Best Blender (2024) Tested and Reviewed

For several years running, the Vitamix 5200 has been pound for pound (and dollar for dollar) the best blender we’ve tried, including other Vitamix models. It excels at making smoothies and, well, anything else you can think to blend. In our tests it produced one of the silkiest drinks, velvety and creamy, not gloppy or overblended. It also crushed ice to perfection and didn’t blow out our eardrums doing it. The 5200 is very easy to set up, and the base is heavy but not unbearably so. It features a simple control panel with an on-off switch, a power dial, and a variable speed switch that allows you to choose between using the power dial or just setting the blender to high. It has no extra buttons or specialized settings—but we didn’t miss them. This is just a straightforward, efficient, high-performance blender packing a ton of power.

The only downside to buying a Vitamix blender, the 5200 or any other model, is the price. These bad boys are expensive! But the brand offers a seven-year warranty, so if you plan to use it regularly, we think the cost is worth it. (For further discounts, you can often find refurbished versions from various retailers online. They’re particularly common on the Vitamix site itself.)

In each of our annual blender tests, this high-performance Cuisinart model has ranked among the top performers. The smoothie it blends is smooth and velvety with plenty of air incorporated throughout and zero bitterness. The Hurricane Pro can also pulverize ice effectively into small pellets.

The Cuisinart is a little confusing to figure out in the beginning, but the specificity offered in its settings is helpful. There are different buttons for making fruit and green smoothies as well as options for crushing ice, making soup, and cleaning the machine. The memory function allows you to adjust any of the preset times—for instance, we felt that the green smoothie preset yielded an overblended product, so we shortened the program’s time to our liking and saved it as a new setting. The blender also has an adjustable power knob that you can turn as you blend. It has an on-off switch in the back, which means you won’t accidentally power it up before you’re ready. Even though it’s heavy, large, and has a slight learning curve, it passed our smoothie and ice tests with flying colors and would make a great, sometimes less expensive alternative to the Vitamix.

The base of the Cuisinart is huge and heavy, so you’re either left with a counter hog or something that requires some heavy lifting to move in and out of storage. And while the customization of preset times can be helpful, it is yet one more feature to deal with.

We focused most of our full-size blender testing on high-performance models because we don’t generally believe cheap, underpowered blenders will work well enough to recommend. However, we kept seeing extremely positive reviews for this conventional KitchenAid model. And in fact, this one pulsed and crushed ice and blended basic smoothie ingredients better than KitchenAid’s high-performance counterpart. But because it’s less powerful, it didn’t work to do tasks like making nut butters or milks.

This no-frills blender has three speeds and an ice crushing or pulse button. That button crushed ice perfectly for a cocktail, and though it took some extra time to work its way through the frozen banana and kale, it yielded a fine smoothie. It was also a cinch to clean.

At less than $100, this is a good option for easy tasks like daily breakfast smoothies and batch cocktails. But if you want to handle heavier tasks, it isn’t powerful enough to do the job that the Vitamix 5200 or Cuisinart can. One other thing to note: The 56-oz. size is not currently available; however, the 60-oz. is.

The king of all the personal blenders we tried, the Zwilling Enfinigy is stylish, slim, and high-powered. With 500 watts, it blew away the competition and provided the best small-scale blending and drinking experiences. For smaller kitchens, daily grab-and-go smoothie making, and smaller batches of sauces and dips, it’s the best personal blender you can buy.

The Zwilling Enfinigy made a very smooth smoothie quickly. We used the smoothie setting on the base, the only special feature it offers, which we found successful (and we liked that there weren’t a ton of extra buttons clogging up the streamlined body of the appliance). Using the regular press-to-blend setting, it also yielded a superlative pesto; the sauce was quite silky and well-emulsified, such that the oil didn’t separate even long after it had been on the counter

We found the 550 ml jar an ideal size for single-serving smoothies and sauces. The cup and lid are well designed and easy to carry and drink from, which delivers on the personal blender promise. All pieces except the blade, lid, and base are dishwasher-safe, but we found that hand-washing the Zwilling Enfinigy between uses easy enough. It’s definitely worth the $100 price tag, especially as it outperformed even some of the full-size models on our list and features a 3-year warranty.

