Best Canister Vacuums of 2025
These Miele and Kenmore canisters stand out for their effectiveness in picking up pet hair and cleaning bare floors
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I grew up using canister vacuums, so I’ve always had a soft spot for them. While their long hoses and bulky bodies might make them trickier to store than, say, an upright, there are advantages to using a canister vacuum.
Because the weight is distributed between the canister itself and the powerhead, canister vacuums are easier to move around than upright vacuums. They’re also more well suited to cleaning stairs because you’re not lifting the whole vacuum. And with their long hose, a canister can reach into areas that are hard for an upright to access, such as the spaces underneath your furniture.
To find the best canister vacuums, Consumer Reports puts each model through multiple tests, assessing their effectiveness at cleaning carpets and bare floors, in addition to how well they tackle specific jobs like removing pet hair. Other criteria that go into our evaluation include how quiet the vacuums are, how strong their suction power is, and how capable they are at preventing the debris they’ve sucked up from escaping back into the air.
Below, in alphabetical order, we’ve listed the top bagged and bagless canister vacuums from CR’s tests. All of them impressed us with their ability to clean bare floors, and many are very good at cleaning carpets as well. In addition to those picks, you’ll find more details on how we test canister vacuums and determine which ones are the best. You can also browse our full canister vacuum ratings and consult our vacuum cleaner buying guide to learn more.
Best Bagged Canister Vacuums
Bagged vacuums generally have a larger capacity than bagless vacuums, which also makes them heavier. If you suffer from allergies, bagged vacuums are more likely to reduce your exposure to allergens. Their Overall Scores based on our tests also tend to be slightly higher.
The Kenmore Elite Pet Friendly CrossOver 21814 is top notch at cleaning bare floors and, like many of the canisters featured here, earns a very good rating for cleaning carpets. Suction through the hose is superb, and emissions are clean. The vacuum comes with a 27-foot retractable cord, floor brush, dusting brush, and crevice tool. At close to 26 pounds, however, it’s one of the heaviest canisters in CR’s tests, which contributes to its unimpressive score for handling. Other Kenmore canisters remove pet hair better in our tests, but the 21814 model still does a solid job. As a brand, Kenmore canisters earn midlevel ratings for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction in our member surveys.
For a slightly less inexpensive option, it’s worth looking at the Kenmore Elite Pet Friendly UltraPlush 81714 (which is indeed friendly to pet owners, earning an excellent score in our test for removing pet hair). It’s also a champ at cleaning bare floors and a solid performer at cleaning carpets, making it a smart choice if you have a combination of flooring. It makes the grade in our clean emissions test, but in terms of noise, there are quieter choices.
One of our highest-rated canister vacuums, the Miele Complete C3 Marin earns impressive marks in almost every test we throw its way. It’s a champ at cleaning bare floors and picking up embedded pet hair, and its emissions are free of debris, earning the highest score possible in that assessment. Its carpet cleaning capabilities are only so-so, though. It’s the most expensive canister in this group (costing two to three times as much as its competitors), but its consistently strong performance has made it one of our top canisters for several years running. And if you’re looking for a vacuum that likely won’t break down even after years of usage, Miele canisters have top-notch scores in predicted reliability and owner satisfaction, based on our member surveys.
The Miele Guard L1, a new vacuum released by Miele just a few months ago, is certainly pricey. But it’s still worth the investment, given its strong cleaning performance. It’s excellent at sucking up debris from bare floors, such as hardwood, tile, and linoleum, and also does very well on carpet. Some of its handy features include a 2-in-1 upholstery and crevice nozzle and a universal powerhead that allows the vacuum to transition smoothly between floor types. If you need to pause in the middle of your vacuuming, the wand can be hooked onto the rear of the vacuum cleaner, making it easier for you to resume your cleaning later without having to bend down and pick up the wand from the floor.
Best Bagless Canister Vacuums
Bagless canister vacuums are lighter than their bagged counterparts. These four models are exceptional at cleaning bare floors and pet hair, and all have top or near top-level scores for clean emissions.
Top scores on bare floors and pet-hair pickup, along with impressive performance cleaning carpet and containing emissions, make this bagless canister a solid pick. The budget-friendly Kenmore 22614 includes a manual carpet pile height adjustment, suction control, a brush on/off switch, and a retractable cord. One caveat: Handling this vacuum’s 23 pounds takes some muscle.
If you’re looking for a canister that, like the Kenmore 22614, will do well on both carpets and bare floors but is a bit easier to maneuver, consider the Kenmore 500 Series DC5070. The vacuum aces our bare-floor cleaning tests and notches a very good score for carpet cleaning as well. We like that there’s a handle on the side of the vacuum that makes it easier to carry. One of our favorite features of this model is the hair eliminator nozzle, which has ridges that help loosen and remove tangled hair.
Like other Mieles, the Miele Blizzard CX1 Cat & Dog is on the pricey side, but it’s one of the best bagless canisters you can buy. It’s a top-grade performer in our bare-floor and pet-hair tests, but it’s not as great when it comes to cleaning carpets. This vacuum also performs well in our clean emissions tests, meaning it doesn’t release debris back into the air of the room you just cleaned. At 15 pounds, it’s one of the most lightweight bagless canisters in our ratings.
It might be only so-so at cleaning carpets, but the Miele Boost CX1 SNRF0 is impressive at picking up debris from bare floors and suctioning up pet hair. It’s also one of the quieter canister vacuums we tested. Similar to the Miele Blizzard CX1 Cat & Dog (but less expensive), it’s relatively lightweight at 16 pounds. Despite this, it’s not the easiest to pull or carry due to the way it’s designed, so it earned just a mediocre score in our handling tests.
How CR Tests Canister Vacuums
CR tests canister vacuums across a variety of surfaces and challenges them to pick up pet hair and other debris.
We also measure airflow through the hose and the vacuums’ emissions—that is, how much dust and debris they spew into the air. To see how much debris a model emits, our testers stuff wood flour into each one and measure the amount of particles released into the air using a laser spectrometer. For more on our vacuum testing, see how CR tests vacuums.
The Overall Score for each model incorporates results from all our tests, as well as brand reliability and owner satisfaction scores based on CR members’ experiences with 135,906 vacuums they purchased new between 2015 and 2025. For more insights from these vacuum owners, see our guide to the most reliable vacuum brands.
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