The Best Drip Coffee Makers for When You Need a Good Cup Right Now

Fellow has a knack for producing both beautiful and effective coffee equipment, and their first attempt at an automatic brewer fits right in with everything else they do. It is as close to a perfect drip coffee maker as we’ve tried yet because its designers considered almost every conceivable need. It has profiles with different water temperatures and brewing times for light, medium, and dark roasts. It also tells you exactly how much ground coffee to use to get the best flavor in both grams and tablespoons. The Aiden is customizable across so many parameters you might lose track. You can set water temperature anywhere between 122℉ (for cold brew) and 210℉. You can set the time and number of pulses of water (think of them as the individual water pours if you were making pour-over coffee). You can set bloom time, which allows for the release of CO₂ from the grounds, which can cause off flavors. But even though you can tweak your coffee in all these ways you can also just use the Aiden like a basic, one button drip coffee maker. The Instant Brew option will brew however much water is in the tank using water temperatures recommended by the Specialty Coffee Association in its Golden Cup standards, which marks water temperature and coffee-to-water ratios for ideal flavor. To paraphrase Fellow’s founder who visited us in the test kitchen, he wanted the machine to work for both coffee connoisseurs and for total noobs.

If you’re still looking for more features, you’re in luck. The Aiden also makes cold brew. And unlike some machines that claim they can make cold brew in a couple minutes by tweaking temperature and water pressure (those machines don’t work well), the Aiden slowly drips water over the course of several hours producing a smooth pot of coffee. That sounds like a lot, but the Aiden is surprisingly straightforward to use. It has a single dial and button and an easy-to-read LCD screen, and clear on-screen instructions.

But even with all those bells and whistles, the Aiden still had to make coffee that tastes good. And it did. We compared it side-by-side to carafes of pour-over and both hit fruity and caramel notes, with real nuance and depth of flavor. If anything the Aiden’s coffee went down a little easier.

The Aiden didn’t have a hot plate because the included thermal carafe kept coffee hot on the dining room table for around two hours. The two filter baskets, one for three cups or fewer and one for more than three cups, have spring loaded seals, so that when you remove them to empty the grounds into the garbage, you don’t get any stray drips on the floor. The Aiden also has a removable side water tank, which is easier to fill than either a built-in tank or one on the backside of the machine. All carefully considered details. Check out an even more detailed run down on the Aiden here.

It is expensive—the most expensive brewer we tested. It’s doesn’t cost that much more than other high-end machines like those from Ratio or Breville, but $365 (at the time of writing) is a lot to pay for a drip coffee maker. The only other small quibble we have with the Fellow is that, switching from the small filter basket to the bigger one isn’t as seamless as everything else. All you have to do is toggle a knob, but it’s just not as smooth an operation as the multitude of other settings on the Aiden.

Capacity: 10 cups
Carafe style: Thermal
Dimensions: 8.9" x 8.9" x 12"
Weight: 9.6 lb.
Features: Adjustable brew water ratio; adjustable temperature settings, flavor profile settings, programmable 24-hour timer; Wi-Fi connectivity; cold-brew capable; SCA Golden Cup capabilities
Warranty: 3 years

The Fellow Aiden is a great coffee maker but it has a lot going on. We know that some people’s idea of a drip coffee maker is something you load up with coffee, turn on and leave to do its thing. But just because you want something simple doesn’t mean you have to compromise the quality of your coffee. That’s the idea behind the Ratio Six (which is actually an 8-cup coffee maker, don’t let the name fool you). It’s got one button that begins the brew process. There is no water temperature to set, no flavor profiles to adjust. But the brewing process, like the Fellow's, is designed to mimic a pour-over. The Ratio first blooms the coffee then uses a slower flow to get better extraction. The resulting brew is absolutely delicious and takes no effort on your part. The newest version of the Ratio Six improved its thermal carafe and it was the most effective we tried (the Fellow was a close second), keeping coffee hot for over two.

The biggest issue with the Ratio is filling it. It has a fixed water tank on the back of the machine. That meant we either had to set it sideways on the counter or slide it out from under a cabinet to fill with water. The brew basket also sits on top of the carafe instead of being attached to the body in any way. That made it easy to empty, but was a little precarious to set up until we got the hang of it.