The only thing you could be disappointed about with this blender is that it’s too small for some tasks. But if that’s your issue, what were you doing looking at a personal blender in the first place? If you do most of your blending for one or two, this is as good as it gets.

Take everything you know about the performance of the Vitamix 5200 and turn it up a few notches. The model, from the Vitamix Ascent Series, performed well and had a number of additional intuitive program settings. But what we didn’t love is that the wide 64 oz. blending jar sometimes worked against the machine with smaller amounts of ingredients because it spatters everything out to the sides when it first starts. The A3500 is also significantly more expensive. The question became if it was $170 better than the 5200. To those who really like a touchscreen or a sleek-looking appliance, it might be, but in the grand scheme of it all, we’d say no. It’s like deciding if you need a sports car that can go 220 mph when you will never drive faster than 85. We know there are people who just like the way that roadster feels, but we don’t think it’s useful enough to warrant the splurge.

New from Vitamix in 2024, the X5 combines the high-power characteristic of all Vitamix blenders and ups the techiness a few notches. The X5 has a whooping 10 preset functions—including options to make nut butters, nut milks, frozen cocktails, frappes, and even grind spices. There’s also options to add 15 seconds to any of the pre-programs (a nod, intentionally or not, to Breville’s “A Bit More” functionality), and a tamper notification to remind you when to tamp down. The machine’s as high quality as you can get and great if you want to do the absolute most with your blender—but, like the A3500, its bells and whistles are not necessary if you only ever make smoothies.

The Breville Fresh and Furious Blender had a more streamlined design than most other blenders we tested, so it’s a good choice if you have a small kitchen but are looking for a powerful high-end blender. The smoothie wasn’t as creamy as the Vitamix 5200 or A3500, but the appliance is intuitively designed and quick to clean.

The Vitamix Explorian 310 is a more affordable Vitamix option; it’s an incredible machine and performed almost identically to the 5200, but it was notably louder. We also liked the size and shape of the 5200 a little more; the 310 holds less and is squatter in shape. If you’re in the market for a Vitamix but don’t want to spend more than $350, this is the model for you.

The Hurom Hexa Power High Speed Blender fit nicely in the space between the Vitamix and KitchenAid 5-Speed. It doesn’t have nearly as many functions as the Vitamix and the speed knob took some getting used to (you always need to set the knob to neutral before adjusting the speed…if you set it to a certain speed, turn it off, and then turn back on, it won’t start). Performance-wise, it did all right, but the results weren’t quite as smooth as what we saw with the very top-performing models.

The Wolf High-Performance Blender failed the ice test but did make decent smoothies. We don’t think it’s worth the high price when you could get the very best blender, a Vitamix, for less.

The Blendtec Classic Blender is another professional-grade blender. We liked its sleek design, however, the smoothie it produced was on the thicker, fibrous side, and its fancy feature—an LED display with lots of buttons—felt unnecessary. It was a little too fussy for what we wanted in an everyday appliance.

The Ninja Professional Blender didn’t perform well in our test. The ice preset function left us with water at the bottom and uneven chunks throughout, and the smoothie was thick and gloppy. Skip this “high-performance” blender. As of our current tests, we can also only find it available as a refurbished model.

The Breville Super Q is one of the most powerful blenders out there, but also the clunkiest. The jug was wide and heavy, the motor was very loud, and there were just too many settings. We had to run the smoothie program twice to fully incorporate almonds into our drink. It did crush ice at lightning speed, but for almost $500 we expect perfect results every time. In 2020 we tested the add-on Vac Q tool from Breville that sucks all the air out of your Super Q blender before mixing; it’s a cool idea, but it took a long time and made it impossible to stop the machine occasionally to scrape down the sides with a spatula or adjust the ingredients at the bottom.

