Best Vacuum Cleaners of 2025
Whether you're tackling messes on hardwood or carpet, these are the best vacuum cleaners to help you tidy up your floors.
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Whether you live alone or have a household filled with pets or children, a vacuum cleaner is a necessity for cleaning up messes and keeping your floors clean. But you'll need a reliable vacuum with ample suction power to get the best results. Thankfully, we've spent hours testing different styles of devices to find the best vacuum cleaner to tidy up all messes, big or small, from cordless stick vacuums to robot vacuums.
What's the best vacuum cleaner overall?
After extensive testing, we've come to the conclusion that the LG CordZero A949 takes the top spot as the best overall cordless vacuum, narrowly beating out the Dyson V15 Detect, our previous winner. It scores a 9 out of 10 or more in every testing category, with powerful suction and useful accessories.
Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't other excellent vacuum types you may want to consider. For example, if you're looking for more of a hands-off approach to floor care, or want to keep your floor clean while out of the house, a robot vacuum will not only clean your floors with minimal effort, but also makes far less noise than a conventional vacuum cleaner. Better yet, many robot vacuums have advanced features to help these robots operate autonomously, using built-in cameras and sensors to avoid furniture and other obstacles. They can even get into all the nooks and crannies you miss, depending on the type. Our current top pick in this category is the Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo, which can tackle both vacuuming and mopping and features a self-emptying dock and stick vac.
Vacuum cleaners are available at various prices, depending on whether you're after a robot vacuum, a hand vacuum or even a corded model. We've tried and tested a wide range of vacuum cleaners, from top-of-the-line cleaners to basic machines, and rounded up the best ones below.
We did many rounds of testing to bring you the best cordless vacuums and the best robot vacuums. You can check out each of those articles for thorough reviews on each subcategory. In this list, we've compiled our top picks for overall best vacuum cleaners into one handy location. Your convenience is of the utmost importance to us here at CNET. As new models and new features come out and we test new vacuum cleaner categories, we regularly update all of these best vacuum cleaner lists to keep them up to date.
Best vacuum cleaners of 2025
LG isn't a brand normally associated with vacuum cleaners, but the LG CordZero A949 is a cordless vacuum that may change that. In CNET’s testing, it outperformed all other cordless vacuums in every category, suctioning 100% of the black rice from hardwood and mid- and low-pile carpets. With sand, our most challenging test, it picked up nearly 90% of the debris from carpet and hardwood flooring. The impressive pickup is likely due to the powerful suction tested at 265 air watts and intelligent, automatic suction adjustments.
The A949 also has a charging dock that charges the battery and stores accessories like a crevice tool, adjustable wand, power mini nozzle and combination tool. It also does double duty for mopping, with a power mop attachment with spinning pads and a combination tool. It also has a power mop attachment with spinning pads to clean up wet messes.
- Excellent performance in all tests
- Laser light helps to find dust
- Bin and other parts are easy to remove
- Laser doesn't work as well in bright light
- Expensive
As the latest cordless vacuum in Dyson's lineup, the V15 Detect is one impressive machine. It's the best-performing stick vacuum of its kind that we've ever tested. The cordless vac excels at removing pet hair from multiple floor surfaces. It also pulled 88.4% of the test sand we placed on midpile carpeting. Also impressive, the V15 vacuum cleaner pulled 95.3% of the sand particles we dropped onto low-pile carpeting.
The vacuum's Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head is unique as well. It's designed specifically for hard flooring and shines a green laser out onto the floor ahead as you clean. Its purpose is to highlight dust and other small bits of debris that are otherwise hard to spot with the naked eye. The system does work, and we observed plenty of dirt on the hard floor we'd normally miss. One drawback is that the laser isn't visible under strong indoor lighting or sunlight.
We also like the readout on the back of the vacuum. This report lists the ratio of dirt collected by particle size. The Dyson vacuum machine's battery is easy to remove too, and its dustbin is a snap to empty.
