The Best Espresso Machines for Beginners, Coffee Nerds, and Everyone in Between

There was a time not that long ago when there wasn’t much competition for the title of best espresso machine for home use because they just weren’t a commonly used appliance. Unless you were going out to a coffee shop, morning coffee routines usually meant drip coffee. Just a decade ago the only people I knew with an at-home espresso machine were my friend’s very wealthy parents, and I’m not sure I ever actually saw them use it. Now, it’s easier than ever to pull a double shot with a perfect layer of crema on top in the comfort of your own kitchen. Companies like Breville and De’Longhi have whole lineups of slightly different espresso makers, and high-end manufacturers like La Marzocco, famous for their commercial machines, have come out with home versions. Combine all that with wider access to high-quality coffee beans and the espresso machine landscape has become a crowded place indeed.

Still, the barista-curious shopper might find that this market is not only crowded, but confusing. There are tons of similar looking machines that all have similar sounding features (seriously, do an Amazon search for “espresso machine” and see what you get). That’s why we’re here, and hopefully why you’re here too. We’ve got top picks from people with extensive, but very different, experience working with lots of different espresso machines that will help you cut through all the noise and land on the best espresso machine for you.

Good espresso makers are precise, complicated instruments, so I want to lay out a few terms that usually come up in any discussion or comparison of different machines. If this is too 101 for you, feel free to jump ahead to the recommendations.

Semiautomatic espresso machine: These are machines that require you to actually load a portafilter with finely ground coffee beans and lock it into place. Some semiautomatic machines operate on timers and will stop brewing themselves, others require you to push a brew button or move a lever to stop the process. All of them use pumps to generate the pressure needed for great espresso.

Super-automatic espresso machine: Super-automatic machines do all the work for you. They have built-in grinders, tampers, and brewing processes. All you have to do is place your cup under the spout, push a button, and wait.

Manual espresso machine: A machine that does not have a pump. All the pressure is generated by you during the brewing process.

Prosumer: A portmanteau of professional and consumer used to refer to high-end espresso machines (it’s also used for other quasi-professional home appliances like Vitamix blenders). Prosumer models usually offer similar functionality to machines you find in specialty coffee shops, just in smaller packages.

Filter basket: The little mesh basket that you put ground coffee into. A single-walled filter basket lets coffee flow through all the little holes in the mesh. A double-walled filter basket has an extra layer of metal over the mesh that forces all the coffee through in one spot and guarantees the correct pressure for espresso, making it easy to achieve a lovely layer of crema on top.

Group head: The part of the machine that dispenses water. It’s what you lock the portafilter into.

Portafilter: The handled piece that locks the filter into your espresso machine. Snap your filter baskets into the chamber at the front, then twist the handle to lock the portafilter onto your machine.

PID controller: This stands for proportional-integral-derivative, which sounds like something out of a frightening college level math course…and it is. But, for our purposes, a PID controller is like a super accurate thermostat. It provides precise temperature control for your brewing water and keeps it consistent.

Tamp: The act of compressing ground coffee into the portafilter with a tamper.

Steam wand: A pipe on the side of an espresso maker that shoots out high-pressure steam for making milk drinks like cappuccinos and lattes.

Food director Chris Morocco is into coffee, really into coffee. Packs-coffee-beans-in-his-luggage into coffee. But he is quick to recognize that not everyone wants to do a deep dive into espresso. “I see [making espresso] as a cascading set of decisions,” says Morocco. He thinks most people don’t want to deal with too many variables when they’re making coffee in the morning (some people don’t want to deal with any variables, and for them he suggests a Nespresso Vertuo Plus, which, though it is a pod coffee maker, still makes what he thinks is a good cup of coffee). But if you can get over the hump of sourcing and grinding your own coffee beans, he points to the Breville Bambino Plus. Beyond loading the portafilter with beans, it’s a machine that still does quite a bit of the work for you. With a single button push an automatic brewing process starts and stops itself. The Bambino Plus comes with double-walled filter baskets, so you’ll be guaranteed a beautiful layer of crema every time. You can find those features on plenty of mid-priced espresso makers, but what sets the Bambino Plus apart is its ability to froth milk automatically. Simply place a jug of milk under the steam wand, set the level of foam you want, and push the steam button. The machine takes care of the rest. It also heats up in a flash—about five seconds—so you don’t have to wait for your morning coffee.

You can make some adjustments to the Bambino Plus if you want a more hands-on experience; you can adjust the brew temperature between low, medium, and high, set your own brewing time, and set the milk steaming to manual mode. But you don’t have to do any of that to get good coffee from this machine.

Note that some reviews of this machine say that it doesn't come with a hot water dispenser for americanos. That was true of older models, but in models from 2023 and beyond you can get hot water from the steam wand if you push the 1 shot button and the milk button at the same time.

