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The best electric kettles come with serious advantages over stovetop kettles for committed tea drinkers and pour-over coffee aficionados: They boil water more quickly, they have automatic shut-off controls that are a win for safety (and distractible types). They also don’t emit a lot of heat. An electric kettle is one of those appliances that can seem unnecessary and even a little extravagant until you actually use one and ask yourself how you ever went without. These days many models also have variable temperature controls and temperature presets that make it easy to fine-tune the water temperature for specific drinks (cooler for green tea, boiling for black tea, somewhere in between for coffee).
Electric kettles come in a huge range of prices, from $15 to over $300, and a dizzying array of sizes and materials. In the past few years we’ve put over a dozen models across a spectrum of designs and price points to the test to find the very best. But the efficacy of a kettle depends on what you’re using it for; to cover all the bases, we picked a best all-purpose kettle, a best gooseneck, which is really what you need for pour-over coffee, and a best budget alternative. Read on for our top picks; for the specifics of how we tested and what to look for in an electric kettle, scroll further down.
Table of contents
Best all-purpose electric kettle
Best electric gooseneck kettle
Best budget electric kettle
Gooseneck vs. conventional kettles
How we tested
What we looked for
Other electric kettles we tested
The takeaway
Why own an electric kettle?
Best electric kettle for all-purpose use: Ninja Precision Temperature Electric Kettle
In our most recent tests the Ninja Precision Temperature Electric Kettle did pretty much everything our previous top pick, the Zwilling Enfinigy Pro, could do plus a little bit more, and it did that all at a very reasonable price point. The Ninja offered a very user-friendly digital interface with the ability to manually set temperatures between 105℉ and 212℉ in five degree increments and was very accurate across a wide range of tested temps between 160℉ and boiling. That’s the kind of control you typically only find in nicer gooseneck kettles (the only other standard electric kettle we tested that had that sort of temperature control was the Wolf Gourmet, which came in at more than three times the price). The Ninja also has seven presets if you don’t want to adjust yourself, including for coffee and five types of tea, and the digital display switches between showing the current temperature of the water and the target temperature.
Boil time was just under four minutes using 72℉ water, the 1.7 liter capacity was large and inline with all the standard kettles we liked, and the flip top opening was wide enough for fairly easy filling and cleaning. Obviously this isn’t the best electric kettle for pour-over coffee because it isn’t a gooseneck kettle, but the shape of the spout, though wide, offered very good pour control.
In terms of looks, the Ninja doesn’t have the futuristic display of the Zwilling, but the stainless steel finish and a base that’s about as minimalist as it can be, while incorporating seven presets, is still slick.
The cord is so short—13 inches. That means you will be limited in terms of where you can put it in the kitchen. We don’t think it’s the deal breaker you might assume, because the base of the kettle itself really should be tucked away in the corner. There’s no reason to have it in the middle of the counter. Also, while the Ninja does hold a temperature for up to 30 minutes, like almost every standard kettle, the heating element shuts off when the kettle is removed from the base. That means that, despite the excellent pour control, it would be tough to use for pour-over coffee because the water temperature would drop throughout the brewing process once you grab the kettle.
Size: 9.4” x 7.2'“ x 9.7”
Capacity: 1.7 liters
Power: 1500 watts
Temperature range: 105℉-212℉
Presets: 7
Keep warm function: Yes
Boil-dry protection: Yes
Warranty: 2 years
The best electric gooseneck kettle (for pour-over coffee): Fellow Stagg EKG Pro
The original Fellow Stagg EKG kettle was good—a high performing gooseneck with a helpful stopwatch for making pour-over—and looked handsome on the countertop. The new Stagg EKG Pro has packed every useful feature we can think of into that same handsome package (it even comes in a “Studio” version with an all glass top on the base that looks even better). First the nuts and bolts: The boil time on the Stagg Pro has come down a lot from what we found in the original Stagg. Four cups of water reached boiling in just under four and a half minutes and all the temperature settings we tested were confirmed by thermometer. It also offered excellent pour control, bested only by the Timemore Fish kettle (more on that below).
