What is comparable to a vitamix blender

As a senior staff writer for Wirecutter, I’ve covered everything from chef’s knives to stand mixers, and I’ve tested every blender worth testing since 2014. I also have a breadth of cooking and entertaining knowledge from decades of working in restaurants and magazine test kitchens. This guide builds on the work of Christine Cyr Clisset, now a deputy editor at Wirecutter.

We reached out to Jonathan Cochran, a former blender salesperson who now runs the site Blender Dude, for his take on the best Vitamix and Blendtec models to test (his site has affiliate partnerships with both companies). For our original guide, authored by Seamus Bellamy, we consulted with Lisa McManus, an executive editor in charge of equipment testing at Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines.

Although there’s some overlap in what they can do, blenders and food processors aren’t interchangeable appliances. A countertop blender is a better tool for making purees, quick sauces, and emulsifications (such as mayonnaise and vinaigrette), and it’s the only appliance that can whip berries and fibrous veggies into a silky-smooth texture. Because a blender’s jar is narrow and usually angled at the base, it creates a vortex that helps pass ingredients through the blades more frequently than in a food processor, yielding smoother textures.

• Of all the models we’ve tested since 2013, the Cuisinart Custom 14-Cup Food Processor remains our favorite because it’s simple, powerful, and durable.

With a little effort, you can also puree wet ingredients (such as tomatoes for sauce) in a food processor, but the doughnut-shaped container doesn’t handle liquids as well as a blender’s jar does—it tends to leak. A food processor works fine for thick purees like hummus and is great for sauces with a coarser texture like pesto. But it can’t make a good smoothie and—since you can’t control the speed of the blades—is liable to shoot hot soup everywhere. Instead, a food processor is best for chopping, slicing, and grating. With the right attachment, it can even mix and knead dough. Many people use food processors for mincing vegetables, but this appliance is also your best friend for easily grating cheese, slicing potatoes for a gratin, grinding fresh bread crumbs, or quickly cutting butter into flour to make pie dough.

In short, blenders liquefy, food processors chop and slice. Depending on your needs, you might choose one over the other, or you might want both. We have a guide to the best food processors, too, if you’re interested.

A countertop blender delivers the silkiest smoothies, daiquiris, soups, and sauces of any style of blender you can buy. It’s more versatile than a personal blender (which is meant mainly for smoothies) because it holds more and can handle hot liquids. It’s also more powerful than an immersion blender, which is great for pureeing soups directly in the pot or making a quick mayo but doesn’t yield the velvety textures you get from a good countertop blender.

That said, a blender’s performance and longevity are usually proportional to its cost. High-end blenders are more powerful and designed to puree the thickest mixtures without burning out, something that inexpensive blenders simply can’t do. If you want a kitchen workhorse—a machine that can tackle everything from hot soups and sauces to thick frozen concoctions—a full-size, high-powered blender is the best choice. How much you should spend on one depends on exactly what you’ll use it for. Below is a breakdown of what each of our picks will do for you.

Get our budget pick, the KitchenAid, if:

• You use your blender only for the occasional smoothie, frozen drink, or soup.
• You don’t blend nut butters or other motor-taxing mixtures.
• A short, limited one-year warranty isn’t a concern.

Get our runner-up, the Oster, or our also-great pick, the Cleanblend, if:

• You blend no more than a few times a week.
• You rarely make nut butters.
• A five- or seven-year warranty is important to you.

Get our top pick, the Vitamix, if:

• Blending is part of your daily lifestyle.
• You frequently blend thick, motor-taxing mixtures like nut butters and spoonable smoothies.
• You want a blender with the widest range of speeds for easily doing everything from blending hot liquids to pulverizing ice cubes.
• A seven-year warranty is important to you.

Alternatively, if you just want to make a daily smoothie, you might be better off with a NutriBullet (we’ve tested them all).

Since 2012, we’ve researched or tested almost every decent household blender available, from budget models starting at $40 to powerful, high-performance models topping out at $700. In all this testing, we’ve found the following criteria to be the most important to look for in a blender:

A great blender should be able to smoothly process tough items like fibrous kale, frozen berries, and ice without burning out the motor. How efficiently a blender does this depends on a combination of the blade length and position, the shape of the mixing jar, and the motor strength. All three of those elements combine to create a vortex that pulls food down around the blade.

In our testing, we’ve found that tall, tapered jars with a curved bottom develop a more consistent vortex than short, wide ones with a flat bottom. But the better blending that you get from a taller, tapered jar comes with a trade-off: A fully assembled blender might be too tall to fit under low-hanging cabinets. Blenders with wide, short jars are better for countertop storage, but you’re sacrificing performance for that convenience.

A more powerful motor also helps to create a better vortex and blends thick mixtures more easily than a weaker one. But a blender’s power rating isn’t easy information to come by. Most blender companies advertise only “peak horsepower,” a spec that’s misleading if you’re trying to determine a motor’s strength. A motor works at peak horsepower for just a fraction of a second, when you start the blender, in order to overcome inertia. Immediately after, the motor drops to its “rated horsepower,” which is the amount of power it can sustain without burning out. As explained on Cooking For Engineers, you can get a ballpark estimate of a blender’s rated horsepower by dividing its wattage by 746 (because 746 watts equals approximately one unit of electrical horsepower). This equation doesn’t account for efficiency, but it does offer a more realistic approximation of a blender’s power output.

We’ve found that tall, tapered jars with a curved bottom develop a more consistent vortex than short, wide ones with a flat bottom.

