The compact size of stick vacuums makes them convenient to carry around, and the cleaning abilities of these lightweight cleaners continue to impress in our tests. In fact, the performance of stick vacuums has improved so much in recent years that Consumer Reports has made its stick vacuum tests more challenging to bring them more in line with the way we test full-sized vacuums, including uprights and canisters.
“In the past few years, stick vacuum suction has gotten a lot stronger, especially in cordless stick vacuums,” says Frank Rizzi, an assistant project leader who tests vacuums at Consumer Reports. “If you don’t have a lot of wall-to-wall carpet, these machines can do a lot of cleaning.” (If you do have wall-to-wall carpet, read our article on the best upright vacuums.)
In this article
- Best Stick Vacuums: Corded Cordless
- How CR Tests Stick Vacuums
- How CR Picks Stick Vacuums
More on Vacuums
Best Vacuums
Best Deals on Vacuums
Best Handheld Vacuums
The Most and Least Reliable Vacuum Cleaners
Our pet-hair tests are a bit more challenging, and we now embed dirt in the carpeting instead of scattering it on the surface as we used to do. And for bare-floor testing, instead of combining all the debris into a messy array of cereal, sand, and rice, we vacuum up each type separately.
All in all, we are making it easier to directly compare the performance of stick vacuums with full-sized models.
Here are the best performers of each type of stick vacuum—corded and cordless—listed in alphabetical order. For all vacuum types, see our full vacuum ratings and recommendations.
Best Corded Stick Vacuums
There are only around a dozen corded models in our ratings, compared with over 50 cordless stick vacuums. But our member survey reveals that they may be the more reliable type: Corded stick vacuums do not face the battery reliability issues that many cordless models do in the first five years of ownership.
Best Cordless Stick Vacuums
Cordless stick vacuums dominate the market, but our exclusive member surveys found that more than 40 percent of battery-powered stick vacs developed problems with the battery within the first five years of ownership. Because of their low ratings for brand reliability, no cordless model earns a recommendation from CR despite scoring well in our performance tests.
How CR Tests Stick Vacuums
Here is how we conduct our revamped stick vacuum tests of brands, including Bissell, Dyson, Hoover, Kenmore, Samsung, Shark, and Tineco. Our vacuum buying guide dives into more details on testing different types of vacuums. Our tests check how well each vacuum works with special attention to:
Bare floors: In separate tests, we scatter cereal, rice, and sand on a section of laminate flooring. We use four swipes to remove the cereal and rice and two to pick up the sand. We weigh the vacuum before and after to calculate how much debris was removed.
Pet hair: We embed 1 gram of Maine coon cat hair in a medium-pile carpet and then see how many strokes it takes to remove it, with a maximum of five. We note the number of strokes and see how much fur, if any, is left behind on the carpet or in the brush roll.
Carpeting: We embed 100 grams of sand into a carpet and vacuum the debris on high speed for 16 strokes using a strobe light to highlight the test area. We weigh the vacuum before and after.
Run time: To test battery life, we run cordless vacs on high and then again on low until the battery is depleted, then we note the times. If the vacuum has a medium setting (not every vacuum does), we test that too.
How CR Picks the Best Stick Vacuums
To determine the best stick vacuums, we filtered models based on their Overall Score, which is based on our rigorous lab tests.
The Overall Score for each model incorporates results for each of these tests, as well as ratings for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction, which are based on survey data from our CR members.
In our ratings of stick vacuums (corded and cordless), you can find more details about how each model scored for cleaning ability, noise, and other criteria, as well as how other models fared.
Mary H.J. Farrell
As a senior editor at Consumer Reports for more than 15 years, Mary H.J. Farrell reported on all manner of vacuums and cookware, as well as microwaves, mixers, freezers, and fans. Starting in the mid-1990s, she held senior positions at People.com, MSNBC, and Ladies’ Home Journal. One of her earliest jobs was at Good Housekeeping.