The Ecovacs Deebot T30S Combo is one of the more unique vacuums on this list. It's a robot vacuum and a cordless stick vacuum in one device via the Omni Station. You may think this makes it a jack of all trades and a master of none, but you'd be wrong.
During testing at CNET lab, the T30S Combo picked up 95.16% of the black rice on the carpet and over 65% of the sand. For reference, anything about 50% for sand is pretty good. It's also great for pet hair with the ZeroTangle brush system, which uses a V-shaped roller and Dual Comb Teeth to physically scrape hair from the brush and direct it to the dust bin.
Naturally, there are a bunch of attachments for the stick vacuum, and the Omni Station provides recharging and self-emptying for the robovac and stick vac. Finally, you can also keep tile floors clean, with a dual-spinning mop brush system with some smart chops. When the vacuum detects a carpet, it'll automatically raise the mop to avoid getting it wet. It also has features that let it tackle the edges of walls and corners.
- Effective obstacle detection
- Great at avoiding pet waste
- No built-in mop
- Average performance on thicker carpeting
This was one of the best robot vacs we tested. Its list price is $700, putting it on the pricey side of average, but we often find the J7 Plus on sale for under $550.
It's engineered to avoid objects on the floor and was the best robot at dodging dog and cat poop in our tests. How does it do it? AI-powered cameras capable of recognizing and avoiding obstacles -- including piles of dog poop -- as it cleans. Its first feces-defying flagship was the Roomba J7 Plus, and sure enough, when we tested it against an armada of unnervingly convincing fake dog poop samples, it steered clear at every turn. Meanwhile, the Samsung JetBot AI Plus promises the same poop-detecting smarts but fails to dodge the doo-doo in our tests. Advantage, iRobot.
Aside from not pushing poop across your floors, the Roomba J7 Plus excels at other things too. It doesn't feature a built-in mop, but it's a semi-affordable self-emptying option, and an exceedingly well-rounded cleaner, boasting top-three averages on both hardwood floors and low-pile carpets. It fell short on plush, midpile carpets, so go with the if your dog is well-trained and you're more worried about its fur than its waste, but that's really the only weak spot here.
Tineco may not be as big of a name as Dyson or Shark, but the company produces some great cordless vacuums, and the Pure One S15 Pet is no exception. In CNET's testing, the 500-watt motor and cyclonic dust collection system proved its chops by sucking up 100% of the black rice from hardwood, low- and mid-pile carpet.
Sand, the bigger challenge, was also tackled handily, with 88% being pulled from low-pile carpets and 81% from mid-pile. Pet hair is the real selling point, with the specially designed brush removing hair as it cleans, tangle-free.
There are also some nice quality-of-life features, like the iLoop Smart Sensor, which helps the vacuum automatically ramp up its suction power when it detects more debris on the floor. You'll also find LEDs on the front of the brush head to help see what you're cleaning up, and you can keep track of progress on the LED display on top of the handle.
The Samsung Jet 90 is the cordless vacuum to get if you have a lot of thick carpets. It excelled at our most challenging pickup test, the mid-pile carpet, where we scatter sand over a rug and measure how much it removes. The Samsung Jet 90 won handily, beating out 15 other cordless vacuums, with a pickup of 98%.
The only other vacuums that come close to matching the Samsung Jet 90 are the Dyson V15 Detect and Tineco Pure On S15, which together are the three vacuums that score better than 80% on the test.
Despite the strong suction, the Samsung Jet 90 is one of the lighter models we tested and it comes with a HEPA filter to help keep your home's air a bit cleaner. The Jet 90 will likely be your best choice if you have lots of carpeted space.
- Powerful and compact
- Very affordable
- Noisy
Dirt Devil is a name synonymous with cleaning. The brand has been making cleaning products for a long time, so it's no surprise to see it on this list. The Grab And Go Plus is very compact and has a comfortable design that makes it easy to hold while cleaning up small messes around the house, the car, the office or wherever else you need to make a quick clean-up.