Most of the blenders we’ve tested come with plastic jars. All of our picks have jars made of BPA-free Tritan plastic, which is very durable. Many of the lower-end blenders we’ve tested don’t advertise which material their jars are made of beyond a “BPA-free” note. But the majority of these jars are probably made of polycarbonate, which is more rigid than Tritan but also very strong. Both materials will crack if heated too high, which is why these jars should not go in the dishwasher.

We understand that some folks prefer metal or glass jars. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a powerful blender with a glass jar, and there’s probably a good reason for this. As April Jones explains in her article on Cooking For Engineers: “Due to the high-speed blades and high horsepower motors, glass isn’t the safest option for professional-grade blenders. If a metal object, such as a spoon or knife, were accidentally left in the blender, a glass pitcher could shatter and potentially cause an injury. Using polycarbonate plastics or copolyester is a much safer option to avoid the hazard of broken glass.” Stainless steel jars are durable but opaque, and we like to monitor the progress of purees and emulsifications without having to remove the lid.

Judging from buyer reviews, the holy grail for many home cooks seems to be a $50 or $100 blender that performs like a $500 Vitamix or Blendtec. But that isn’t realistic. High-end blenders priced at $150 and up—often called high-performance blenders—offer more power, produce much smoother textures, and generally last a lot longer than lower-end, under-$100 blenders. High-performance blenders also tackle tasks that you’d never want to try in a cheap blender, such as making peanut butter or milling grains.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with a cheap blender as long as you understand its limitations. Some people want an affordable midrange blender to make the occasional daiquiri or smoothie. So we’ve tested blenders in a wide range of prices with the understanding that, for the most part, you get what you pay for.

The most common complaint we’ve found about cheap blenders is that their motors burn out easily and their jars crack or leak. But it’s not impossible for even higher-end blenders to encounter burnout. As Lisa McManus, executive editor in charge of equipment testing at Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines, told our writer Seamus Bellamy in an interview for our 2012 guide, “Blenders have a really hard job to do in that little space. The motor is only so big. If you make it do something difficult every day, a lot of them burn out. It’s a lot of stress to put on a little machine.” This is why a long warranty is important, especially if you’re paying a lot for a blender. Vitamix, Oster, and Cleanblend models all come with warranties of five to seven years, and—at least for Vitamix machines—we’ve read plenty of owner reviews saying the blender lasts much longer. You can’t expect that level of performance from dirt-cheap blenders, which is probably why most of them come with only one-year limited warranties.

Whether you choose a blender with manual controls or preset functions is largely a personal preference. But we appreciate a powerful blender with a simple interface that includes an on/off switch, a pulse button, and a variable-speed dial. These easy controls allow you to quickly adjust the speed or turn off the machine if things get messy.

Preset programs for making smoothies, mixing soups, or crushing ice can be great if you want to multitask in the kitchen while blending. But we’ve also found that these functions rarely deliver purees as smooth as when we control the speed and time with the manual setting.

In our years of testing, we’ve found that a tamper—a small plastic bat that lets you push food down into the blades—separates the great blenders from the good ones. When a blender is really cranking, air pockets tend to form around the blade, and a tamper allows you to burst them without having to stop the machine. The tamper that comes with a blender is designed to safely clear the blades of that particular model, as long as you use it with the lid on. Using a different tamper or another tool that might hit the moving blades is dangerous and could damage the machine. If your blender doesn’t come with a tamper, the only way you should burst air pockets is to turn the machine off, remove the jar from the base, and stir the mixture with a spoon.

So why don’t all blenders come with a tamper? Because forcing frozen and thick mixtures into the blades puts a lot of stress on the motor. Performance blenders that include tampers have powerful motors that can handle this stress—they’re designed for it. But cheaper blenders have weaker motors. If they were to include tampers, people would probably push these machines past their limits, ultimately prompting the motor to burn out.

We judged each model on how well it performed everyday blending jobs such as making thick frozen smoothies and hot soups. We also wanted to see which blenders could emulsify eggs and oil into mayonnaise and pulverize nuts into a smooth butter. In each blender, we made a thick green smoothie packed with frozen bananas and berries, kale, and coconut water. We looked at each blender’s ability to create a consistent vortex without taxing the motor or needing additional liquid. Afterward, we tasted the smoothies to assess mouthfeel, and then we strained the remainder through a fine-mesh sieve to see how well the blenders had pulverized tough greens and berry seeds.

A blender can be a useful tool for making emulsified sauces such as mayonnaise, hollandaise, vinaigrettes, and Caesar dressing, so we tested each model’s ability to emulsify mayonnaise made with one egg yolk. Making a successful blender mayonnaise (or hollandaise or Caesar) hinges on the blades sitting low enough in the jar that they start whipping the egg yolk before you add a drop of oil.

To see how the motors handled dense purees, we processed raw peanuts into peanut butter. With our finalists, we made rounds of piña coladas to see how well they blended ice into slush.

Additionally, we noted how easy or difficult each blender was to clean, how noisy each model was, whether any of them produced a burning smell while the motor ran, whether the jars were difficult to attach to the bases, and how easy the interfaces were to use.

This high-performance machine blends more gracefully than any of the others we’ve tested. Its motor powers through thick mixtures, and it comes with a seven-year warranty backed by excellent customer service.

The Vitamix 5200 offers the best performance you can get in a home blender. This model has been one of our favorite blenders since 2014, and it’s the classic Vitamix that has remained the standard for pro chefs and blender enthusiasts. It consistently performed at the top of the pack in our tests, and it came recommended to us by multiple experts because it powerfully purees and pulverizes food more reliably, thoroughly, and elegantly than most blenders.

