior (your choice of brushed stainless steel, matte black or matte white), slick copper-colored accents and a choice between a glass or thermal carafe (though the latter costs more). Under the hood, it’s got a cone-shaped brew bed that can accommodate a reusable gold tone or paper filter, as well as a brew timer/programmer, brew strength configuration and temperature settings. All of these features can be manipulated using a smartphone app (or voice control via Alexa or Google Home), as the machine is WiFi-enabled. In about eight minutes for a full carafe, the Café Specialty brews a very solid-tasting cup. That said, I felt its bells and whistles—which are likely part of the reason this machine comes at a premium price—were “nice-to-haves” instead of real necessities that significantly impacted the flavor of the coffee (or convenience of the experience).
Cuisinart PurePrecision 8-Cup Pour-Over Brewer: Another SCA-certified pick, Cuisinart’s PurePrecision brewer mimics pour-over-style coffee in a convenient drip machine, like many of the models above. The coffee from this model tasted great and the machine itself had a lot of the plus-plusses—like a brew timer, temperature control and a self-cleaning function. But with a small-ish capacity, a charcoal water filter that needs to be replaced on occasion and a lack of dishwasher-safe parts, I would suggest opting for another machine on this list.