We heard from CR members about their experiences with 81,568 coffee makers purchased between 2017 and 2025
Our most recent coffee maker surveys have reliability ratings for dozens of brands, including Zojirushi.
By Althea Chang-Cook
A coffee maker can be one of the most unassuming yet essential items on your kitchen countertop. Buy an unreliable one, and you risk having to make a desperate run to the local coffee shop because your appliance isn’t working.
No one wants that. So in addition to our lab tests, which evaluate things like brew performance, carafe handling, ease of use, and ease of cleaning for drip coffee makers and brew speed for pod coffee makers, Consumer Reports surveys its members every other year about whether they’ve experienced a problem with the coffee makers they own. We use the data to calculate a reliability score that represents the likelihood that a newly purchased coffee maker will have a problem within four years of ownership. We also give brands an owner satisfaction rating, which is based on the proportion of members who are extremely likely to recommend their coffee maker to friends and family.
Our most recent results are based on surveys conducted in 2023 and 2025, which collected information from CR members about 81,568 coffee makers purchased between 2017 and 2025. They included 27,742 drip coffee makers, 47,003 single-serve pod models, and 6,823 dual coffee machines capable of brewing coffee by the pot or by the cup.
Below, grouped by type, you’ll find highly rated coffee makers from brands that receive top scores for predicted reliability. Although they may not be the most popular or even the highest-scoring coffee makers in CR’s ratings, models from these companies have proved to be worth the money, time and time again. Our survey results cover 45 brands, including major players like Breville, Cuisinart, Hamilton Beach, Keurig, Mr. Coffee, Nespresso, and Ninja. Reliability and satisfaction scores can also be found in our coffee maker ratings for those brands covered by our survey.
Most Reliable Drip Coffee Makers
Drip coffee machines, especially lower-priced models built mostly of plastic, can sometimes seem less worthy and disposable. But according to their track records in the homes of our members, drip machines, as a group, are quite reliable.
Just about every brand of drip machine covered in our surveys received a midrange to very favorable rating for predicted reliability, with three exceptions: Breville, Bella, and Amazon Basics. Those were the least reliable, earning unsatisfactory scores in our member surveys.
The most reliable brands for drip coffee makers are Bunn, Café, GE, Technivorm, and Zojirushi. Each earned the highest possible reliability rating. Bunn, Technivorm, and Zojirushi also received top scores for owner satisfaction. (Cafe’s satisfaction score was just middling, and GE’s was mediocre.)
Black+Decker, Cuisinart, Keurig, Mainstays (a Walmart brand), Mr. Coffee, and Phillips were also judged very reliable, but while Cuisinart was rated excellent for owner satisfaction and Keurig was very good, the rest were just middling.
The most represented drip coffee maker brand in our surveys was Cuisinart. Its machines made up 31 percent of the drip coffee makers that CR members own.
As for the remaining drip coffee makers, our members found their reliability to be simply adequate—not bad, but not great. This group included many established players, including Calphalon, DeLonghi, Farberware, Hamilton Beach, KitchenAid, Krups, Oster, Ninja, and Proctor Silex.
Here are highly rated models from Bunn, Café, Technivorm, and Zojirushi. The GE model previously in CR’s ratings is no longer available.
Bunn HB Heat N Brew Programmable
The Bunn HB Heat N Brew Programmable features a sleek, open design, with a cupcake filter perched atop a carafe. It brews just 49 ounces based on our measurements, so a pot from this model is on the smaller side, and it takes longer than many drip coffee models to brew a full pot (12 minutes). Its brew performance, carafe handling, and convenience were all very good. Add to that Bunn’s excellent reliability and owner satisfaction scores, and you’ve got a top-rated and CR Recommended drip model.
Café Specialty Drip (C7CDAAS3PD3)
The 10-cup Café Specialty Drip (C7CDAAS3PD3) showed very good brew performance in our tests, maintaining a temperature between 195° F and 205° F for 5 to 6 minutes, which is optimal for the best taste. Plus, it’s easy to use. It scored less well for ease of cleaning and carafe handling, the latter measuring how easy it is to handle the carafe and pour to the last drop. This coffee maker comes with a permanent cone-type coffee filter and a water filter. It brews a full pot in just 6 minutes.
Technivorm Moccamaster KBT (79112)
For those in the know, the Technivorm Moccamaster KBT (79112) looks more like a freestanding Melitta-like pour-over contraption placed over a thermal carafe. As for how it functions? This coffee maker receives a very good score in CR’s brew performance tests, so you can expect a good-tasting brew. It also received a very good score for carafe handling. It’s not the easiest to use or clean, based on evaluations in our lab, but Technivorm, as a brand, has excellent scores for both predicted reliability and owner satisfaction.
