The 7 Best Dyson Vacuums of 2023, Tested and Reviewed

Best Overall

Dyson v8 Animal Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner

4.5

View On Amazon View On Walmart View On Target

Even though Dyson keeps coming out with new technology to better its appliances, the Dyson v8 Animal is still a popular choice. It's our top pick because it blends powerful suction with a slightly more affordable price tag (when compared to other Dyson models). It's also extremely easy to assemble as well as break apart and store away in a closet or laundry room. Mutlow says that "a good vacuum should do four things properly: pick up the dust from the floor, lock the dust inside, expel clean air. All the while ensuring that it does not lose its suction." This vacuum checks all of those boxes.

This model's motorized cleaning head and brush bar suck up dirt, dander, hair, and other debris from the fibers of carpet and area rugs to give you a deep clean. Its included direct-drive cleaner head is designed with carpeted floors in mind. It pairs the stiff nylon bristles with up to 115AW suction power to deep-clean even high-pile carpets or area rugs. While the Dyson Omni-glide+ is our pick for hardwood floors, the v8 Animal performs well on hard surfaces, too, making it an excellent pick for anyone with multiple types of flooring in their home.

As a cordless stick vacuum, this pick is also convenient to use and ideal for daily maintenance or quick cleaning sessions before company arrives. It has a built-in rechargeable battery that provides 40 minutes of run time in standard mode. Just be forewarned that the max mode delivers more power, but it shortens the battery life to under 10 minutes. (Save it for spot-cleaning, especially dirty areas.) Like many Dyson cordless stick models, we didn't love that you have to hold down the trigger the whole time you're vacuuming either. This not-super-intuitive feature makes us believe that it wouldn't be a great pick for a large home.

In typical Dyson fashion, the vacuum's design is stunning, and it comes with a wall mount so you can hang it up when it's not in use. We are confident that you'll enjoy using this Dyson vacuum daily.

Price at time of publish: $489

_{Dimensions: 49 x 9.8 x 8.8 inches | Weight: 5.63 pounds | Cord Length: Not applicable | Battery Life: 40 minutes | Cleaning Path Width: 8.8 inches | Compatible Floor Type: Carpet and hardwood}

Best Budget

Dyson Ball Multi Floor 2 Upright Vacuum Cleaner

4.2

View On Amazon View On Bed Bath & Beyond View On Best Buy

The Dyson Ball Multi Floor 2 Upright Vacuum offers reliable performance and powerful suction at a price that won’t break the bank. It doesn’t feature new Dyson innovations like the Dyson v15 Detect+'s laser for counting captured dust particles, and it lacks the ability to convert into a handheld vac, but those are not necessary for basic, everyday cleaning jobs. Instead, it offers a respectable 196AW of suction power. While it's well-suited for most types of flooring, we found it a chore to use on high-pile carpet, noting that it required lots of muscle to keep the vacuum moving. However, all of the effort paid off with a canister full of cat hair, earning the vacuum a perfect rating for its cleaning effectiveness in our testing.

Notably, the upright-style vacuum is quite heavy, but we think the design keeps the weight from being too problematic. Despite weighing over 15.6 pounds, we found the vacuum to be manageable in our at-home testing. We think it benefits from a bottom-heavy design, and the ball base makes it easy to swivel and maneuver. Plus, since most of the weight sits at the bottom of the vacuum, it doesn't feel like it'll easily tip over.

While the vacuum is quite loud, you'll enjoy the whole-machine filtration, as well as the motorized brush bar and self-adjusting cleaner head for effective cleaning on both bare floors and rugs. The washable filter and quick-release dust bin make for easy maintenance, too. Overall, we think this vacuum is a great pick at a great price.

Price at time of publish: $349

_{Dimensions: 41.93 x 15.59 x 13.39 inches | Weight: 15.6 pounds | Cord Length: 31 feet | Battery Life: Not applicable | Cleaning Path Width: 13.39 inches | Compatible Floor Type: Hardwood, carpet, laminate, and tile}

Best Upright

Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra

4.8

View On Amazon View On Wayfair View On Home Depot

Dethroning our previous best upright pick, the Dyson Ball Animal 2, the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra has all of the features that we've come to know (and love) about Dyson's Ball series—but this new upright model has a few extra capabilities that make it even better than previous models. An anti-tangle motorbar (Dyson's trademarked term for the floor head roller) is the star of the show. While the Dyson Ball Animal 2 was geared toward high-level filtration and auto-adjusting suction, the Animal 3 Extra has both of those previous components, plus it is designed for households with pets, children, and multiple surfaces.

Setting up the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra was slightly tricky, as the instruction manual only includes photos and no written instructions. This made it difficult to discern how separate parts connect to each other, but we figured it all out in about 12 minutes. This vacuum excelled during our different debris and surface tests, thanks in part to the different settings, which adjust the motorbar to various heights based on the floor type. We did notice that the Animal 3 Extra has a tendency to spit larger debris, like popcorn kernels, in front of its path before eventually sucking it up. We recommend adjusting the motorbar to the highest setting to avoid this issue.

The only other issue we noted with this vacuum is that it's not ideal for cleaning stairs. While this vacuum has no issue sucking up debris or hair on stairs, it's very heavy. Using the stair cleaning attachment while holding onto the upright unit can be a challenge. For this reason, we wouldn't recommend this vacuum to users with limited mobility or narrow stairs. The rest of the vacuum's attachments performed well during testing, and we're especially intrigued by the pet grooming tool, which can be used directly on dogs (or calm cats) to de-shed them. (If they'll tolerate the sensation and noise, of course.)

All in all, this vacuum's consistent suction, innovative motorbar, and easy-to-use attachments make it our top choice among Dyson upright vacuums.