The 75 watts of cleaning power fared well in our testing with an overall average score of 68.3% picking up sand from our test surfaces (95.6% on hardwood, 53.6% on the low-pile carpet and 55.8% on the mid-pile carpet.) When it came to sucking up their larger black rice from those surfaces, the Grab and Go Plus averaged 99.1% overall. It snagged 98.9% from the hardwood floor, 99.4% from low-pile carpet and 99.1% from mid-pile carpet -- all for less than $40.
The Dirt Devil Grab and Go Plus comes with a two-in-one dusting brush and crevice tool to help get into smaller spaces and a charging stand to keep your vacuum charged and ready to go. The biggest drawback to the Grab and Go Plus is that it can be a bit on the noisy side. So that's something to keep in mind when cleaning up a mess and others may be sleeping or watching a movie.
Vacuum cleaners compared
| Vacuum Cleaner | Battery life/runtime | Weight | Bin capacity | Anti-allergy filter | Type | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dyson V15 Detect | 60 minutes | 6.83 lbs | 0.2 gallons | Yes | Cordless stick | $613 |
| Dreameteach D10 Plus | 180 minutes | 21.8 lbs | 2.5 liters | No | Robot | $400 |
| Roborock S8 Pro Ultra | 180 minutes | 31.1 lbs | 7-days worth | No | Robot | $1,600 |
| Tineco A11 | 35 minutes | 5.62 lbs | 0.6 liters | Yes | Cordless stick | $290 |
| iRobot Roomba J7 Plus | 85 minutes | 7.48 lbs | 0.4 liters | No | Robot | $359 |
| Lubluelu 009 | 40 minutes | 5.4 lbs | 0.21 gallons | Yes | Cordless stick | Out of Stock |
| Eufy RoboVac 25C | 100 minutes | 5.2 lbs | 0.6 liters | No | Robot | $149 |
| Dirt Devil Grab & Go+ | 10 minutes | 1.21 lbs | 0.1 liters | Yes | Handheld | $45 |
Factors to consider when buying a vacuum cleaner
Vacuum type: Robot vs. stick vs. full-sized
Narrowing your decision down to the vacuum type is your first task. Robot vacuums do a lot of the grunt work for you, and I'm not just talking about the vacuuming part. Most robot vacs also automatically empty debris into an easy dumping holding bin, saving you from having to negotiate a dust storm every few weeks. Having a small machine buzzing around the home might not be your cup of tea.
Stick vacuums require you to do the pushing but most are light (under 10 pounds) and easy to handle. Stick vacuums come in both the corded and cordless variety. If you have a large home or sprawling space to clean, a cordless vacuum will save you several creaky bend-overs.
There are also full-sized upright vacuums that tend to pack a bit more power than stick models -- although the delta has narrowed greatly in recent years. Most of these machines are corded and require more storage space when not in use. Full-sized upright vacuums were not considered for this list.
Battery life and runtime
If you do choose a cordless vacuum, you'll want to note the battery life and choose one that can do your average vacuuming task on one full charge. If you have a larger home, you may want a longer runtime. Nothing is worse than being in the zone and ready to clean the whole house only to have your machine die before you've crossed the finish line.
Cordless vacuum runtimes vary, anywhere from 30 minutes up to an hour or more. Be warned that battery life will weaken over time, so it's best to err on the side of more battery life to start.
Cost and value
Dyson premium vacuums can cost as much as $1,000, but we've tested high-performance cordless stick vacs for less than $300.
Despite having come down in cost since their inception, quality robot vacuums tend to be far pricier than their stick and upright cousins. Our top-rated budget robot vacuum is $400, but most good bot vacs will cost you $500 or more, and some as much as $1,000 or more. These premium models often include a wet-mop feature, intelligent home mapping and powerful suction. Efficient as they may be, that's a lot to drop on dirt pickup.