Capacity: 8 cups
Carafe style: Thermal 
Dimensions: 13." x 6.5" x 14.25" 
Weight: 8 lb. 
Features: Blooms coffee, SCA Golden Cup capabilities
Warranty: 5 years

Let’s get something straight about budget coffee makers off the bat: They don’t make coffee that’s as good as the machines that precisely regulate water temperature and flow rate. These are the style of coffee maker you might find at an adequate but not excellent Airbnb. So while the Braun is the top of its category (anything $100 or under), we didn’t judge it against the Fellow or the Ratio, we judged it against the Mr. Coffees, Ninjas, and Black & Deckers that you can read about below. But the Brewsense did an admirable job for something we frequently find on sale for less than $80. The coffee was flavorful and not at all stale or watery. It also came out at a ready-to-drink temperature. Contrast that with some cheap coffee makers produce coffee that is so hot it needs a few minutes to cool down.

For such an inexpensive coffee maker the Brewsense also came with some nice features like the ability to slow down the water flow in order to brew small batches from one to four cups and a hot plate with adjustable temperatures to keep coffee from getting burnt while it sits.

The glass carafe wasn’t our favorite. It flipped open a little too easily. That seemed like it could cause some spills. And frankly, a thermal carafe would have been nice. Some other budget machines have them.

Capacity: 12 cups
Carafe style: Glass
Dimensions: 7.9” x 7.9” x 14.2”
Features: 1-4 cup options, adjustable brew strength, programmable timer, water filter, adjustable hot plate temperature
Warranty: 3 years

This is where the subjective part of our testing is going to show itself. The Breville Precision Brewer is, in many ways, the Fellow Aiden before there was a Fellow Aiden. It offers temperature control to a single degree, customizable bloom time and flow rate, different shaped filter baskets for different flavor profiles, and it even offers cold brew. We just liked the taste of the coffee from the Fellow more. But this is a terrific machine that can do so many things. If you’re a general fan of Breville the brand or just like their whole stainless steel aesthetic we recommend this one as a good high-end coffee maker without reservation.

A longtime darling of both online coffee publications and coffee lovers, Technivorm Moccamaster machines were some of the first to stake a claim on good drip coffee. They were actually the first to receive the SCA Golden Cup cup standard stamp of approval. And indeed the coffee from the Moccamaster is tasty. It’s also simple in the way you’d traditionally expect a drip coffee maker to be. Just an on/off switch and a full pot/half pot switch. And despite those two very big plusses, there are a few things that land the Moccamaster down here instead of up with our top picks. One is its look. Compared to the Ratio machine, which is just as simple but also offers extras like bloom time in the brewing process and a thermal carafe, the Technivorm takes up more counter space and doesn’t look nearly as sleek. If you are into the diner coffee maker aesthetic that the Technivorm gives off (and I totally respect if that’s your thing) it is a high quality, long lasting coffee maker (the test kitchen has had the same one for more than four years).

The Grind and Brew effectively toes the line between a simple, self-contained coffee maker and a techy, customizable one. The built-in grinder has six grind sizes and, while it’s not so nice or versatile that we’d pick it over a stand alone burr grinder, it gets the job done. It has variable temperatures between 185℉ and 205℉ and can brew using the SCA’s Golden Cup standard. That made the coffee from the Grind and Brew both very good and very consistent. That you can easily switch between a setting for single cups and one for full carafes is also a nice touch. Ultimately though it ended up in this middle space of not being able to do as much as the Fellow Aiden but holding a price tag that keeps out of what we’d consider a “budget” range.

This is basically the Café Grind and Brew without the grinder or the single serve option, and at under $200 at the time of writing, the glass carafe model is actually priced low enough that we’d recommend it for someone who thinks the Fellow or the Ratio machines are a bridge too far for their wallet. Like the Grind and Brew you can use the SCA Golden Cup settings or customize water temperature between 185℉-205℉. And like the Grind and Brew the wide showerhead evenly wets the coffee grounds and produces a high quality pot. If you already have a solid coffee grinder or are willing to invest in one, this is a drip machine to consider.

Yet another machine that has won the Golden Cup standard (it’s become table stakes for “good” drip coffee makers at this point), the Zwilling Enfinigy makes coffee on par with the Café and Technivorm machines and is less expensive than all of them. Despite a high end look though, it’s also lighter weight, which makes it feel a little cheaper in comparison. It has a number of standard features: the ability to brew between 2-12 cups, a timer to plan brews ahead, and a keep warm function. It also offers the curious feature of a bloom function that you can toggle on and off. Blooming coffee seems like all upside and no downside, so we can’t think of a good reason you’d ever want to toggle it off. Maybe you like off flavors in your coffee?