Zojirushi Dome Brew Programmable EC-ESC120
The Zojirushi Dome Brew Programmable EC-ESC120 (and Zojirushi Dome Brew Classic EC-EJC120, which we expect performs similarly) excels in our ease of use evaluations. But brew performance was just mediocre, meaning the coffee produced by these machines could be subpar for some. Still, based on CR surveys, people who own this brand’s coffee makers are very unlikely to experience problems with them in the first four years of ownership and are extremely likely to recommend their machine to friends and family, earning them excellent scores for both reliability and satisfaction.
Most Reliable Single-Serve Coffee Makers
Keurig is synonymous with single-serve pod coffee makers in the U.S., so it’s no surprise that, according to our latest survey, it makes up 74 percent of the single-serve coffee makers purchased by CR members in recent years.
But according to our member surveys, it’s not the most reliable brand; it earns just a middling score for that measure (though members gave it a very good score for owner satisfaction).
The single-serve pod coffee maker brands that most impressed our members for reliability were Black+Decker and Crux. However, Mainstays, Mr. Coffee, Senseo, Bella, Ninja, Amazon Basics, and Instant Pot were also very good.
As with Keurig, a majority of the remaining brands landed middling reliability scores. The bottom of the bunch included the below-average Farberware and the even worse Chefman, according to our survey.
Less-than-stellar reliability didn’t keep members from recommending their pod coffee makers to friends and family, however. Among the brands with middling reliability but top owner satisfaction ratings for single-serve machines were Cuisinart, DeLonghi, and Nespresso.
Models from Black + Decker and Crux previously in our ratings are no longer available, so here’s a model from Ninja, which received a very good score for reliability and an excellent score for owner satisfaction, as well as a model from Mainstays, which earned a very good score for each measure.
Ninja Specialty CM401
Ninja, as a coffee maker brand, earns an impressive score for owner satisfaction in CR’s member surveys, and the pod-free Ninja Specialty CM401 coffee maker is one reason. It’s a feature-packed machine with programmability and numerous options for customizing brew strength. It can brew drip coffee into a single cup or a whole pot. This machine comes with a fold-away milk frother for fancier coffee drinks.
Mainstays (Walmart) Single Serve Dual Brew (201963)
The Mainstays (Walmart) Single Serve Dual Brew (201963) coffee maker is simple and inexpensive, and it gets the job done, based on our lab tests. This model takes K-Cups and loose grounds. It has an auto-shutoff and a height-adjustable drip tray. It received middling scores in our performance tests for speed, convenience, and the ability to tailor the strength of a brew, but CR members who own one of these coffee machines say they’d recommend their model to friends and family.
Most Reliable Dual Coffee Makers
Dual coffee makers—those that can brew drip coffee using ground beans as well as single servings of coffee using pods—aren’t as well-represented as drip or single-serve models among CR members. They make up only 8 percent of the coffee makers members reported buying between 2017 and 2025.
Keurig is the most popular dual coffee maker brand among CR members, accounting for 39 percent of the models they own. Also represented in our survey were Ninja (27 percent), Cuisinart (18 percent), and Hamilton Beach (13 percent).
As for reliability, Black+Decker received a very good score, but all other brands received a middling score or worse. Hamilton Beach, Ninja, and Keurig received passable reliability scores, and Mr. Coffee and Cuisinart received mediocre scores.
Black+Decker Dual Brew (SS0441-0BD)
The Black+Decker Dual Brew (SS0441-0BD) isn’t among the top-rated dual coffee makers, and its single-serve speed is just so-so, but you can expect consistent temperatures and sizes across multiple pod cups; it earned excellent scores in both those tests. When it comes to brewing a full pot, our testers scored this machine as very good for ease of use, ease of cleaning, and carafe handling. Black+Decker receives a reliability rating of very good, the highest for dual coffee makers.
Ninja DualBrew Pro 12-Cup CFP301
Ninja isn’t the most reliable of all the dual coffee makers we’ve tested, but it does have the highest owner satisfaction rating. The Ninja DualBrew Pro 12-Cup CFP301 in particular offers very good brew performance for optimal taste, very good carafe handling, and an excellent score for ease of cleaning. It also comes with an indicator to tell you when cleaning is needed. When it comes to single cups, first-cup speed is excellent, and repeat-cup speed is very good.
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