Now, for the bells and whistles that make it better than the rest of the kettles. The EKG Pro has a temperature range from 104℉-212℉ and the optional “guide mode” settings for tea, Aeropress, pour-over, and boil make it fast and easy to program the kettle for its most common uses. Its pre-boil function brings the water up to a boil to sanitize it before dropping it down to the programmed level and its hold timer can be set in 15 minute increments up to an hour. It also has adjustments for whether users live at sea level or at altitudes up to 9900 feet above sea level (as we know, water has a lower boiling point the higher up you go). Finally, and this is perhaps our favorite feature, it has a scheduler. Making pour-over coffee in the morning is already a time consuming process, and the ability to have hot water waiting, at temperature for you when you wake up makes for a much happier morning.
Already an attractive package, the Stagg Pro has a variety of aesthetic options to choose from: matte black, matte white, or black with walnut accents in the handle and lid. Like most everything Fellow makes, it’s a piece you’ll like looking at every day while it sits on the counter.
Nothing. Really nothing. We’d note here that it is a pricey kettle, but you really do get what you pay for here. We would have rated it simply as the best electric kettle overall except that we know there are reasons to prefer a wider spout design like the Ninja, like if adding pre-boiled waterto a pot or steeping a large amount of tea.
Size: 11.1” x 6.8” x 7.7”
Capacity: .9 liters
Power: 1200 watts
Temperature range: 104℉-212℉
Presets: 5
Keep warm function: Yes
Boil-dry protection: Yes
Warranty: 3 years if registered, 2 years if not
Best budget electric kettle: Hamilton Beach Glass Electric Kettle
If you’re looking for a nothing fancy electric kettle that performs well and is easy to use, this Hamilton Beach model is the best choice. It’s easy to use because it has clearly labeled temperature buttons for a wide variety of functions like green, white, oolong, black and herbal teas as well as coffee and hot cocoa. No need to look up optimal brewing temperatures—just press a button and the kettle gives you the water temperature you need, in a hurry. It is easy to lift, pours well, and the handle is comfortable to grip. It boils water in under 5 minutes, can maintain temperature for up to 30 minutes, and feels like a no-fluff classic that you’ll be able to rely on for coffee, tea, and quickly boiled water when cooking. The kettle lights up and casts a blue glow over the boiling water—some might find this tacky, but we found it charming! And it’s less than half the price of the Zwilling.
As budget choices go, this one really ticks all the boxes. It’s not as sleek as the Zwilling Enfinigy Pro (below) or the Ninja but it gets you the water you need.
Gooseneck vs. conventional kettles
Gooseneck kettles are becoming more and more commonplace in the kitchen, but you aren't alone if you're wondering why some people might choose a gooseneck kettle specifically. As mentioned above, gooseneck kettles are primarily marketed toward pour-over coffee fans who use Chemex brewers or other pour-over drippers in lieu of a drip coffee maker or espresso machine. With pour-over coffee you want to have greater control over the temperature of your water—how and where you are saturating your grounds. Gooseneck kettles provide these controls so that people can achieve their ideal brew.
However, some people who don’t care at all about pour-over still prefer gooseneck kettles as they find them more pleasant to use due to the greater amount of control over the stream of water they pour. The biggest disadvantage to a gooseneck kettle is that they are consistently smaller in size (our top pick from Fellow is barely more than half the size of our favorite standard electric kettles), therefore, people who tend to boil larger amounts of water at a time would be better off with a larger conventional kettle. Either way though, you’ll end up with hot water!
How we tested the electric tea kettles
After unboxing all the kettles we examined their designs, noting if they opened easily, if the opening was large enough to facilitate easy filling and cleaning, and if the carafe felt sturdy and long lasting. Then we read through the instruction manuals to get a feel for what features, if any, the different kettles came with. Finally, it was time to heat up some water. We timed how long it took boiled four cups of tap water (in our 2023 retest we made sure all water started between 72℉-73℉). If the kettle had presets we heated to each of them and checked their accuracy with a Thermapen. Next, because some user reviews we read complained of a metallic taste from some kettles we tasted water from each. Finally, we cleaned each kettle, noting how easy or difficult it was to get our hands inside.
What we looked for
We set a stopwatch on every kettle and then we measured the temperature of the water to confirm that it really was 212°F.