Size: 7.7" x 12.6" x 12.2" | Weight: 11 lb. | Water reservoir size: 64 oz. | Cup clearance: 5" | Colors: Stainless steel, damson blue, and black truffle | Warranty: Two years

If someone wants to level up their espresso experience, Morocco points to the Italian-made Rancilio Silvia, saying, “If someone is beyond a hobbyist and they said, ‘I want to look at manual gauges, I want an enhanced haptic experience, I want to manipulate levers and have something I’m excited to look at for years to come,’ that’s when you get into a machine like this.”

The Rancilio Silvia Pro X uses a dual boiler system as a heat source, which means the steam wand and group head each have their own water held at different temperatures. This is what you find in most professional machines because it lets baristas steam milk for one customer while brewing espresso for another. Single boiler machines make you wait between brewing and steaming. The Pro X has an adjustable PID controller front and center so you can set the water temperature to a precise degree, a shot timer to check how long a brew takes, a powerful steam wand for velvety textured milk, and an easy-to-read pressure gauge so you can see if your brew is hitting the correct pressure (between 8 and 10 on the gauge is the sweet spot). It also has enough cup clearance—the distance between the drip tray and the portafilter—to brew directly into a coffee mug rather than a small espresso cup. This is actually not that common a feature in high-end home espresso machines, and it can simplify the process of making an Americano or a cappuccino. One other nice feature: It comes with an automatic wake-up time, so it can begin heating up before you’re even out of bed. That comes in handy because nicer espresso machines like this can take close to 20 minutes to come up to temperature due to their large boilers.

Size: 9.8" x 16.5" x 15.3" | Weight: 44.1 lb. | Water reservoir size: 67 oz. | Cup clearance: 4" | Colors: Stainless steel, black, white, pink | Warranty: Three years

Sometimes you don’t want to spend the time to weigh out your coffee beans, get the grind just right, or consider how many pounds of pressure you’re tamping with. For you there is the world of super-automatic espresso machines. Super-auto machines not only take care of all three of those issues, but the good ones will foam up milk for flat whites, cappuccinos, and, in the case of the Bosch 800 Series, dozens of other drinks.

In a new round of espresso maker testing, Bosch’s latest entry into the coffee world jumped to the top of the automatic coffee maker list by dint of its extreme versatility. It can make over three dozen different kinds of drinks, including a bunch of European coffee drinks I’d actually never heard of (any großer brauner fans out there?). But the most impressive part is that the drinks really do show a lot of subtle differences in their size, strength, and texture.

In terms of the actual espresso it makes, the Bosch is in line with the best fully automatic espresso makers I’ve tried, including the Jura E8, the De’Longhi Eletta Explore, the Miele CM5310, and the Philips LatteGo. That isn’t to say it’s as good as what you can get from the Rancilio Silvia, or even the Breville Bambino Plus, which, while only as consistent as you are as a barista, can bring out the full range of flavors from a coffee. But no automatic machine can produce espresso quite as good as a nice semiautomatic machine; that’s a trade-off you need to make for the convenience. You’ll have to decide if you want an attached, detached, or no-milk container with the Bosch. There’s a price bump of $200 to go from nothing to detached and another $200 to add the attached milk container. It isn’t 100% necessary, but if it’s in the budget, going the attached container route makes a cleaner, easier-to-operate, slicker-looking coffee maker on the counter, and also produces the best milk foam.

Size: 15" x 13.9" x 18.4" | Weight: 21 lb. | Water reservoir size: 81.2 oz. | Cup clearance: Variable | Colors: Black and stainless steel | Warranty: Two years or 7,000 cups

Isaiah Sheese, owner of the three Archetype Coffee shops and roasteries in Omaha, Nebraska, won the United States National Barista Championships in 2023 and placed 4th in the world, so if you’re looking for a coffee professional to ask about the best espresso maker, you won’t find one much more credentialed than he is. “If you’re gonna make espresso at home and it’s not just for convenience,” observes Sheese, “typically people want to play around and experiment.” He likes the Decent DE1 for that purpose because it can do, well, just about anything. “You can basically change any variable that you want to extract as much flavor as you want.” Decent machines combine the sort of precision of café-quality machines with a high-tech interface that makes every single variable of an espresso shot customizable. Sure, you can adjust water temperature like you can with lots of PID machines, but you can also change the temperature, the pressure, and the flow rate during a brew to give your shots different flavor profiles, or set a shot timer that will shut off the water after a specified time. All this is controlled via a sizable touchscreen tablet that’s easy to read and straightforward to operate. The DE1 has an eye-popping price tag ($3,699 at the time of writing) but it gives you complete control over and information about every part of the process, which is something you won’t find on any other home espresso machine.