Stick vacs start at a lower cost. We've tested serviceable models under $100, but most quality stick vacuums will run you between $200 and $800. You can certainly pay more than $800 for a souped-up stick, but we don't recommend doing so.
Pet hair proficiency
Hair is the No. 1 cause of a vacuum getting stuck and needing manual attention to become functional again. Some vacuums, both robot and stick, are designed specifically to avoid hair tangling in the brush and therefore are better suited to homes with pets.
How we test vacuum cleaners at CNET
How we test robot vacuums
Our method for evaluating robot vacuums is straightforward, yet grueling. There are two types of tests we run. The first trial is to figure out how well a robot covers the floor while it's cleaning. We built an industry-standard testing room as specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission, just for this purpose. The IEC is an international standards body responsible for managing robot vacuum testing procedures, among other things, for vacuum manufacturers.
Obstacles in our test room mimic what robot vacuums run into in the real world.
Inside this room are objects designed to simulate typical obstacles a robot vac encounters for navigation as it cleans. These obstacles include wall edges, table and chair legs, couches and other furniture, and so on, plus bare tile, hardwood floors and carpet. We mount LED lights to the top of each vacuum cleaner. The dimensions of the lights correspond to the measured nozzle width of each particular robot vacuum we test.
As robots move through the room while cleaning, a camera overhead captures a long-exposure image of the entire room in low light. That photo will then have a light trail, created by the LEDs, that shows the exact areas where the robot traveled (and its nozzle position) during its runtime. We can also see areas of the floor where the vacuum may have missed or gotten stuck. You can see the navigation results of all the robot vacuums in our test group in the gallery below.
The second type of test reveals exactly how much physical debris a vacuum is able to pick up off of the floor. To mimic dirt of small particle size, we use a mixture of play sand and landscaping sand. For bigger particle soil, we use grains of uncooked black rice. Robots then run in straight line mode across three types of flooring (low-pile carpet, medium-pile carpet and hardwood bare floors).
We test robot vacuums on three types of floor surfaces.
We control for the specific nozzle width of each vacuum, too. We constructed an adjustable tool to soil our test floors. It lets us lay down a strip of a precise area of soil to match the nozzle dimensions for every robot. The mass of soil isn't chosen at random either. We measure a proportional amount that's related to the flooring material, type of debris, plus each vacuum's nozzle width.
Our custom-built tool lets us match soil area to a robot vacuum's nozzle width.
We conduct three cleaning runs (at minimum) on each floor type. We also perform cleaning tests with sand and rice separately. That comes to at least 18 tests per robot vac. We weigh the robot's dust bin both before and after each run. From there we can calculate the percentage of debris pickup for every cleaning run and the average amount of soil a machine removes. Additionally, we run anecdotal (visual) pet hair tests for each robot on all three floor types.
We run robot vacuums in a straight line during the debris pickup tests.
Our rice-based, medium-size particle test didn't show enough differentiation between each cleaner, which says they can all handle larger particles without trouble. For fur removal for pet owners, we judged anecdotally.
How we test cordless vacuums
Putting cordless vacuums through their paces isn't as complicated as testing a robot vacuum cleaner, but it still takes lots of time and careful effort to find the best cordless vacuum. We run each vacuum in a straight line across three different surfaces (hardwood, low-pile carpet, midpile carpet). On all three test beds, the test area is the same length (30.25 inches).
We run tests in a straight line across all three floor types.
Just like in robot tests, the width of the test bed is proportional to the vacuum's nozzle width. We measure this width ourselves. We also use nozzle width, plus the flooring type, to calculate the soil density for each test, per IEC guidelines. We use the same soil types here as well; sand, rice and pet hair. We perform three runs (at minimum) on each floor type. We also test suction power with sand and rice separately. That comes to at least 18 tests per vacuum. We weigh the vacuum's dust bin both before and after each run.