We expected the advanced Vitamix A3500 to be the one of fussiest blenders we tested, but that honor went to the commercial-grade Breville Super Q Pro. Where the Ascent’s speed settings and special functions felt intuitive, this Breville was somewhat confusing. Instead of the speeds being labeled strictly numerically, the Breville also labeled them with their intended use at each power—with “stir” at the lowest speed and “mill” being at the highest. In terms of performance, the Super Q Pro was a little up and down: It crushed ice into a winter wonderland, but after a minute on the “blend” speed, it produced a smoothie with a pesto-like consistency. It did this on the smoothie-specific setting as well. After a few more runs on blend, we did get something on par with the Vitamix 5200, though.

The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Blender was lightweight and flimsy, and the smoothie it made was full of chunks of almond and fibers of kale, even after an extra minute of blending.

The brand’s high-performance model, the Hamilton Beach Professional, produced even grains of ice and a smoothie without chunks. But we found the smoothie to be thick and slightly warm, suggesting that the motor was overworked.

The KitchenAid High-Performance Blender is the high-performance model upgrade our budget category winner but not worth the steeper price tag. In almost every category, the conventional 3-speed KitchenAid outperformed this one.

The Cleanblend Blender was mid-tier in both price and function. It’s simple and straightforward in design but yielded a gritty smoothie.

The Smeg certainly looks nice on the kitchen counter, we’ll give it that. It left a little to be desired in terms of performance. It includes presets for two different types of smoothies (green or not), frozen desserts, and crushing ice. With each preset you can select between two different “modes”—single-serve and family-serve—depending on how many people you’re blending for. It’d be a great idea if it did much. All we found in our testing was the addition of a few more seconds to each preset, which doesn’t do anything to account for the way the volume of ingredients changes performance. The Smeg also didn’t perform well in the ice crush test, leaving behind plenty of large hunks.

The Smeg certainly looks nice on the kitchen counter, we’ll give it that. It left a little to be desired in terms of performance. It includes presets for two different types of smoothies (green or not), frozen desserts, and crushing ice. With each preset you can select between two different “modes”—single-serve and family-serve—depending on how many people you’re blending for. It’d be a great idea if it did much. All we found in our testing was the addition of a few more seconds to each preset, which doesn’t do anything to account for the way the volume of ingredients changes performance. The Smeg also didn’t perform well in the ice crush test, leaving behind plenty of large hunks.

We didn’t love the push button interface on the Oster Blender Pro. Unlike our recommended blenders that use a dial that lets you adjust the power mid-blend, those levels are controlled by buttons on this Oster, which offer less control. The smoothie was also a bit grainy. It does double as a food processor thanks to an additional attachment, which makes it a nice multi-use kitchen appliance. Though we’ve found dedicated versions of both blenders and food processors work better. You can check out the best food processor here.

The Oster Versa Blender did not perform well in our ice test, but it did make decent smoothies. The three preset functions (smoothie, dips/spreads, and soup) were helpful, but we preferred the Breville Fast and Furious for the same price.

The Instant Pot Ace Blender is one of the most affordable high-performance blenders we’ve come across. The blender has eight programs—four cold (smoothies, ice cream, crushed ice, and nut/oat milk) and four hot (purée, soy milk, rice milk, and soup)—plus a self-cleaning function, but what ultimately turned us off was the heft of the glass pitcher; it was a bit cumbersome to lift and pour from.

The Vitamix One is ahead of the curve as far as standard blenders go in its velvety smoothie and creamy-soup-making capabilities but fell short when it came to ice-crushing and low-liquid mixtures. Overall, the slight edge on other standard blenders didn’t quite justify the price point.