The Vitamix 5200 did not make the absolute smoothest smoothies of all the blenders we tested—that prize went to the Blendtec and Cleanblend machines. But when it came to consistent and graceful performance, the Vitamix won every time. This model was the only blender we tested that smoothly blended peanuts and almonds into butter. And whereas other blenders, such as the Blendtec, Cleanblend, and Oster, spit bits of mayo up the sides of the jar and out the lid’s center hole, the Vitamix kept the mixture smoothly and evenly moving around the base of the blade.

We found Vitamix’s variable-speed dial to have the best range among the blenders we tried. Its low is really low, and the blender produces a noticeable shift as you advance through each number. In our tests, this range of speeds made the Vitamix the best blender for hot liquids: You can start blending at a lazy swirl and slowly increase the speed so that the hot liquid is less likely to shoot up toward the lid and risk a volcanic, trip-to-the-burn-unit situation. In comparison, the Cleanblend has a forceful start on the lowest setting, which increases the chances of a painful eruption when you’re blending hot soups. The same goes for the Blendtec Designer 675, which in our tests was so powerful that the soup setting created a cyclone in a jar.

• We pitted a Blendtec blender against a Vitamix model in a series of head-to-head tests, and the winner was clear: Vitamix beat Blendtec every time.

The Vitamix’s tamper is essential for breaking up air pockets and pushing ingredients down toward the blade while the machine is running. When using models without a tamper, we often needed to stop the blender to burst air pockets or scrape ingredients down the sides of the jar with a spatula. In some cases, we also had to add more water to the smoothie to get all the ingredients to move around the blades without the help of a tamper. For all these reasons, blending in the Vitamix with a tamper took about half the time as it took in the Blendtec with no included tamper. By keeping the ingredients moving, we were able to whip up a smoothie in about 30 seconds.

The Vitamix’s Tritan-plastic jar feels sturdier than those of the other blenders we recommend, and the grippy handle is comfortable to hold. We also found the tall, narrow, tapered shape of the jar to be ideal for creating a strong vortex that pulled ingredients down toward the blade. That feature helped the Vitamix blend more efficiently than the Oster, with its wider jar, and the result was vastly superior to what we got from the wide, blocky jar of the Blendtec. Like the jars of most other high-powered blenders, the jar of the Vitamix (which has the blade attached) is very easy to clean: After you make a smoothie or something similar, you should find it sufficient to just pour in a bit of hot water, add a couple of drops of dish soap, blend for 30 seconds or so, and then rinse out the jar.

No high-powered blender we tested could be described as quiet, but we found the noise from the Vitamix to be much less offensive than the high-pitched whine of the Blendtec, and it was quieter than the roar of our runner-up, the Oster Versa.

Should its motor overheat, the Vitamix is equipped with an automatic shutoff feature to keep it from burning out. In our experience, the Vitamix should be able to handle a lot before it gets to that point, but if your Vitamix does shut off, it’s best to let the machine rest for an hour before you try to use it again.

One thing that softens the blow of spending more than $400 on a Vitamix is the comfort of knowing that it’s backed by a seven-year warranty. We called Vitamix’s customer service and learned that the approximate time between filing a claim and receiving your blender back in working order (or a certified refurb) is six to 10 days. For an additional fee, you can buy a three-year extended warranty for the 5200. If you purchase a new Vitamix from the company’s site or from a certified third-party retailer, such as Amazon, you have 30 days from the date of purchase to buy the extended warranty directly from Vitamix for $75. After 30 days have passed, you can purchase the extended warranty up until the original one expires for around $120.

You can save some money on a Vitamix if you opt for a certified-refurbished model. Jonathan Cochran of Blender Dude highly recommends them. “My pick for ‘best bang for the buck’ continues to be the Certified Refurbished (Blendtec) and Certified Reconditioned (Vitamix) models. I have personally inspected hundreds of each, and for all intents and purposes they are indistinguishable from the new models at a significantly reduced price point,” he told us. A certified reconditioned Vitamix comes with a five-year warranty, with the option to extend coverage three more years for an additional $75.

We used the same Vitamix 5200 in our test kitchen for five years with nothing but excellent results. It finally did burn out, but only after we put it through strenuous use over the course of many tests for both this guide and others. Still, it easily outlasted the Oster, and it made many more (and better) batches of nut butter and extra-thick smoothies before we pushed it to its limit. Since our Vitamix was still under warranty when it burned out, we contacted customer service, and the representatives promptly replaced it.

I’ve also used a Vitamix at home for years, and it’s still my favorite household blender, period. I long-term tested the runner-up, the Oster, for six months and noticed some glaring differences: The Vitamix can handle more without its motor straining, and the Vitamix’s tamper is much better than the Oster’s, which is really hard to get down in there.

Over the years, other Wirecutter staffers have expressed love for their Vitamix blenders. Former special projects editor Ganda Suthivarakom, who had used hers since 2015 without issue, said: “I love that I can make a lot of vegan recipes for cashew creams without having to soak the nuts beforehand.” Senior staff writer Chris Heinonen, who has owned his Vitamix since 2018, guesses that he has “used it more than all my blenders in the past combined.” The only minor complaint we’ve heard is from senior editor Kalee Thompson, who notes: “It’s so tall, it doesn’t fit under the upper shelves over my counters ... so I’m less inclined to leave it out, and once it’s away, I don’t use it as much.” That said, others have told us how much they appreciate the Vitamix’s large capacity.

We know that for many people, the biggest issue with the Vitamix 5200 is its steep price. At around $400 or so, it’s at least twice the price of our runner-up, the Oster Versa Pro Series Blender. In the past, we’ve even made the Oster our top pick because of its comparatively affordable price. But after years of testing the Vitamix and using it in our test kitchen, we think it’s truly worth the investment. It’s more durable and all-around more effective than any other blender we’ve found, and if you plan on using a blender regularly, it will make your life a lot easier. Plus, consider the cost of buying a smoothie rather than making it at home: A morning smoothie can run from about $5 to $13, so in two to four months you will have paid the same amount as for a 5200. A Vitamix, by contrast, will last you at least seven years (and it makes a lot more than smoothies).

