Best Canister Vacuums of 2025
These vacuums we tested are great at cleaning bare floors and picking up pet hair
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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. “Canisters have an advantage for cleaning stairs because you’re not lifting the whole vacuum. Plus, the wand and hose give you a longer reach,” says Frank Rizzi, who tests vacuums for CR. “They’re also easier to maneuver than an upright.” 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 tackled 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. 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 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.
The Kenmore Elite Pet Friendly UltraPlush 81714 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.
The versatile Kenmore Pop-N-Go BC4026 makes an impressive showing in both our bare-floor and pet-hair cleaning tests, leaving little or nothing behind. It also earns above-average marks for carpet cleaning. The Pop-N-Go feature allows you to easily transition between the powerhead and the floor brush, though the powerhead does not swivel. The vacuum comes with convenient features, such as a small motorized brush for pet hair and stairs. Emissions are clean, and this model has robust airflow, making it a good choice if you often use your attachments to clean upholstery.
Our highest-rated canister vacuum, 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.
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. In our member surveys, Kenmore canister vacuums earn midrange scores for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction.
If you’re looking for a canister that will do well on both carpets and bare floors, consider the Kenmore 500 Series DC5070. The vacuum aced our bare floor cleaning tests and notched 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 and maneuver. One of our favorite features of this model is the hair eliminator nozzle, which has ridges that help loosen and remove tangled hair.
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.
This Miele Boost CX1 SNRF0 is a bagless canister that doesn’t have a rotating brush roll in the powerhead, which prevents it from scoring higher on carpet cleaning than it does. That said, its powerful suction makes it a contender. It performs extremely well when cleaning bare floors and pet hair—plus, it’s especially quiet and performs very well in our clean emissions testing. Our testers liked how easy it was to remove and empty the bin. The accessories can be stored in the vacuum, which is perfect if you live in a compact space.
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 We Test 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 109,486 vacuums they purchased from 2014 to 2024. For more insights from these vacuum owners, see our guide to the most reliable vacuum brands.
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