From there we can calculate the percentage of dirt and debris pickup for every run and the average amount of soil a vacuum manages to remove. Additionally, we run anecdotal (visual) pet hair tests for each vacuum, on all three floor types to help us select the best cordless vacuum.
How to clean your vacuum cleaner
Robot vacuum brushes have gotten better at not getting hair tangled around itself, but sometimes you still need to help it out.
Though we like to think our vacuums are completely self-reliant, especially robot vacuums, in reality, these devices still need a human hand from time to time. From hair getting tangled around the brush, filters getting clogged, sensors getting dirty, and more, there are still reasons these devices need us. By doing some regular maintenance on your vacuum, it'll continue to perform well for years to come.
Some of the routine cleaning that needs to be done for your vacuum is daily, while other stuff can be done weekly or even monthly.
- Daily: Emptying the bin, checking wheels for stuck debris.
- Weekly: Cleaning brush rolls, filters, and wheels.
- Monthly: Charging contacts and cliff sensors (if applicable); removing and deep cleaning the brushes, replacing filter if necessary
Check out our complete breakdown of the different parts of your robot vacuum -- which tend to be a bit more complex than regular vacuums -- that will need some regular maintenance. Most of this work will take only a few minutes at most, but it will give you much more in return, with a cleaner house.
FAQs
How long does a vacuum last?
Vacuum cleaners last roughly eight years, according to this Consumer Reports survey. The lifespan can vary between five to 10 years based on how often you use it.
A vacuum cleaner used once a week to tidy up a small apartment will have a longer life than one used to clean a large home with kids and pets. If your vacuum cleaner is older than 8 years old and has seen a lot of use, it may be ready for retirement.
How much should you spend on a vacuum?
If you want good power and long life from your robot or stick vacuum, you'll likely have to spend at least $400 for a robot vacuum and at least $300 for a stick vacuum. For robot vacuums, our top value pick the Dreametech D10 Plus costs $400. The dropoff in performance for robot models under that price was significant. Stick vacuums are typically cheaper and you can find serviceable options in this category for around $150 to $200.
Are Dysons worth the money?
Yes, Dyson vacs are usually worth the money. Dyson vacuums do well in the tests we run on them, though there are stick vacuums from other brands that cost less and offer similar performance. Dyson has a reputation for making powerful vacuums with sleek design and a long lifespan.
What's the difference between an upright and a stick vacuum?
In an upright vacuum, the brush head, motor, and dust container are all on the unit's body, which can stand upright when not in use. The upright tends to be corded and has strong suction, but is less portable. The stick vacuums, by contrast, are usually cordless for better portability, and they're long and thin. To help you decide between the two options, CNET experts have analyzed which vacuum works best for your home.
What's the best vacuum cleaner for hardwood floors?
The best vacuum for hardwood floors is the Tineco Pure One S15 Pet, which picked up 89.92% overall in cleaning hardwood, low and mid-pile carpets. For a robovac option, we like the Roomba J7 Plus, which tackled 97% of black rice on a hardwood floor.
What's the best vacuum cleaner for carpets?
The Samsung Jet 90 excelled at cleaning thick carpets during our testing, sucking out 98% of sand from mid-pile carpet, though you won't go wrong with the Dyson V15 Detect and Tineco Pure On S15 Pet either, all three scored above 80% in the test.
What's the best vacuum cleaner for pets?
True to its name, the Tineco Pure On S15 Pet does great for handling pet hair. It has a no-tangle brush that removes hair as it cleans and comes with useful smart features that help it ramp up suction power when it detects more debris on the floor.
Our Experts
- Covered the mobile and smart home tech space for the past five years for multiple large publications.
What to consider
Vacuum type
Robot, stick and full-sized upright vacs all have marked benefits and drawbacks.
Battery life
It's never fun when your vacuum dies before the job is finished.
Cost and value
You can pay well over $1,000 for a vacuum. Should you?
Pet hair proficiency
If you have a dog or cat, choose a vacuum designed to handle tangles.