At more than 20 inches tall, the Vitamix 5200 is a big appliance—too big to fit under some kitchen cabinets. But none of the other high-powered blenders we tested were much smaller. Though the Oster is a couple of inches shorter, it also has a beefier base. If size is an issue for you, Vitamix makes other lines of blenders (as mentioned below) that have a shorter profile. But we’ve found that the tall, narrow shape of the 5200’s blending jar is one of the components that help this machine create such an effective vortex.

Finally, the Vitamix 5200 doesn’t come with any presets, just a variable-speed dial. But even though it’s nice to be able to press a button and have your blender run through a smoothie-making program, it’s not really essential. You’ll probably stick close to your blender anyway in order to use the tamper to get things moving, and it’s not hard to adjust the dial if you feel the need to. With the Vitamix it’s also easy to get good results without any presets.

The 5200 isn’t the only blender in Vitamix’s selection—if you want the blending power of the 5200 but strongly prefer presets, or if you need a shorter jar that will fit your space, consider looking into other models. That said, the original 5200 remains our favorite because every new blender from Vitamix comes with a squat jar that doesn’t blend small amounts as well as the 5200’s tall and tapered pitcher. (Here’s a chart breaking down the features of the different Vitamix lines; the 5200 is part of the Legacy Series.)

We’re currently testing our way through Vitamix’s product line. Here’s what we think about the models we’ve looked at so far:

Compared with our top pick, the Vitamix 5200, the Vitamix 5300 has the same 64-ounce capacity and speed-control dial, but it lacks the ultra-high-speed switch available on the 5200. In testing, we found that the 5300’s low-profile jar failed to maintain a vortex as well as the 5200’s narrow, tapered one. Also, for smaller volumes—2 cups or less—the 5300’s tamper didn’t reach down quite far enough to burst air pockets. We had to add more liquid to thicker mixtures, such as date puree and hummus, because the tamper wasn’t cutting it. The 5300 is part of Vitamix’s C-Series, along with the 5200 and Explorian models. One perk of the C-Series blenders, albeit a pricey one, is that they all work with the original tall tapered jar, which you can buy for $150. This doesn’t seem like a great deal if you’re buying a new Vitamix now, but it’s something to consider down the line if you have a C-Series blender and find yourself struggling to blend small volumes.

The Vitamix Ascent series 2300 and 2500 blenders perform similarly to the 5300 in blending power and basic functionality, with a graduated speed dial, a pulse switch, and on/off buttons. The 2000 Ascent series models have bigger control dials than other models and digital timer displays. The difference between the 2300 and the 2500 is that the former is manual only while the latter has three blending programs in addition to the manual blending function. Like all of the low-profile Vitamix blenders we tested, these Ascent models aren’t as graceful or effective at blending smaller volumes as the 5200. And unlike the low-profile C-Series blenders (5300 and Explorian), the Ascent models don’t accommodate the original tall jar.

The Vitamix Explorian E320, available at Costco, is 99% identical to the 5300. A Vitamix customer service representative told us that the two blenders had the same motor base, jar, tamper, and functionality. The main difference between the blenders is that the 5300 has a small on/off switch located just below the control panel. On top of that, the E320 is available only as part of a package with two personal cups and an adapter.

Vitamix added the Explorian Series E310 variable-speed blender to its lineup in 2017. We chose not to test this model because we didn’t think it was a good value. Although it’s typically three-quarters the price of the Vitamix 5200, the cost difference is directly proportional to the E310’s smaller blending jar (48 ounces versus 64 ounces) and shorter warranty (five versus seven years). On the E310, Vitamix also replaced the switch that flips the machine from variable speed to high power with a pulse switch, thus eliminating the option for one-touch high-power blending. If you have limited storage space in your kitchen, you might like the E310 for its shorter height (about 17 inches tall, compared with the Vitamix 5200, which is about 20 inches tall). But if you’re going to shell out the cash for a Vitamix blender, we still think spending a little more on the 5200 is the best choice.

This Oster Versa model offers the best balance of performance and price that we’ve found. It’s not as powerful or durable as the Vitamix 5200, but it holds its own against many blenders that are twice the price.

We don’t think you can beat the value of the Oster Versa Pro Series Blender. It isn’t quite as powerful as the Vitamix 5200, but it is about half the price, and it beat out most of the other blenders in its price range at making silky smoothies, purees, and blended cocktails. It has one of the best combinations of variable and preset speeds we’ve found, and its settings are more intuitive to use than those on other models we’ve tried. It also offers features, such as a tamper and overheating protection, that are usually available only on more expensive blenders. We don’t think the Oster is as durable as the Vitamix (ours burned out after two and a half years). But it does come with a seven-year warranty, and it’s a great option if you’re not ready to spring for the Vitamix.

The Oster passed almost every challenge we threw at it. And although it failed to achieve the absolute smoothest drink textures compared with the Blendtec or the Cleanblend—it left whole raspberry seeds in smoothies and made a slightly grainy piña colada—its smoothies were still much smoother than any of the results from lower-priced blenders. As long as the Oster had about 2 cups of nuts to work with, it made a decent nut butter (albeit one that was slightly crunchier than the batch we made in the Vitamix). And it whipped up a velvety puree. The only thing the Oster really struggled to do was make mayonnaise; we were able to make an emulsification only once out of four tries.