There were enough Amazon reviewers complaining of metallic-tasting water or other “off flavors” coming through their kettles during brewing that we let the water in each kettle cool slightly before drinking it and noted any unusual flavors.
When the models offered temperature control, either manual or preset, we tested the kettles at every preset offered and measured the results of each with the Thermapen to gauge accuracy.
When you’re dealing with boiling liquids, ease of pouring isn’t just an aesthetic issue, it’s a safety one too. When using each kettle, we considered how the carafe felt in our hands (was it balanced? did it have a nice grip?) and also how easily it poured. Did it leak or spill? With the gooseneck kettles especially—because they’re specifically meant to deliver more control—we kept an eye on the precision and the consistency of the water flow.
Yes, you’re just boiling water. Nevertheless, electric kettles do get dirty over time—thanks mainly to mineral hard water buildup—so regular cleaning is important. With that in mind, we paid attention to how easily we could wipe down the carafes and whether we could easily get our hands inside to scrub hard to reach corners. Some inexpensive kettles have exposed heating elements (basically, a coil of tubing that can be cumbersome to clean), so as a rule we tried to avoid those. For similar reasons, we also preferred cordless electric kettles that could detach from their corded charging base.
On a basic level, we considered the construction of the kettles and the ease of use. Did they feel sturdy? Were they well-proportioned or bulky? Did they remain stable on the counter while boiling or did they wobble about? Were the carafes easy to fill? And once filled, did they have a window or a fill-line that made it simple to see how much was inside? Did they offer any appealing extra features, like chimes to signal the end of a cycle or preset temperature settings for common beverages like green tea, black tea, and French press coffee?
Other electric kettles we tested
Our former top pick has a lot going for it in the looks department, but the performance stats back it up as a solid kettle for everyday use. In terms of the aesthetics it has a strong “Designed by Apple in California” vibe. Some design choices seem informed by their function, like the wide opening, which makes it easy to reach your hand in for cleaning. The double-walled interior of the kettle remains cool to the touch while in use, and the machine is nice and quiet. In terms of performance it demonstrated precise temperature control, a fast boiling time, boil-dry protection and a keep-warm setting.
It has six preset options between 104℉ (for warming baby formula) and 212°F, which is a solid range that covers most use cases, though doesn’t feature the customizability of the Ninja. With respect to the baby formula warming feature, because it has a 6¼ cup capacity, the kettle is actually large enough for a baby bottle to be entirely submerged inside. All in all we still highly recommend the Zwilling kettle for its design and performance, but found the Ninja offered a better value.
Timemore makes a range of great gear for making pour-over coffee and their gooseneck kettle offered the best pour control of any kettle we tested. Combined with it’s small footprint and beautiful minimalist look you might think it would take a top spot here, but the touchscreen slider used to adjust the temperature is frustratingly hard to set. After several mornings trying to dial it in at 200°F we never quite managed to succeed and just left it at 198°F. A degree here or a degree there is not enough for us to say you should avoid this kettle, especially considering everything it has going for it, but it does mean that it could not overtake the Fellow as our favorite.
The Oxo interface is a simple twist dial with a button in the center that makes for a straightforward user experience. All you do is twist the dial for the desired temperature and press the button to start heating. If you feel like you made a mistake, you just press the center button again to turn it off. When the kettle is finished heating, it will beep gently and hold temperature for 30 minutes before automatically switching off. As for safety features, the kettle also senses when there isn’t water left in the pot and will automatically switch off the heating element earlier.
The long, slender pour spout performed exactly as a gooseneck should, emitting a fine, even stream of water. Gooseneck kettles tend to be on the smaller side, and this one is no different with its 1-liter capacity. While not quite as hi vis as a glass kettle, the water level line is easy to see while filling. The Oxo’s big win, though, is in brew time. It managed to heat 4 cups of water in a speedy 4 minutes, whereas others, like an older favorite from Bonavita, can take close to 7 minutes. Before the release of the Stagg EKG Pro this was our favorite gooseneck kettle and we still recommend it, especially at a price that’s half of the Stagg Pro.