Size: 9.1" x 14.5" x 16.5" | Weight: 29.1 lb. | Water reservoir size: 68 oz. | Colors: Black | Warranty: Two years (200,000 espressos)

Along with my years of espresso machine testing for our sister site Epicurious (if you want an unbiased take on dozens of machines beyond what’s here check out the Best Espresso Machines, Tested and Reviewed), I brought in the opinions the Bon Appétit test kitchen’s resident coffee guru Chris Morocco and national barista champion Isaiah Sheese. Just like he does when walking home cooks through recipes, Morocco was able to bring his expertise to bear in a way that recognizes the wide range of experience and interest levels out there. Sheese, on the other hand, leaned into what he knows best: pulling the perfect espresso shot, knowing full well that that takes patience and what he calls tinkering with the process. The result for you, readers, is a balanced list of picks that understands that even asking “what is the best espresso machine” is sort of like asking “who is the best painter.” There’s not a single answer to that question because unlike, say, a nonstick pan, people want very different things from their espresso machines.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but it is table stakes that an espresso machine should make a shot of espresso that has nuanced flavors, full body, and a rich crema on top. Machines achieve that with the right mix of temperature (200℉) and pressure (9 bars). Don’t be fooled by listings that say an espresso maker has enough power to reach 20 bars of pressure. Typically that kind of claim is compensating for the fact that it doesn’t actually regulate its pressure very well.

I know this sounds superficial, but whatever espresso maker you pick, it’s going to be sitting on your counter for everyone to see for years, so you should like the way it looks. “I would skip over the $1,000 tier of Breville machines entirely,” Morocco says, “and get something that’s nicer to look at.” His Rancilio Silvia pick not only looks like a beautiful piece of industrial design, it comes in a variety of colors too for those who don’t want a stainless-steel everywhere look.

Making espresso drinks can be a finicky process—weighing your coffee beans, getting the grind right, tamping the beans with the right amount of pressure, and that’s before you even get to brewing. Anything a machine can offer to make the process easier and more reliable is welcome. That could be a quick heat up time, brewing on a timer so you don’t have to start and stop the process, or an easy-to-control steam wand for texturing milk. The one exception to this is a built-in grinder. With super-automatic machines, you don’t have a choice, but I’ve tested several semiautomatic machines with built-in grinders, like the Breville Barista Express, and found that they’re often underpowered compared to stand-alone grinders. You’d be better off spending part of your budget on a good coffee grinder.

Here’s the bad news: With espresso makers, you get what you pay for. According to Sheese, “anything under $500 and you’re not going to get that great of a machine.” Generally, that’s because those machines lack things like PIDs. The Breville Bambino Plus sneaks in under the $500 mark, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

I tried a couple affordable new machines with built-in grinders, the Philips Barista Brew and the Ninja Luxe. Both brewed nice espresso, especially for the price, but each had one glaring issue that kept it from getting a recommended spot. The Philips steamed milk beautifully and made rich, flavorful espresso. However, I only discovered that after using a separate burr grinder and my own calibrated tamper. The Philips' grinder/tamper combination could never grind coffee finely enough or compress it thoroughly enough to generate the pressure needed for good espresso, which I could tell not only from the under-extracted shots, but from the lagging reading on the machine's pressure gauge.

The Ninja has a gorgeous, easy-to-use digital interface and its grinder did it job well enough to make decent espresso for a budget machine. It also brewed above average drip coffee and a smooth 5-minute “cold brew” (it's in quotes because you can't make real cold brew without hours of brew time). That multi-functionality is one of Ninja's hallmarks, and if your house has people who take their coffee multiple ways this might be worth considering. However, the Ninja's automatic milk texturing left something to be desired. It uses both a motorized whisk, like you find in lots of standalone milk frothers, and a steam wand. Together they produced a lot of large bubbles and very uneven textures in the milk.

Both Morocco and Sheese make it clear that any coffee machine is only as good as the coffee grinder you use alongside it. That’s because it takes a fine, even grind and you need to be able to make very small adjustments to the grind size to get it just right. There are now some good entry-level espresso grinders that will get you what you need without breaking your budget. Morocco is a big fan of the Fellow Opus. In that same price range, I also got great results from the Baratza Encore ESP.

Unless you go the super-automatic route you will need to tamp your own coffee grounds. Sheese recommends a Normcore tamper for most people. Because it’s spring-loaded, it will ensure you tamp with the right amount of pressure every time. Just make sure you get the right size tamper for your machine. For Breville or Solis machines like we have up above you’ll want a 53.3-mm tamper (sometimes listed as 53 mm or 54 mm). For prosumer machines like the Rancilio Silvia, you’ll want a 58-mm tamper.

Because espresso takes such a fine grind, the coffee grounds can clump up, preventing water from running through them evenly. You use the needles on a distributor to break those clumps up before tamping. Sheese likes distributors from Barista Hustle to do the job.