We found the Oster easier to control than other blenders of a similar price, thanks to its wide range of speeds. Though not as varied as those on the Vitamix, the speeds on the Oster are far more diverse than those on the Cleanblend, which, despite its variable-speed dial, seems to have only two settings: high and higher. In comparison, the Oster’s low speed is sane enough that you can start pureeing a batch of soup without having hot liquid shoot up the sides of the jar (a problem with the Cleanblend).

The Oster is the only one of our blender picks to have both manual speed controls and preset programs for soup, dip, and smoothies. This makes it more versatile than the more expensive entry-level models from Vitamix and Blendtec, which have only variable or preset speeds, respectively. To get presets with a Vitamix, or a variable-speed “touch slider” with a Blendtec model, you need to spend even more.

The tamper that comes with the Oster is a little too short and oddly shaped. In contrast to the smooth cylindrical tampers of the Vitamix and Cleanblend models, the Oster’s tamper has three flat pieces of plastic that meet in the middle. But the design works sufficiently to burst air bubbles and help move things like peanuts around the blades, so it’s better than no tamper at all.

This Oster model, like other high-performance blenders, is a beefy machine. The base takes up 8 by 9 inches of counter space. But at 17½ inches tall to the top of the lid, the Oster will fit better on a counter under most kitchen cabinets than the Vitamix or the Cleanblend, both of which are more than 19 inches tall.

Also, like all the other high-powered blenders we tested, the Oster gets loud when you turn the motor up all the way—much louder than the Vitamix but not as annoying or high-pitched as the Blendtec. For now, this is just the way it is with high-performance blenders.

Like the Vitamix, the Oster shuts off if the motor is in danger of overheating. If the Oster’s overload protection stops the motor, you should allow it to cool for 45 minutes and press the reset button on the bottom of the base before you run the blender again. This procedure reduces the risk of permanent motor burnout.

The Oster Versa passed almost every challenge we threw at it.

Should it burn out, the Oster comes with a limited seven-year warranty that covers “defects in material and workmanship,” including the motor and the Tritan jar. That policy is about the same as the coverage from Blendtec and Vitamix, which offer eight- and seven-year warranties, respectively, on their models. In our experience, Oster’s customer service is courteous and quickly addresses any issues with a blender while it’s under warranty.

But if you’re thinking that the Oster Versa will deliver the longevity and performance of a Vitamix 5200 at a fraction of the cost, think again. The Oster model’s biggest flaw is its durability: We found through personal experience that the Versa can burn out after two to three years of moderate to frequent use (see our long-term test notes for this model below). We’ve seen some reviews on Amazon (as well as comments from our readers) that mention the same problem. But Oster honors its seven-year warranty and is quick to send a replacement (we got ours in about a week). Although it took three attempts for us to get through to customer service by phone during the busy holiday shopping season, we’re assuming that hiccup was due to the unusually high call volume that occurs at that time of year.

The blending jar, lid, and controls on the Oster also feel cheaper compared with what you get on the Vitamix. But given that this blender is typically almost $250 less, we’re comfortable with the lower-quality hardware.

For three years, we used the Versa twice a week on average to make smoothies and soup, and it never quit on us during that time—although we occasionally detected a faint burning smell from the motor while we were blending thick smoothies. But the motor permanently died when we formally tested the three-year-old Versa again for our 2017 update: One minute into our blending the nut butter, the overload protection cut the motor. We should’ve let the motor rest for 45 minutes before restarting, but we let it cool for only 10 minutes before our second attempt—and that’s when the motor burned out completely. However, our blender was still under warranty, and Oster quickly sent a replacement.

Wirecutter’s audience development manager, Erin Price, uses the Oster Versa and so far has no complaints. She told us: “I’ve had the Oster Versa since 2016, and it’s still going strong (though it sat in storage for one of those years). I mostly use it for smoothies, and it handles ice and greens so well.”

A relative newcomer, this blender makes some of the silkiest smoothies, but its speeds aren’t as nuanced as those on our top pick.

If you’re willing to take a chance on a shorter warranty from a newer company, the 1,800-watt Cleanblend Blender costs about the same as the Oster Versa and produces finer purees. In our tests, it blended silkier smoothies and piña coladas than many blenders that cost more than twice as much. This model comes with a durable Tritan-plastic jar and a tamper for you to help move thick mixtures while it’s blending. The Cleanblend doesn’t have any preset buttons, and its variable speeds aren’t as nuanced as those of the Vitamix, but its interface is simple and intuitive to use. Judging from our long-term testing, the Cleanblend’s motor is durable and able to handle tough jobs like nut butter better than the Oster. It’s also backed by a complete five-year warranty.

The Cleanblend made some of the smoothest smoothies in our tests, performing better than the Oster and even the Vitamix in that regard. When we strained the Cleanblend’s kale and berry smoothie, barely any raspberry seeds remained in our fine-mesh sieve; the only blender that did better was the Blendtec. The Cleanblend also came in second, behind the Blendtec, in blending a silky-smooth piña colada. We’re talking restaurant-worthy blended drinks here.

For blending other things, the Cleanblend has a few limitations. It doesn’t have as wide a range of speeds as the Oster or the Vitamix, and it kicks into high gear even at the 1 setting, which in our soup test sent hot liquid shooting up to the lid. Although the Cleanblend was better at making mayonnaise than the Oster, this model’s motor also seemed to produce a lot of heat; its mayo was noticeably warm. Like our other picks (except the KitchenAid, our budget pick), the Cleanblend comes with a tamper, but the bat is a little short. Although it works fine for most tasks, don’t attempt to make nut butter from fewer than 2 cups of nuts, because the shorter tamper won’t reach the mixture once the nuts are finely ground.

The Cleanblend made some of the smoothest smoothies in our tests.

Over our long-term testing, the Cleanblend’s motor has seemed more durable than the Oster’s, though we’re not sure it’s a match for the motor of the time-tested Vitamix. In our 2017 testing, our four-year-old Cleanblend and Vitamix blenders both powered through two rounds of nut butter without quitting. The same test fried our three-year-old Oster. That said, Oster offers a seven-year warranty on the Versa Pro Series Blender, but Cleanblend offers only a five-year total warranty.

For an extra $75, you can extend the warranty on your Cleanblend Blender to a total of 10 years. This is a great value when you consider that the blender, including the decade of coverage, still costs about $200 less than a Vitamix. If you’re looking for the all-around great performance of a Vitamix for less than half the cost, you won’t find that here (or anywhere else for that matter), but the Cleanblend is a good value when you compare the numbers.

However, Cleanblend’s customer service is reachable only by email or a form on its website, and that might not inspire confidence in some people. Both Vitamix and Oster have a customer service phone number that connects you to a representative. Even though the Cleanblend seems more durable than the Oster, Cleanblend is such a new company that we’re not yet confident in its blender’s long-term reliability.

The Cleanblend’s base takes up 9½ by 8 inches of counter space, about the same as our other high-performance picks (our budget pick, the KitchenAid, is smaller). And at 19 inches high to the top of the lid, the Cleanblend is taller than the Oster, but it has just slightly more clearance under most kitchen cabinets than the Vitamix (which measures closer to 20 inches). Also, like all of the other high-performance blenders we tested, the Cleanblend is loud. But compared with the Ninja Chef’s thunderous roar and the Blendtec’s high-pitched whine, the Cleanblend’s sound is far easier on the ears.

Senior staff writer Michael Sullivan has used an older version of the Cleanblend at home for about four years and says he has never had an issue with it. He pulls it out about six times a month to make smoothies, sauces, soup, or occasionally emulsifications like mayonnaise. He has even crushed ice in it a few times, and he says that so far it has never stalled out.

Sabrina Imbler, a Wirecutter staff writer at the time of our tests, used the Cleanblend in her home for more than a year. She used it three to four times a week and never experienced stalling or burnout. She told us: “[My] only minor complaint is that sometimes the blender rattles a bit on top of the base, which makes me a little wary, but otherwise it’s great. I only use it for smoothies and mixed drinks, never any kind of nuts, but it pulverizes ice pretty quick. It’s also the perfect size for two smoothies. I tend to use the middle range of speeds, as I rarely need the highest, and the lowest is less effective for my needs. And I really like that it’s a dial as opposed to number buttons—easier to [crank] up if my stuff isn’t blending fast.”

This compact 48-ounce blender is ideal for occasional use or for small kitchens with limited storage space.

If you blend only the occasional smoothie, daiquiri, or soup, you don’t need an expensive high-powered blender. The KitchenAid K150 3 Speed Ice Crushing Blender will serve your needs. Offering a low profile and a 48-ounce blending jar, this blender is the most compact of all our picks. In our tests, the K150 proved adequate at blending thick smoothies, but not without a couple of stops and starts or our having to add a little more liquid to get a consistent vortex going. It can’t puree tough berry seeds as our top pick can, nor can it produce such velvety-smooth frozen drinks. However, the K150 has a mighty motor for the price and will handle most simple blending tasks.

The KitchenAid K150 offers three speeds plus a pulse setting for crushing ice. For frozen drinks and smoothies, the second speed seems to be the sweet spot, as that’s where we encountered the fewest air pockets. As with most blenders at this price, you need to add more liquid to get smoothies and frozen drinks to blend with a continuous vortex; otherwise, you need to stop it a couple of times to break up air pockets. Overall, we were satisfied with the drinks we made in the K150. The piña colada was a little icy but not offensive, and the smoothie was what we’d expect from a good $100 blender: very drinkable, with whole berry seeds and tiny flecks of kale.

When you turn the K150 on, the blades automatically start slow and ramp up to the set speed, a feature that’s great for safely blending hot liquids like pureed soups. But it’s still important that you take precautions when blending hot foods, such as starting on low speed and securing the lid with a folded dish towel.

We were pleasantly surprised that the K150 let us make a small batch of mayonnaise from one egg yolk and half a cup of oil. We didn’t think the jar’s wide square base and relatively short blade span would allow us to emulsify such a small volume.

As its name indicates, the KitchenAid K150 3 Speed Ice Crushing Blender does crush ice. We’re not talking professional-grade fluffy shaved ice, but it’ll do the trick if you want to make a few snow cones on a hot summer day.

The K150 is lightweight and compact—perfect for people who want to store their blender in a cabinet. It also has a low profile (15 inches) that allows it to fit easily in the standard clearance between kitchen countertops and upper cabinets (18 inches). But the pitcher is on the small side at 48 ounces, and it lacks the comfy rubber-clad handle on our other picks.

As an alternative to buying this blender as is (base, 48-ounce jar, and lid), you can get it bundled with two personal blending cups for around $50 more. We haven’t tested the personal blending cups yet, but we’ll give them a try soon and report back. KitchenAid also plans to release a version of the K150 with a glass blending jar, though we prefer plastic blender jars for their durability.

At this writing the K150 seems to have some stock issues post–Black Friday shopping. We’re told that stock should be replenished some time in January 2021 in a broader range of colors. The KitchenAid K150 comes with a one-year warranty that excludes accidents, drops, misuse, and abuse.

Wirecutter staff writer Sarah Bogdan has the K150, and she and her roommate use it a few times a month for smoothies. She says that it blends fruits just fine, but she wishes that it got a finer blend with the vegetables she adds like kale and spinach. However, her roommate who sticks to peanut butter, bananas, and protein powder has no issues with it. It’s been a little difficult to clean, but she also realizes that’s true of any full-size blender.

If you find that your blender is having a difficult time processing ingredients, don’t be afraid to be aggressive (within reason) with the tamper to get the mixture moving around the blades. Also, make sure the blender jar is at least 25% full. Although high speeds will help process smoother mixtures, a lower speed (PDF) may also help ingredients start circulating if they just aren’t moving. When you’re following a recipe, it’s also good to add ingredients in the order listed; blender recipe books tend to be specific with the order (Vitamix, for example, generally lists ice as the last ingredient).

To limit the risk of hot liquids shooting out the top of a blending jar, always start on a low setting and slowly increase the speed (in general, presets do this automatically). Never fill the jar past the hot-liquid fill line. And for good measure, to limit the risk of the lid popping off, place a dish towel over the lid, with your hand firmly holding the lid down, while you blend.

Hand wash the blending jar with warm, soapy water rather than running it through the dishwasher. This will help extend the life of the jar. In our own testing, we found that the best way to clean a blender jar is to use a bottle brush or a scrub brush; processing water and a little soap in the blender jar will help loosen up tough ingredients such as peanut butter, and the brush should do the rest.

We’re continuing to test more blenders, including the Nutribullet Smart Touch, the second-generation model of the three-speed Nutribullet Full Size blender that we mention in the Other good blenders section. Compared with its predecessor, the Smart Touch has extra features including four blending programs and a digital display. We’re also testing the Vitamix Ascent 3500—the most expensive and feature-packed model Vitamix offers. The Ascent 3500 has five blending programs, touchscreen controls, and Bluetooth connectivity that lets you choose from more blending options via an app on your phone (though we’re not sure how helpful that is on a blender).

If you’re looking for a powerful and attractive blender: The KitchenAid Pro Line Series Blender is a good choice for the aesthetically minded cook. It looks good when it’s not in use—and good thing, because at 22 pounds, this blender is meant to live on a countertop, rather than being lifted in and out of cupboards. In our tests it blended silky-smooth textures (though not quite as easily as the Vitamix 5200), but it didn’t do well at emulsification. After a few years of long-term testing the KitchenAid Pro Line blender, Wirecutter deputy editor Christine Cyr Clisset says that she really likes it. Christine uses the Pro Line everyday for smoothies and finds the preset blending programs useful on busy weekday mornings. (She did admit, however, that she adds enough liquid to her smoothies so that they blend without her needing to use a tamper.) Christine also frequently purees soups in the Pro Line blender with satisfactory results.

If you need speed and strength from your blender: The Braun Triforce Power Blender is a beast. When we tested it against other high-powered picks, the Braun Triforce yielded super-silky smoothies in record time—just under a minute. But we thought it blended almost too well. The Triforce’s smoothies were liquified and lacked the creaminess and sorbet-like body we got from our other picks. It’s so powerful that it shot bits of food through the hole in the lid, spraying our countertop and backsplash with smoothie in the five seconds between when we removed the tamper and replaced the lid cap. All that power makes a good nut butter, though. We like the Braun’s backlit control panel, which includes a variable speed dial, six blend settings, and a pulse button. We think this is a good blender for the price, if not a little too powerful.

If you’re looking for a fairly powerful budget option: We’re impressed with the performance and price of the Nutribullet Full Size Blender. Like the Braun, the Nutribullet tends to blend the body and creaminess out of a smoothie, yielding a more liquified (yet admittedly smoother) result than our budget pick, the KitchenAid K150. The Nutribullet also emulsified mayonnaise on the first try. It failed our nut butter test, but we’ve yet to find a $100 blender that can pulverize nuts into a paste. After much deliberation on whether to make it our new budget pick, we decided to hold off and long-term test the Nutribullet to gauge its durability. I’ll personally use the Nutribullet at home over the coming months and report back.

The knife maker Zwilling now has a line of small kitchen appliances that includes the Enfinigy Power Blender. This blender didn’t make it past the first round of our tests because getting a decent 20-ounce smoothie took us over two minutes of blending and vigorous tamping—enough to make my hand sore for two days after testing. The jar is simply too wide, and the tamper too stumpy, to accommodate smaller volumes—and we don’t even consider 20 fluid ounces “small.” We do like the Zwilling’s streamlined backlit control panel, which allows you to use just one dial to toggle between the six blending programs and 12 speed settings. But the icons are small and might be difficult to decipher for some folks.

The KitchenAid K400 blender is more powerful than the KitchenAid K150 (our budget pick) but not enough to warrant its $150-plus price jump. And in our tests the K400 wasn’t nearly as good at blending fibrous kale as the less expensive Oster and Cleanblend blenders.

Will the Blendtec Designer 675 blend? Yes, but not as well as our top picks. Despite Blendtec’s clever (if at times mildly sinister) video marketing campaign of blending everything from rake handles to iPhones, we’ve found its blenders wanting (we also tested the Total model in 2012). Although in our tests the Designer 675 killed it in making smoothies and blended drinks, its lack of a tamper limits its usefulness. It failed to make peanut butter (a tamper would have helped), and the preset speed for soup was frightening, with hot liquid flying wildly around the jar. We do think this particular model is quite beautiful, with a sleek black, illuminated base. It’s a great blender if you want something that looks slick on your counter and can make amazingly smooth mixed drinks and smoothies. But we think a blender that’s this expensive should perform well at more than just those two tasks. For more on how the Blendtec stacks up against the Vitamix 5200, read our article about testing the two blenders head-to-head.

We tested the Blendtec Total Blender for our 2012 review but found that it couldn’t compete with the Vitamix we tested at the time. The lid felt flimsy, and this model’s panel controls seemed cheap.

The Breville Super Q is a performance blender that’s packed with bells and whistles. In our tests, with its squat jar and powerful motor, the Super Q performed a lot like the Blendtec Designer 675, throwing smoothie up the sides and into the lid. At one point, the Breville shot bits of a smoothie in my face when I opened the cap to add more liquid. The Super Q pulverizes tough foods, but the Vitamix also does that for less money—and with less drama inside the jar. The Super Q also generated a lot of heat when we made peanut butter—so much that we had to stop the test early when we noticed steam coming out of the jar. Although the Super Q blended the silkiest piña coladas and came with lots of extra goodies (a 68-ounce jar, a personal blending jar, preset blending programs, and a vacuum attachment that’s supposed to slow the oxidation of raw foods), we don’t think it’s worth the $100-plus over the Vitamix’s price, especially since most of those goodies would just clutter your cabinets.

In our tests, the Cuisinart CBT-1500 Hurricane struggled to process foods. Blending thick smoothies and peanut butter required adding more liquid, a lot of starting and stopping, and banging the jar on the counter. It did make mayonnaise on the first try, though, unlike the more powerful Cuisinart CBT-2000 Hurricane Pro. But without the Turbo button of the Hurricane Pro (more on that below), this model is just another middle-of-the-road blender.

The Cuisinart CBT-2000 Hurricane Pro performed similarly to the Cuisinart CBT-1500 Hurricane, except it didn’t make mayonnaise as well (we achieved emulsification on the third try only). We did find the Turbo button useful for creating a fine puree. But again, without a tamper to burst air pockets, this blender needed a lot of tending to produce uniform, smooth purees.

The Ninja Chef CT800 1,500-watt blender is the first high-performance model from this company that doesn’t have sets of blades throughout the jar. Instead, the Ninja Chef’s blades sit in the base of the jar, as in normal blenders. This model also performed better than its predecessors. But it was extremely loud, and our top picks—the Vitamix, the Oster, and the Cleanblend—still blended silkier smoothies in our tests.

For the price, the Ninja Master Prep Professional is a decent blender, but we don’t think it compares to any of our other picks. It did a surprisingly good job of making smoothies, mixing bean spread, and blending margaritas, but the design is terrible for making mayonnaise (the motor is top-mounted, so you can’t drizzle anything into the jar). The stacked blades are also dangerously sharp, making them difficult to clean. The Ninja Master Prep Professional comes with three blending jars in various sizes; we thought that it added up to too many parts and that they would just end up cluttering our cupboards. Overall, the machine felt really cheap.

The Ninja Professional Blender 1000 didn’t perform well. The green smoothies we made in this blender had a weird, confetti-like texture. And the mayo this model made was especially loose, which meant that it was whipping in too much air. Every time we ran this Ninja blender, we detected a strong, burning-motor smell. The jar was hard to get on the base, and the lid was tricky to clamp on. Also, the base was big, clunky, and cheap feeling.

The Instant Pot Ace 60 cooks soups quickly, but it can’t make much food at once. Video: Sarah Kobos

The Instant Pot Ace 60 Cooking Blender is unique in that it has a heating element in its base, so it can both cook and puree foods (some high-powered blenders also claim to “cook” soup, but they do so only with friction). After performing extensive testing, we found that this seemingly nifty feature was impractical. We made a decent broccoli cheese soup and a smooth butternut squash puree, but we had to blend each one for longer than the programmed setting to get a creamy texture. And we were disappointed to discover that we couldn’t adjust the temperature or sauté in the machine, since the heating element doesn’t start if it doesn’t detect liquid in the jar. As such, the Ace doesn’t produce the same nuanced flavors that you’d get if you started with a little caramelization. The heating element also introduces another possible point of failure into a type of appliance that is already prone to burning out.

The Ace whipped up smooth peanut butter and did a slightly better job of pulverizing ice cubes and tough kale leaves than most of the budget-level blenders we’ve tested. But it’s huge and loud, and its glass jar is heavier and less durable than the Tritan plastic jars of our picks. The jar’s wide base also makes it difficult for the Ace to form a powerful vortex (instead flinging ingredients all over the jar).

The 1,800-watt Hamilton Beach Professional Blender performed well in our tests. When we used the manual speeds, the blender’s digital readout showed a countdown timer, which was helpful because the instruction manual advised against continuously running the motor for more than two minutes. But the preprogrammed settings didn’t effectively keep the mixture moving when air pockets occurred. In addition, the on/off buttons are angled upward at the top of the base and thus susceptible to food and grime buildup over time.

The Braun PureMix is a small, tamper-less blender, and it didn’t impress us in the least, with a flimsy jug and a lightweight base. The PureMix had a hard time blending our smoothie, and we needed to add so much liquid to the mixture that the texture was way too thin—yuck! We disqualified the Braun after our first test.

The Waring Commercial Xtreme made notably smooth smoothies, and it felt substantial. But ultimately it didn’t perform better than our picks from Vitamix, Oster, or Cleanblend. If we were willing to pay this much for a blender, we’d instead go for a reconditioned Vitamix 5200. We do like that Waring has a metal jar that you can purchase for this machine.

1. Midpriced Blenders (subscription required), America’s Test Kitchen

2. Andrew Gebhart, Ry Crist, From smoothies to pesto to almond butter: 13 blenders reviewed, CNET, August 22, 2014

3. Lisa McManus, executive editor of equipment testing at America’s Test Kitchen, interview

4. Jonathan Cochran, author of the Blender Dude blog, interview

5. J. Kenji López-Alt, Vitamix vs. Blendtec vs. Breville: Who Makes the Best High-End Blender?, Serious Eats, December 16, 2014