Fellow’s original beautiful gooseneck kettle elicited audible sighs of admiration when we unboxed Fellow’s original beautiful gooseneck kettle elicited audible sighs of admiration when we unboxed it in the test kitchen, and there’s no doubt about it: The Fellow Stagg EKG is a fine piece of industrial design. We loved the sleek, matte black finish and the minimalist, turntable-esque design of the square base with its smooth radial knob and bright digital temperature readout. Though it wasn’t the fastest to boil, clocking in at 6 minutes 40 seconds to reach 212°F, the Fellow Stagg EKG was in line with other kettles we liked. We were impressed by additional features like the generous manual temperature control (at 135℉ to 212°F, it offered one of the widest in the field), the one-hour temperature hold setting, and the built-in “brew stopwatch” that allows you to monitor how long your brew has steeped. The kettle performed consistently and accurately during temperature tests and the slender spout yielded a nice, even pour. Both product reviews editor Noah Kaufman and associate director of commerce Emily Johnson used it in their kitchens for multiple years and report that it holds up well, even with frequent use. It’s about 25% less expensive than the Stagg EKG Pro, and ultimately we just thought all the new features made the Pro a better choice.
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This could work as a budget gooseneck option at only $70 (at the time of publishing), but the water rushed out a little quicker than we’d like in something you’d use to brew pour-over coffee and the boil time was slower than a median competitor, by about 30 seconds. It also doesn’t offer manual temperature settings, which is expected at this price, but for some reason the coffee setting is 205°F, more of a French press setting than a pour-over. It’s a good deal, but if there is $30 more in your budget we’d recommend the Oxo.
Like all Wolf Gourmet appliances, the True Temperature looks and feels like a luxury item and comes with a price tag to match. We’ll say off the bat that while we really liked the performance of the kettle—a fairly quick boil time of 4:15, accurate temperatures across many settings, good pour control—$300 is a lot for a kettle. That said, it did the Ninja one better and offered the ability to set temperature in single degree increments, the only standard kettle to do that. It also had the widest opening, making it the easiest to fill and clean. That’s because in addition to having the widest opening, the top came completely off instead of being hinged to the kettle itself. The Wolf comes with only four temperature presets and does not include a setting for coffee—a good simplification in our opinion since this style of kettle isn’t really designed for coffee.
While it doesn’t offer the same degree of manual temperature control and the build quality is nowhere near as solid as our favorite gooseneck kettles, this model from Willow & Everett was a solid, inexpensive competitor in our tests. We particularly liked that the touch-sensitive temperature preset buttons are labeled with suggestions for use (pour-over coffee, white tea, etc.) and that gooseneck provided smooth, easy flow.
The Cuisinart PerfecTemp Cordless Electric Kettle is a great budget pick, but it didn’t come in as the winner because the Hamilton Beach kettle performed just as well and was around $30 cheaper. Still, the Cuisinart PerfectTemp Stainless-Steel Electric is an effective, fast kettle with a variety of preset, one-touch temperature controls, a high-quality finish, and a great pouring mechanism. You wouldn’t go wrong buying it.
We found the lack of temperature settings on the Bodum gooseneck kettle to be disqualifying—you don’t want to brew pour-over coffee with boiling water and it’s hard to tell exactly when the water in the Bodum is ready for brewing.
The other model we tried from Fellow, called the Corvo EKG electric kettle, looks similar to the Stagg without the gooseneck spout. Instead it features the standard pitcher spout, which, obviously, makes it easier for filling pots with water, but harder for precision pours. It is beautifully designed and would look great on your counter—and has the same manual temperature control and ability to maintain temperature for a long time as the Stagg. It’s a great kettle, but its small size (it’s .9 liters like the Stagg) makes it less appealing to cooks who want an all-purpose kettle for cooking as well as making coffee.
Like all products made by the iconic Italian company Smeg, the ’50s Retro Electric Kettle is super cute and comes in a variety of colors—in this case eight. But the body of the kettle is a little bulky (not heavy, but slightly awkward to maneuver) and the pitcher spout wasn’t as easy to control as some of the other non-goosenecks we tried. It’s also expensive with a $190 price tag at the time of publishing. The kettle did heat up water fairly quickly (about 4 minutes 30 seconds), so if you’re looking for a very specific aesthetic or you have a kitchen full of Smeg products you’d like to add to, this kettle is a good choice.
