The Best Vacuum Cleaners Top Picks 2024 - Ocawa Reviews (2024)

From an upright vacuum that can tackle pet hair to a cordless Dyson that's ideal for hardwood floors.

A small apartment with a few area rugs has very different vacuum needs than a 2,000-square-foot house with wall-to-wall carpeting.

The right vacuum for you also depends on your physical strength, ergonomic preferences, and cleaning standards and habits. And it matters if you have delicate hardwood floors, clean up after kids or shedding pets, or suffer from indoor allergies.

No one vacuum can do it all. So we've highlighted 12 of our top vacuum picks based on the testing we perform in our Cleaning Lab.

Depending on what kind of floors you have and the debris you encounter, having the right vacuum for the job is crucial to keeping your space clean. The best option for your needs might vary depending on your specific needs. If you have staircases or bare floors, you may want to consider canister vacuums for their portability and range. An upright vacuum can help pick up debris and hair on high-pile textiles if you live in a carpeted home. Lightweight stick/handheld vacuums are also a good choice if you need your vacuum to be highly maneuverable.

We've tested over 140 vacuums, and below are our recommendations for the best vacuum cleaners you can buy.

Shark Stratos Cordless

The Shark Stratos Cordless with Clean Sense IQ IZ862H has Shark's Clean Sense IQ technology. That lets it automatically adjust the suction to pick up dirt and debris that you may not be able to see and tells you when the floor is clean.

Miele Boost CX1 Parquet

This version comes with a parquet floor brush specifically designed for hardwood floors. In our tests, it left no debris behind on carpets, hardwood floors or tiles, was easy to maneuver and reached far enough to clean a long length of our Institute hallways without having to switch power outlets.

Dyson V15 Detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner

Consistently one of the best stick vacuums for its excellent performance and incredible features, it boasts a whole-machine filtration meaning even the tiniest particles can’t escape. It automatically increases the suction and speed of the brush roll depending on the floor type and how much dust it senses during cleaning.

Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Turbo Plus Vacuum

This vacuum cleaner comes fully loaded with features that help it suck up every last bit of unwanted pet hair. A tangle-free brush roll keeps pet hair from clogging the bristles, and a hair spooling system inside the canister contains the mess so emptying is easier and cleaner.

Dreame H12 Pro Wet Dry Vacuum Cleaner

Floor-cleaning appliances from Dreametech, like its robots and stick vacuums, do very well in Cleaning Lab tests. Like all brands in this new category, it sucks up both dry and wet messes and washes your floors all during the same cleaning session.

SAMSUNG Bespoke Jet AI Cordless Stick Vacuum

This stick vacuum blew us away in our tests. It ran for well over an hour during testing, and it uses AI technology to automatically adjust the suction and brush roll to the flooring type. It has three cleaning modes — min, mid and max — which are great for varying carpet pile heights.

Worx 20V Cordless Cube Compact Vacuum Cleaner

Make way for another Cleaning Awards winner. Not your typical handheld vac, the Worx model has a unique compact, boxy shape, a removable battery that fits into other Worx tools and a top handle for easily toting it to messes. It's a great car vacuum for that reason.

Miele Complete C3 Canister Vacuum

This canister vacuum comes equipped with a parquet floor brush and a brush roll with five different settings that clean everything from hard flooring to plush, high-pile carpets. It is one of the most expensive canister vacuums we’ve tested.

iRobot Roomba s9+ Robot Vacuum

In our Cleaning Lab tests, the Roomba S9+ picked up 99% of the uncooked oatmeal, sand, baking soda and small nuts and screws we spread on hard floors. It can map and remember multiple rooms and floor plans and it beat all other robot vacuums for quickly and effectively spot-cleaning a small area.

Shark Stratos Upright Vacuum

From its dual brushrolls and odor-neutralizing cartridge to its handy lift-away canister, the powerful Shark Stratos vacuum is thoughtfully designed from top to bottom with exceptional performance on carpets and hard floors.

Dyson V11 Outsize

If you’ve got a bigger home, a larger dust canister is a necessity if you want to ensure your floor cleaning session isn’t interrupted, and thankfully the Dyson V11 outsize offers just this. At 1.9-liters it can hold 150% more debris than the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute (above), and the wider-than-usual cleaning head, means you’ll be able to vacuum your floors quicker than ever too.

Shark WV201 WANDVAC

If you’re looking for a compact vacuum that you can grab quickly to clean up the odd spillage straight away, the Shark WandVac is the best stick vacuum for the job. Straightforward and simple, the Shark WandVac can be used as a stick vacuum or in handheld mode.

To find the best vacuum cleaner, we’ve assessed how well each model collects everything from fine dust and dirt to larger debris such as cookie crumbs and cereal. As well as evaluating how well floors are cleaned, we’ve also compared how easy the vacuum cleaners are to maneuver on carpet and hard floors, as well as whether fust pick up is evenly distributed across the cleaning head, or concentrated in one area.

We rated each design on how durable it is, as well as simplicity of emptying, how loud it is during use and how long the battery lasts - if it has one. For each model we wanted to know whether it was easy to convert into other modes; such as a handheld vac, the useful tools and accessories it came with to clean edges or remove pet hair, and that it didn’t require reading a thick instruction manual before use.