The Oxo Brew ticks the main boxes for a high-end drip coffee maker: It has good temperature control between 197℉ and 204℉, comes with a thermal carafe that keeps coffee warm for well over an hour, and it blooms the coffee. And like so many of Oxo’s products it comes with some subtle but smart design choices like keeping the lid of the grounds container attached to the machine for easy opening and closing choosing a dial controller instead of a lineup of buttons, adding a freshness timer so you know how long the brewed coffee has been sitting, and a cleaning indicator to let you know when it’s time for descaling. On the flip side, the opening of the carafe is pretty narrow, so you’ll need to clean it with a bottle brush. Technically this machine does not have the Golden Cup standard (though it does keep its water in the proper temperature range). It also offers fewer options than the Fellow, but isn’t as simple as the one-button Ratio.

The Bonavita One Touch has the same irritating problem of balancing the filter basket on top of the carafe that the Ratio machine does, but unlike the Ratio machine, it doesn’t brew coffee so good as to overcome that issue. The coffee tastes fine, the carafe holds in heat well for over an hour, and it’s super simple to use, but at this price point you can get something better from a Café machine or a refurbished Technivorm.

Despite being the biggest name in pour-over coffee, Chemex’s attempt to automate the process didn’t work out so well. Testers preferred the coffee from all of the Golden Cup machines to this one, which just didn’t have quite the nuance and depth of flavor. If you watch the machine work though, you’d assume it would. It allowed for a bloom period and the water flow started and stopped in a way that mimics making pour-over. The Ottomatic is compatible with 3-, 6-, and 8-cup Chemex carafes, though you can also get an included carafe with the machine.

This was the second best budget coffee maker we tried. The Calphalon’s coffee was just as good as what we got from our favorite Braun machine: rich, flavorful, more than we’d typically expect from a cheap coffee maker. It also had the same features, including the different settings for the hot plate. We thought the Braun’s interface was a little clearer to use—all the buttons are clearly labeled and in one line as opposed to the Calphalon, which has a couple buttons that felt sort of hidden away at the top of the machine. And while prices on these coffee makers can bounce around a little bit, the Calphalon is typically a little bit more expensive than the Braun.

The big selling point of the Cuisinart Perfectemp is its size. It can brew 14 cups of coffee (that’s coffee sized cups—five ounces, not eight ounces). It makes adequate tasting coffee, and the 1-4 cup setting, which adjusts the extraction time for less water, still produces flavorful results. We didn’t notice much difference when switching between regular and bold strength though. Ultimately testers liked the flavor and the extra features of the Braun, which put it over the top here.

Mr. Coffee is sometimes used as shorthand for a cheap, meh coffee maker. But the brand has come a long way from the basic machine on your parents counter growing up. This is still a very affordable machine, but comes with a thermal carafe that kept coffee warm for about an hour and a nice detachable water reservoir that makes it easy to fill without spilling. The coffee itself was on the watery side, but was still perfectly drinkable. It just couldn't compete with the quality of coffee we got from the Braun.

As budget coffee goes, what we got from the Ninja was good, not great. It was a little more watery, and even on the “rich” setting tasted flatter than some machines’ regular coffee. The removable side water tank is a nice design touch, it’s easy to take off, refill, and replace. But there’s better cheap coffee out there.

This machine comes with a thermal carafe, which is a nice addition for a budget coffee maker, but the coffee tasted weak. It has a couple extra features like a timer and a reusable filter. This is a machine you wouldn’t be upset to find at an Airbnb or at your in-laws house, but we wouldn’t encourage you to run out and buy it for yourself.

This is the cheapest coffee maker we tested and it shows. It comes with a delay timer to set a brew ahead of time, but that’s it. The coffee wasn’t undrinkable, but it certainly wasn’t memorable—a rather flavorless way to fill your body with caffeine in the morning. Because the difference in price between this and what we consider a nice budget coffee maker is only $30 or $40, we don’t think this one is worth it.

Points to the Hamilton Beach BrewStation for trying something different. Instead of brewing into a carafe, the BrewStation brews coffee into a holding tank on the top half of the machine. Then, when you’re ready for coffee, you put a cup under and dispense it into your cup like you were getting a Pepsi at a gas station. If that doesn’t sound like the sort of system that would produce coffee that tastes very fresh, you are correct. It was stale and we weren’t excited to go back for another cup.

Despite trying quite a few inexpensive coffee makers, we didn’t have much really bad coffee, except from this machine. It tasted like dirt. And not in a “mmmm, I like the earthy undertones of this bean blend” dirt. Like actual dirt. It comes with a thermal carafe, which is impressive for a machine that costs around $60 at the time of writing. But you may want to fill that thermal carafe with coffee from a different machine.