Kitchenaid makes a couple electric kettles and we chose this one specifically for its looks. We knew it was a simple hot water kettle—it doesn’t come with any temperature settings—but it has that classic English countryside tea kettle design that is a whole mood for those who are into it. And while its design delivered on aesthetics it didn’t on performance. The kettle boiled water quickly, which is great, but the opening is quite small, which would make filling and cleaning somewhat of challenge, but that challenge was made all the worse by the fact that the handle is fixed, it doesn’t rotate off to the side, so you need particularly small hands to get into it and you need to fill it at an angle.
The Breville Crystal Clear Electric Kettle boiled 4 cups of water in just under 4 minutes and the namesake crystal clear body revealed that it reached a seriously rolling boil before the automatic-off feature clicked in. It doesn’t have any temperature settings though and costs about the same as the Ninja.
The Oxo Cordless Glass Adjustable Temperature Kettle won in the general kettle category in 2021 and is a wonderful kitchen appliance. It has many similar features to the Ninja, but costs a bit more and only has a temperature range that runs from 170°F to 212°F.
Cosori’s standard electric kettle with temperature presets looks almost identical to the Hamilton Beach we chose as our budget pick both in terms of the placement of the preset buttons on the handle and the glass carafe that lit up blue during heating. As with the Hamilton Beach we really liked having the temperature presets in such an inexpensive package, however the actual temperature readings came in a little off (209°F on the boil setting, 205°F on the 200°F setting). Those were the largest variances in temperature we found. The Hamilton Beach was a little bit less expensive and the keep warm on the Hamilton Beach is intuitively placed. On the Cosori you have to hold down the Start/Cancel button in order to engage it, which is neither intuitive nor particularly convenient.
It is indeed a basic electric kettle, but if all you’re looking for is something to boil water and you don’t want to pay much for it Amazon’s kettle will get the job done for you. The opening is a little small and it doesn’t come with a chime to alert you that the water has heated (although it does have a blue light that turns off when the kettle does), but it’s speedy and it’s cheap, a combination that certainly has its place.
The Bonavita Digital Variable Temperature gooseneck Kettle is another strong performer and former winner. When it comes to heating water it’s still a great choice and we recommend it without reservation. The interface and design just can’t compete with what Fellow or Oxo have to offer in the gooseneck department though.
The Bonavita Cosmopolitan, which had a borosilicate glass body and improved controls, was still not as fast as the new Oxo gooseneck kettle.
The Chefman is a good budget kettle with handy preset functions for different types of tea and a multicolor light display. We also thought the removable tea infuser would delight tea lovers, but seeing as it’s much slower than the Hamilton Beach model, which is just as affordable and offers the same range of functions, we felt that this one fell short.
The takeaway
Buy the Ninja Precision Temperature Control if you’re in the market for an all-purpose kettle that can ably handle all sorts of kitchen tasks—filling teapots and French presses to making hot water chocolate cake—and look good doing it. But if making artfully calibrated coffee or tea is a big part of your daily routine—or you’re just interested in having more control over the process—the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro and its ability to schedule your hot water the night before is the best gooseneck kettle for you.
Why own an electric kettle?
You may think that an electric kettle is exclusively useful for making a batch of coffee or several cups of tea. But think about how many times you have watched a big pot of water, waiting for it to boil so you can cook pasta. If you had an electric kettle, you’d have boiling water ready faster.
Blanching vegetables? Making soup? Cooking corn? Poaching chicken? Boil your water in your electric kettle and then pour it into the pot you need. Electric kettles are constructed to boil water faster than a pot or stovetop kettle.
Though they say a watched pot never boils, a pot of water on the stove can boil over if you don’t watch out (except this one)! An electric kettle will never do that. Most electric kettles have an auto shut off when the water has reached a full boil. Which means you can fill it with a liter of water, turn it on, and leave the room to do something else. No worry, no mess.
“Most mornings, turning on my electric kettle is the first thing I do in a bleary, sleepy state, and come back in a few minutes to fix myself coffee or tea. Not only is it easier, it’s also safer, because sometimes I let myself get back in bed and fall asleep after getting up to boil water, which would be a serious hazard if I were using the stove,” says senior food editor emeritus Anna Stockwell.
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