The Nutribullet Pro 1000 is highly powered and comes with 24- and 32-oz. cups and two lids, plus a suction-cupped bottom that keeps the blender steady even as the motor powers through tough ingredients. We weren’t sold on the twist-to-blend technique (this blender has no buttons, knobs, or switches; you just turn the jar on the base to switch it on), and we found the smoothie it made rather chunky, but surprisingly it was quick to create a very smooth pesto.

The Ninja Foodi comes with two smoothie cups and a “nutri-bowl” for blending; the latter features a “power paddle” you turn by hand while blending to create an airy texture to your mixture for things like acai bowls, but we found it didn’t do much. With the cups, the smoothie setting made a great drink, but for the pesto it was a little more difficult to gauge how long to blend. Also, this machine is quite loud—the loudest of any personal blender by a mile, which was a little off-putting for its size.

The Beast Blender is a looker, no doubt about it. Far and away the most stylish blender we tested, we valued the large 1-l. vessel for big batch smoothies and the handy lid with hook for easy transporting. It made a very smooth smoothie and pesto and would be great for anyone not looking to venture far beyond their kitchen with their blended foods; the only downside was that the vessel was a little heavy and hard to drink from, which would make it difficult to take on the go.

The Magic Bullet is the classic name in the personal blender space, but it’s long been eclipsed by better designed and higher powered alternatives. With a wattage of only 250, it took a long time to blend the smoothie and still left a lot of larger chunks; all the extra cups, lids, and rings it came with didn’t outweigh its shortcomings.

The Black + Decker FusionBlade is certainly on the affordable end of all the personal blenders we tested, and comes with two cups. We were a bit skeptical of the power of the two-sided blade, but it was actually the compact size of the 20-oz. blender jars that actually inhibited the machine the most. It just couldn’t handle a ton of ingredients at once, which revealed itself the most when making pesto. We had to continuously shake and jostle the ingredients to get the blade to mix it at all. It performed a bit like an inexperienced marathoner—really strong out of the gate and then just sort of petering off. With a smoothie, it needed an extra ¼ cup almond milk to give it an extra oomph, otherwise it just got stuck.

The BlendJet 2 is an Instagram darling, touted as a totally portable blender that you both mix and drink from on the go. We found that the motor was not up for the job of frozen fruit and leafy greens (despite the fact that it claims to be able to handle both). If you’re looking to use mostly powders and liquids, this would be fine, but for anything with more mass than that, the BlendJet 2 falls short. As you’ll see, there is a similar refrain for other portable blenders.

While we wouldn’t say the Hamilton Beach portable blender tackled the pesto with ease, it did better than other portables. We could put the ingredients in and let it run, without too much finagling. Smoothie making was tough though and we ended up needing to take out the kale and add about 4 oz. additional almond milk to really get it working. Even still, results weren’t super smooth, but they were better than with other models.

The Blendi Pro+ performed similarly to the Hamilton Beach: They both struggled with the pesto and any smoothie that didn’t have at least a few extra ounces of almond milk. However, in the pesto test the Blendi required a lot of shaking and jostling to get it mixing. We did really like the lid on top that allowed us to funnel in ingredients in as you can with a full-size blender, but the Blendi also had weirdly sharp plastic edges that gave testers small cuts on their fingers when they tried to wash it the first time around.

As far as portable blenders go, the BlenderCap is certainly slightly better than others, but at $129 at the time of writing, it’s not that much better. It’s a bit more powerful than the average portable blender, but we hesitate to say it’s worth it. If you are going to buy it, we would strongly advise purchasing a clear bottle for it. The model we tested came with a 32-oz. metal bottle. With portable blenders, we’ve found there’s oftentimes a fair bit of finagling required to get the job done. You need to get stuff unstuck from the blades or move ingredients around a bit to get them all incorporated. To do that, you have to see what’s going on inside the blender—that way you can tell if something’s gotten caught or stalled. That’s impossible with BlenderCap’s metal bottle, meaning there’s a whole lot of guesswork on your end that can make the blending process a lot longer.