Price at time of publish: $500

_{Dimensions: 42.2 x 11.02 x 15.5 inches | Weight: 17.3 pounds | Cord Length: 35 feet | Battery Life: Not applicable | Cleaning Path Width: Not listed | Compatible Floor Type: Hardwood, carpet, hard floor, multi-surface}

Best for Hardwood

Dyson Omni-Glide+ Cordless Vacuum

4.6

View On Dyson.com

Equipped with dual soft roller cleaner heads, four 360-degree casters, and an articulating neck, the Dyson Omni-glide+ Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner was engineered to do one thing exceptionally well: clean hard-surface floors. Whether you push or pull the vacuum cleaner, the Omni-glide+ will just slide along, capturing dust and debris in its path with its dual soft rollers.

We were impressed with how easily this vacuum transitioned across different hard floor surfaces, including hardwood and tile. It's also extremely lightweight, and in our lab, we were able to lift it with very little effort. When we weighed the vacuum with a luggage scale, we found that it clocked in at just 2.52 pounds. These features also help make it easy to maneuver around rooms, including around and under furniture.

The most obvious downside to this vac is that it isn't designed for carpet. Other drawbacks we found in our testing were that the dust bin is rather small, so it requires frequent emptying, and the battery life could be too short to fully clean a large home. On the other hand, the push-button operation is a standout feature. Instead of holding a trigger down to activate suction, like you would with Dyson's v8 Animal, simply select the button you'd like to control the operation and mode of this cordless vacuum. While this Dyson vacuum for cleaning hardwood floors is an expensive option for a single purpose, it’s an excellent choice for homes designed primarily with tile, wood, or laminate flooring.

Price at time of publish: $500

_{Dimensions: 42.4 x 3.62 x 8.89 inches | Weight: 4.18 pounds | Cord Length: Not applicable | Battery Life: 21 minutes (according to our testing) | Cleaning Path Width: 8 inches | Compatible Floor Type: Hardwood, laminate, and tile}

Best for Carpet

Dyson V12 Detect Slim

4.2

View On Amazon View On Walmart View On Target

Finding a vacuum that can thoroughly handle carpet, without having hair tangle in the brush bar, is a feat that most people compromise on. However, the Dyson v12 Detect Slim not only prevents hair wrap on all of its motorized attachments, but also sucks up every trace of hair within seconds. Although we were less than impressed by this vacuum's suction ability on hard flooring—cue popcorn kernels being spit in every direction—this vacuum had no trouble sucking up Cheerios, popcorn kernels, and hair from carpet. It did take several passes to suck up the larger debris, but that's a common occurrence with most vacuums that generally perform well on carpet.

Aside from its suction power, we enjoyed this vacuum's lightweight and compact design, which is 24 percent lighter than the Dyson v15 Detect. It also is powered by a button, so there's no need to consistently pull a trigger to operate it, unlike other Dyson models. The Laser Slim Fluffy cleaner head shines a laser onto tiny particles that you might not normally see while cleaning and is composed of soft nylon and anti-static carbon fibers that help remove dust from small gaps and hard flooring. We also appreciated the point-and-shoot dust bin emptying mechanism, but keep in mind that some hair did need to be manually pulled out.

As may be expected, this vacuum's suction power does make it one of the loudest vacuums we tested. Even on auto suction, it was incredibly loud and we would not want to use this vacuum on boost mode for any extended period of time. The LCD screen offers insights into the run time, power countdown, and maintenance needs, but the instruction manual provided little insight into properly understanding all the features included on the display. Despite these few design concerns, we're overall impressed by this vacuum's suction power for cleaning carpets, especially given the fact that we found zero hair wrap on any of the attachments after testing.

Price at time of publish: $500

_{Dimensions: 49.1 x 9.9 x 9.8 inches | Weight: 5.2 pounds | Cord Length: Not applicable | Battery Life: 60 minutes | Cleaning Path Width: 9.8 inches | Compatible Floor Type: Hardwood, carpet, hard floor, multi-surface}

Best for Pet Hair

Dyson V15 Detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner

4.6

View On Amazon View On Home Depot View On Walmart

During a previous test, we weren't impressed by the Dyson v15 Detect+ Cordless Vacuum Cleaner, because it only performed somewhat well for its hefty price. However, after additional testing, we've grown to love how this model is specifically designed for picking up pet hair while easily transitioning between different flooring types. This vacuum sucked up hair from carpet and hard flooring with ease, and we especially loved the hair screw tool, which is designed to pick up hair from upholstery. Like Dyson's other vacuums, this option features a whole-unit filtration system that removes 99.99 percent of particles, dust, and allergens, which is great for households with multiple pets.

Although this vacuum has a relatively average noise level, compared to other vacuums, it was loud while picking up dog kibble from the floor. However, the LCD display screen reports on dust particle metrics, and the vacuum uses this data to automatically increase suction power as needed, which is an interesting and advanced feature that gives you increased cleaning performance and balanced battery life. Dyson advertises that this vacuum's deep clean brush has three settings to adjust the height of the roller, but we could not tell a significant difference in the brush head's cleaning on each setting. However, it still performed well.

An angled laser also makes cleaning hardwood, vinyl, and tile floors much easier, because it detects and shows particles that are otherwise not seen while cleaning. This model is top-heavy, like most cordless stick vacuums, so we recommend storing it on the wall mount. All in all, we think this vacuum is a great option for pet hair, but we recommend waiting until it is on sale, since it is quite an investment.

Price at time of publish: $600

_{Dimensions: 49.6 x 9.84 x 10.47 inches | Weight: 6.79 pounds | Cord Length: Not applicable | Battery Life: 60 minutes | Cleaning Path Width: 10.1 inches | Compatible Floor Type: Hardwood, carpet, hard floor, multi-surface}