Best Coffee Makers of 2025
These coffee makers from Cuisinart, Nespresso, and Ninja make great-tasting coffee and are convenient to use, receiving outstanding scores in our tests
When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. 100% of the fees we collect are used to support our nonprofit mission. Learn more.
Making coffee at home instead of paying for it at a coffee shop is likely to save you money. But that’s only if the coffee your home machine brews is satisfying enough to keep you from covering your face in your hands and sneaking back to your local barista.
We can help. Consumer Reports rates more than 150 coffee makers, from basic drip models priced as low as $13 to programmable models costing more than $500.
You can learn more about the different types of coffee makers in our coffee maker buying guide and explore all your options—including price, dimensions, capacity, and other criteria—in our complete coffee maker ratings. Love espresso drinks? We’ve assessed some popular espresso machines, too.
Below are reviews of the best coffee makers we’ve tested, grouped by category and listed in alphabetical order. CR members can click on each model name below for more detailed ratings and specs.
Best Drip Coffee Makers
Drip coffee makers are the most popular type because they’re easy to use. These machines deliver coffee by “dripping” water through ground beans. These top-rated drip coffee makers feature an automatic shutoff, and some have more advanced features like a removable reservoir and an indicator to tell you when cleaning is needed.
Most of the models we’ve tested brew into a carafe, but we’ve also included a self-serve model, which keeps your coffee hot in the machine and dispenses a cup at the press of a button (rather than requiring you to pour the coffee from a carafe), and a grind-and-brew coffee maker that serves coffee from freshly ground beans.
The Cuisinart DCC-T20 is a drip coffee maker with touchscreen controls and a 14-cup glass carafe. It hits our tests for brewing performance and convenience out of the park, and it’s better than most for carafe handling. It’s programmable and has auto-shutoff, a cleaning indicator, a permanent coffee filter, a water filter, brew-strength control, and a small-batch setting. Cuisinart’s coffee makers overall receive a stellar rating for owner satisfaction and a very good score for reliability.
If you want a basic glass-carafe drip coffee maker, the Cuisinart PerfecTemp 14 Cup Programmable DCC-3200 is one of the highest-ranking models in CR’s tests (it comes in copper, too, as the DCC-3200CP). It earns an excellent rating for brew performance, reflecting optimal brew temperature for the best flavor. It has very good scores for convenience and carafe handling. It can be programmed to have fresh coffee waiting when you wake up, and you can adjust the brewing strength to make weaker or stronger coffee.
Practically ensuring a great-tasting cup, the Cuisinart Programmable DCC-4000 is a drip coffee maker with a carafe that earns an excellent score for brew performance, meaning it stays at the optimal temperature range of 195° F to 205° F for 5 or 6 minutes, resulting in remarkable flavor. There’s also brew-strength control for weaker or stronger coffee, and a setting for small batches.
The Melitta Aroma Fresh Plus 10-Cup coffee maker is a grind-and-brew model. You load it up with fresh, whole beans and let the machine do the rest. It has a conical burr grinder with a 7.5-ounce bean hopper capacity and three grind settings (from fine to coarse), an LCD display, touch controls, auto-shutoff, a cleaning indicator, and a cone-type filter. This model is relatively expensive, but you can taste the difference when brewing coffee with fresh-ground beans.
The dispenser-style Cuisinart Coffee on Demand DCC-3000 is a self-serve drip coffee maker that lets you brew 12 cups’ worth of coffee to dispense when you please, whether back-to-back or in an hour. The machine comes with a permanent cupcake-style basket filter and a removable water reservoir. It filters your water before brewing, and there’s an indicator that lets you know when to clean the machine.
Best Single-Serve Coffee Makers
Single-serve coffee makers serve one cup of coffee rather than two or more. These highly rated appliances feature automatic shut-off, height-adjustable drip trays, and removable water reservoirs.
Several features set the Keurig K-Café Smart apart from the rest of the single-serve makers. Not only does it have WiFi connectivity, but there’s also a hot and cold milk frother that can help you whip up a fancy café au lait. It has six temperature settings to help dial your brew closer to your favored setting, plus you can adjust your brew strength, perhaps allowing a slightly weaker brew for your afternoon pick-me-up. In CR’s tests, this machine, which uses K-Cup pods, delivers superb results in our brewing range, convenience, and size consistency tests.
The incredibly popular Nespresso Essenza Mini stands out for speedy brewing and its ability to control the brew volume for different strengths. This compact model is great for tight counter space or the office, and like most pod coffee makers, it’s easy to clean. It does require Nespresso-branded capsules, however, which can be pricey. Still, Nespresso coffee makers receive a stellar score for owner satisfaction and a very good score for predicted reliability.
We found the larger (and pricier) Nespresso CitiZ EN267BAE and Nespresso Creatista Plus performed nearly as well in our tests, though neither offered as many ways to customize the strength and size of your brew.
Best Dual Coffee Makers
Dual coffee makers can serve either a single cup or a whole pot of coffee, depending on your needs. The best dual coffee makers brew a single cup quickly, allow you to customize a pot based on your preferred brew strength, and brew at an optimal temperature for the best flavor. They also come with an easy-to-handle carafe.
Dual coffee makers are all about convenience. On the pod side, the Ninja Espresso & Coffee Barista System serves up a single cup especially quickly, earning an excellent score in that measure. Subsequent cups are also very quick, which can’t be said for all pod machines. If you intend to use it to fill a travel mug, though, be aware that it only fits mugs shorter than 8 inches. In terms of making a full pot of coffee, it earns a very good convenience score and brews a full pot in 6 minutes.
When it comes to pod coffee, the Ninja DualBrew Pro 12-Cup CFP301 received an excellent score for first cup speed, and you can expect subsequent cups to be quick and consistently sized as well. When brewing a pot, you can control brew strength and opt for a smaller batch if you don’t want the full 12 cups. As a brand, Ninja coffee makers receive stellar scores for reliability and owner satisfaction in CR’s member surveys.
How CR Tests Coffee Makers
For drip coffee makers, we conduct a brew-performance test and measure contact time (how long water stays within the sweet spot of 195° F to 205° F for brewing). We assess their convenience in terms of how easy it is to fill the reservoir, place the filter, read markings on the machine, and operate and clean it. We also evaluate handle comfort and balance, how easy the carafe is to pour from, and whether it dribbles or drips when you pour.
For single-serve pod machines, our engineers evaluate the temperature and size consistency of individual cups of coffee. Because convenience is key for these machines, we test how quickly each model produces a first cup and how quickly subsequent cups are brewed. We also score each pod machine based on how much control you have over the size and strength of your coffee.
Dual coffee makers are rated based on both drip and pod coffee maker criteria.
We also incorporate data for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction using survey results collected from thousands of CR members.
Learn more about our tests in our coffee maker buying guide, where you can also find tips on how to shop for the coffee maker that’s right for you.
BEST TIME TO BUY:
