How The Wirecutter Selected The Best Dishwashers On the Market
There are five reasons to buy a new dishwasher: You’re remodeling your kitchen; you’re building a new home; your old machine is broken beyond economical repair; you can’t find a replacement for a discontinued model; or you want to upgrade from an inferior, low-end model. If you fall into one of these categories, we have recommendations for replacing your dishwasher with a better one.
Our research revealed that most of the features on today’s dishwashers don’t make them any better at cleaning dishes. Some features, such as adjustable racks, do help in certain situations, but they won’t be of much use unless you have a specific need. For example, only people who frequently entertain large groups—and thus wash lots of platters and other large dishes—will regularly benefit from an adjustable top rack.
Most people don’t wash dishes by hand anymore because it’s more convenient to use a dishwasher. We think that convenience should extend to the buying process too, so we tried to keep our advice simple and straightforward.
How We Chose the Best Dishwashers
To find the best dishwashers, we looked at the top-rated models on sites like Consumer Reports and Reviewed.com, and compared their features against those of the most popular dishwashers sold on retailer sites like Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Every dishwasher we considered had to be able to accommodate tall items like wineglasses and water bottles; fit 14 place settings (the standard minimum); have a sanitizing cycle; and display a score of at least 65 out of 100 from either Consumer Reports or Reviewed.com, with no worse than a fair reliability rating from Consumer Reports. The latter criterion ensured that we were only considering reliable dishwashers—a must for such a long-term purchase.
We also looked for models that were Energy Star certified or had some kind of energy efficiency ranking, so that you wouldn’t have to worry about paying too much in utility costs.
Before we start, a disclaimer: We know that for some people, the dishwasher is an appliance you use only if you have to. If you’re in that camp and are looking for a new one, we suggest our report on portable dishwashers.
But for those of us who rely on a dishwasher to help keep our kitchens clean and running smoothly, having a dishwasher that actually works well can make all the difference. So we spent 100 hours researching more than 50 models, interviewing experts, and testing four of the top-rated models ourselves to find the best dishwasher for most people.
After spending 30 hours researching more than 50 models and interviewing experts, including repair technicians and a professor who has studied dishwashers for 15 years, we think the GE GLDT696JSS is the best dishwasher for most people. It has all of the features you need in a dishwasher at an affordable price, including bottle jets (a rarity at this price), a third rack for silverware or small items like ladles, and a sanitizing cycle that’s certified by NSF International to kill 99.999 percent of bacteria on dishes.
We found that the Bosch 300 Series SHEM63W55N was best for most. The lower-end Bosch 500 Series SHPM65Z55N is a bit quieter and has some extra features, but it costs almost twice as much and performs a little worse. If you want top cleaning performance and can’t stand the idea of anything less than absolute silence, the KitchenAid KDPE234GPS is worth the extra cost and noise. For about half the price of our top picks, the Kenmore 13222 is a good option if you don’t mind its slightly less-impressive cleaning power and more basic features.
The Bosch 300 Series SHEM63W55N has been our top pick since 2015, when we first published this guide. Last year, we tested all new models that came out since then, but we still think it’s the best dishwasher for most people. The Bosch 500 Series SHPM65Z55N is also an excellent dishwasher and comes with some nice extras like a third rack for utensils on top of the machine, but it costs almost twice as much as the 300 Series model . The KitchenAid KDTM354ESS (and its identical twin from Whirlpool, the WDT730PA
In the process of testing dishwashers, we discovered that almost all of them work pretty well. In fact, the major differences between them are in design and features. So, as it turns out, choosing a dishwasher is fairly simple.
The first step to finding the best dishwasher is to narrow your focus: Do you need a standard-size 24-inch unit that fits into a typical kitchen space? Or would you prefer an 18-inch model for smaller spaces? How many people live in your household? The size of your family dictates the amount of space you will need for each load. Are you looking for a dishwasher with a special finish or extra features?
A good rule of thumb is to buy the biggest dishwasher you can fit in your kitchen and afford. We say this because most full-size dishwashers are designed to handle 14 place settings and because most families—even small ones—don’t run full loads on a daily basis (and when they do, they usually have plenty of pots, pans, plates, and utensils to fill up a bigger machine). The only exception to this advice involves households with just two people; if your family is so small, consider looking at models with a 12-place-setting capacity or
The KitchenAid KDTE104ESS is the best dishwasher for most people because it’s quiet, versatile, and roomy, and it aces our cleaning tests.
The Bosch 300 Series SHEM63W55N is the best dishwasher for most people because it’s quiet, versatile, and roomy, and it aces our cleaning tests.
This is a great dishwasher that we highly recommend but can’t currently buy.
Though Bosch’s 500 Series may look similar to the 300 Series or 100 Series, the 500 has been redesigned to be much quieter. It also comes with more standard features than its older siblings, like a third rack that holds long flat utensils (such as spatulas and tongs), a self-cleaning filter, an easy-to-use control panel with an LED “Remaining Time Display” that counts down the time left in a wash cycle on the status screen, and InfoLight—a light projector that shines on the floor to let you know when a cycle is running. The 500 Series also offers a sanitizing cycle—something you won’t find in any of our recommended models—for when you need to kill bacteria.
Despite all these upgrades, though, the 500 Series isn’t significantly
If you have a dishwasher, you know how many dishes can fit in one load. But what happens when you’re hosting a dinner party or having friends over for the big game? When you need to clean more dishes than usual, it’s annoying to keep running the dishwasher half-full.
To help you avoid this inconvenience, we looked for highly rated dishwashers with tall tubs that could hold more items in a single load.
The most common tub height on the market is 34.5 inches. We found only four highly rated models with taller tubs, which rose between 3 to 5 inches above the standard height: the Bosch SHX68T55UC (36 inches), the KitchenAid KDFE104DSS (35.75 inches), Kenmore Elite 14793 (35.75 inches), and Samsung DW80H9970US (35.63 inches). A couple of other models, such as the Bosch SHX68T56UC, were available with an optional third rack for even more loading space; however, all the experts we spoke to said that third racks aren’t worth their added cost or space use in terms of capacity increase. With these models, you’ll be able to clean up after a