Best dishwashers 2021

Choose the best dishwasher for you

Buying a great dishwasher means kissing goodbye to washing up by hand. Our expert guide tells you what you need to know to buy the best dishwasher for your home.

One dishwasher may look like another, but our rigorous tests have revealed huge differences in how well they clean and dry. The best will leave your crockery gleaming, while the worst will see you standing at the sink re-washing still grubby plates and bowls.

Picking the right model for you also comes down to your budget, the size of your kitchen and the capacity and features you want.

Best dishwashers: what features should you look out for?

• Delay start - most dishwashers come with a delay timer, which allows you to set the dishwasher hours before you want the wash program to start.
• Adjustable racks - if you regularly host dinner parties you might want adjustable racks so you can fit platters and wine glasses in with ease.
• A child-safe lock - will protect your dishwasher’s control panel from curious little fingers.
• Smart features – this allows you to control and monitor your dishwasher remotely via an app on your smartphone or tablet.
• Automatic open door drying – this opens the door of your dishwasher slightly near the end of your wash to let the steam escape, allowing your dishes to dry better.
• Sensor wash or fuzzy logic – a more advanced feature, this measures how dirty the dishes are, and adjusts the temperature and length of the wash accordingly.

Which? experts offer advice on how to buy the best dishwasher in our dishwasher buying guide.

Best dishwashers for running costs

Be careful not to pick an inefficient machine. Although most models have an A rating for energy efficiency, this doesn’t mean they won’t guzzle gallons of water during each wash. Which? rates each machine out of five stars for water and energy use. Shop smart and you could save yourself £37 every year.

Our best buy dishwashers not only ensure your items are left sparkling clean but also using less water in the process. If you only put your dishwasher on when it's full, the best will use less water than the usual washing up bowl, despite cleaning more than a hundred items. 

Our top rated dishwasher has been awarded an "energy saver" badge and can use up to 40% less energy and 25% less water than other models. 

Best dishwashers for 2021

We've selected our pick of the best dishwashers to help you find the right model for your home.

These models are great all-rounders and will leave your dishes sparkling clean - they are the very best dishwashers that we've tested this year.

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Best dishwashers by size: full-width, slimline and compact

Whether you want a compact, slimline or full-sized dishwasher, we’ve got a top-scoring model for you. Hundreds of dishwashers have passed through our labs, including models from Beko, Bosch, Hotpoint, Miele, Zanussi and others. The picks in the table below are some of the very best dishwashers we’ve tested.

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Best dishwasher by type: freestanding and integrated

Freestanding dishwashers are designed for front door to remain fully visible. They're available in a range of colours white, black, grey and silver.

Integrated dishwashers are designed to be incorporated into built-in kitchens. They fall into two categories fully integrated and semi integrated. Fully integrated dishwashers are hidden behind a kitchen cabinet door. Semi-integrated – where most of the front is covered, but the control panel is left visible at the top.

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How much should you spend to buy the best dishwasher?

Whether you’re looking for a freestanding, integrated dishwasher or the best slimline dishwasher, our experts discovered that spending a fortune doesn’t guarantee quality. In fact, Which? have uncovered an £800 dishwasher that does such a bad job we've labelled it a Don't Buy, and Best Buy-rated models for half the price.

We currently have 50 Best Buy dishwashers including a budget option that costs less than £220 and our top-rated model is under £630. 

What are the best dishwasher brands?

Discover the best and most reliable dishwasher brands, according to our Which? independent test lab reviews and survey of dishwasher owners.

We’ve asked thousands of Which? members about their dishwashers, to find out which brands impress when you install them at home. Our tough tests have also uncovered plenty of Best Buy machines that will leave your crockery and cutlery spotless, but we've also found some that fail to shift grime.

Our research means you can now see at a glance the brands that should give you unrivalled cleaning over a number of years and those that could prove a costly waste of money.

Below, we share what we’ve learnt about the big dishwasher brands – such as Bosch, Hotpoint, Indesit and Miele – and bring you the top dishwasher brands for 2021. 

Compare best dishwashers by brand

View Beko dishwashers >

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View Hotpoint dishwashers >

View Indesit dishwashers >

View Miele dishwashers >

Don't Buy dishwashers to avoid

Some dishwashers do such a poor job of cleaning and drying in our tests that we’ve labelled them with our Don’t By warning. They're annoyingly noisy and the worst are a chore to load and unload, too. The Don't Buy dishwashers below are definitely best avoided.

How we test dishwashers

Which? is independent – we work for you, the consumer, so you can be sure that our dishwasher recommendations are influenced only by our test results. We don’t take advertising and we buy all the products that we assess ourselves. With more than 50 years expertise in testing appliances, you can trust that we’re the experts in separating the good from the bad.

Every dishwasher is assessed in the Which? test lab using a strict range of criteria. From how easy the machine is to load to how much water and energy it uses, our tests will reveal everything you need to know about a dishwasher.

Most importantly, we check how well each dishwasher cleans. We dirty dishes with milk, tea, minced meat, eggs, oat flakes, spinach and margarine, baking on these substances in a heated cabinet to ensure we give dishwashers a tough, realistic test. We then go one step further and add in some clean dishes to the load, to see if the dishwasher spreads grime around the dishwasher - you wouldn’t want to buy a machine that just moves dirt from one plate to another.