Fur, cereal, coffee grounds, mites, sand, glitter, dust, pollutants, hair, dander, booklice, kitty litter—there’s a whole underworld of grossness hiding on your floors and deep inside your carpets and rugs.
Only a powerful plug-in upright or canister vacuum can take on all of the above, making your home sweet home cleaner and less crawly. The best ones work on different types of floors, filter allergens and pollutants, and last for years.
After testing dozens of models, we have four to recommend.
Our pick
Available in different colors and patterns, the SEBO Felix Premium is so beautiful that you’ll want to keep it out when guests come over. Its excellent cleaning power and filtration, relative lightness, and overall user-friendliness make the Felix the best-performing and most innovative upright vacuum we tested.
Its powerful cleaner head has its own motor and can be adjusted to suit different surfaces. The Felix comes with sliding suction control on its ergonomic handle, and its cord wrap is conveniently high, saving you from having to bend down.
This model comes with the best warranty we’ve found: seven years for the motor and five years for parts and labor, when purchased from an authorized dealer. And if you register your machine, the warranty increases to 10 years and seven years, respectively.
Budget pick
Though far from perfect, this bagless upright is one of the best vacuums you can buy for less than $200. We’ve been recommending it since 2014.
The Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 is an inexpensive, basic, but reliable cleaner that effortlessly picks up fur, fine dust, and larger debris on hard floors and low-pile carpet. It balks at thicker rugs and medium- and high-pile carpets, though, making it virtually impossible to push.
Its dustbin is easy to empty, and its crevice and upholstery tools are conveniently stored on the machine. The Navigator’s pod detaches for the cleaning of upholstery, steps, and ceilings.
While missing many of the features of our top pick, the Shark Navigator needs little maintenance and has essentially no recurring costs. But its five-year limited warranty covers only the motor; if anything else breaks, you’re out of luck. And we’ve seen reports of the brush roll failing prematurely.
Our pick
This bagged canister vacuum excels on both bare floors and carpets, and has many adjustment options and useful attachments. It should last for the long haul.
The SEBO Airbelt K3 Premium is our top-performing canister vacuum, combining excellent cleaning power and filtration with comfortable handling and thoughtful design.
Its powerful electric cleaner head is the best we’ve tested, gliding effortlessly across thick carpet and bare floors alike, picking up debris more thoroughly and more quickly than its competitors. (Its parquet brush, though, lacks the flexibility and smoothness of that of our runner-up pick, the Miele Complete C3 Calima.)
With an ergonomic, adjustable handle and extra-long hose, the Airbelt K3 Premium is comfier and more convenient to use than other canisters. Three useful onboard attachments and its controls are conveniently stored on board.
Like our top upright pick, this model comes with a generous warranty, when purchased from an authorized dealer: seven years for the motor and five years on parts and labor (increasing to 10 years and seven years, with registration).
Runner-up
This proven bagged model has great suction power and excels on bare floors and (most) area rugs. It works on low-pile carpets but balks at thicker ones.
If you have mainly bare floors and just a few area rugs and you want a durable, nimble canister vacuum with excellent cleaning power and filtration—and a proven track record—the Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine is a great choice.
We loved this model’s light and agile parquet brush on hard floors. We found its turbo brush inconvenient, though, as it chokes on certain types of fluffy carpets, making it virtually impossible to push. The C3 Calima ingeniously stores its three useful attachments inside the canister.
It comes with only a three-year warranty, but Miele designs its vacuums to work for 20 years, if maintained properly.
