Major Air Purifier Brands Ranked Worst To Best (According To Consumer Reports)

Air purifiers are big business. The market grew by 6.1% annually between 2019 and 2023, with estimates suggesting it’ll maintain or even exceed that growth rate over the next decade. And it’s not hard to see why: Our growing awareness of air pollution-related diseases, the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the EPA calls “sick building syndrome” — to name a few — have likely all combined to make air purifiers feel almost necessary these days.

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These appliances work by drawing air in and filtering it, capturing dust and fine particles, and cleaning up the air we breathe. The best models use HEPA filters, which can remove 99.97% of the dust, pollen, and other airborne particles floating around — particles that, without an air purifier, would enter our bodies.

To that end, you’ll want to get a high-quality unit from a trusted brand, and that’s precisely what we’re going to help you do. We’ve reviewed Consumer Reports’ air purifier brand rankings and product reviews to assemble a list of the 11 best air purifier brands on the market. If you’re curious about how we ranked the brands, skip to the end for a quick discussion of our methodology. With that out of the way, let’s get going.

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Dyson may be one of the more recognizable brands on this list — primarily for its vacuums, which are some of the best out there — but its air purifier offerings arguably don’t quite live up to the brand’s standing in other markets. This isn’t to say Dyson’s air purifiers are bad, mind you — it’s still made the top 10, after all — but the brand only manages a 3 out of 5 score in Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction and predicted reliability charts, putting it in last place on our list.

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As for products, Consumer Reports tested the Dyson Big+Quiet BP03, an air purifier designed for medium-sized rooms (defined as those between 150 and 350 square feet). The BP03 performed well, with an overall score of 69 and good particulate removal scores, earning it a recommendation from Consumer Reports. The BP03’s main issue is the pricing — at a current MSRP of $999, it’s significantly pricier than products from other brands, some of which perform better in Consumer Reports’ testing.

None of this diminishes the general quality of Dyson’s offerings. However, we feel it’s hard to justify the cost compared to much more affordable — and, occasionally, better-reviewed — products from brands like Honeywell. Speaking of which …

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Like Dyson, Honeywell is another brand more likely known for other products rather than its air purifiers. More specifically, Honeywell is best known for its thermostats, which the company essentially pioneered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That heritage continues to this day, with offerings like the Honeywell Home T9 ranking among the best smart thermostats money can buy.

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Honeywell also scores 3 out of 5 in Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction rankings, but the site expects the company’s products to be slightly more reliable than Dyson’s, earning a 4 out of 5 in the predicted reliability chart. Thus, Honeywell just about sneaks past Dyson and comes in ahead of it on our list. Another feather in Honeywell’s cap is its wide range of great products, with many of its air purifiers scoring more than 70 points in Consumer Reports’ tests.

Of particular note is the Honeywell AirGenius 5 HFD-320, another purifier for medium-sized rooms (like the Dyson BP03). The AirGenius 5 outscores the Dyson significantly, with 77 points compared to 69, with better noise performance and expected reliability while equaling the Dyson’s filtration capabilities. The kicker, though, is that the AirGenius 5 can be had for less than a third of the Dyson’s price — likely what helped it earn a “Smart Buy” award from Consumer Reports.

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Now we enter a batch of broadly interchangeable brands, with similar owner satisfaction and predicted reliability ratings. The first of the bunch is Levoit, a brand with a similar approach to Dyson and Honeywell since it offers a range of products, from vacuums to thermostats to, you guessed it, air purifiers.

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Levoit scores 4 out of 5 in owner satisfaction and reliability, placing it perfectly between Honeywell and the next two brands on our list. The brand also sports a CR Recommended award for two of its products, the Levoit EverestAir and the Levoit PlasmaPro 600S, earning 75 and 73 points from Consumer Reports, respectively. The Levoit Core 400S is another good one, making it onto our list of the best air purifiers under $500.

Both the Levoit EverestAir and the Levoit PlasmaPro 600S performed excellently in Consumer Reports’ high-speed air filtration test, with the mediocre low-speed filtration capabilities (both scored 3 out of 5) being the only minor weak point of each air purifier. Beyond that — and perhaps the EverestAir’s middle-of-the-pack low-speed noise performance — both purifiers look like great choices for those looking to clean up the air in larger rooms.

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The first mostly purifier-centric brand on this list is Pure Enrichment, which makes various home and health products such as heated blankets, air purifiers, and humidifiers — one of which, the Pure Enrichment MistAire Eva, made it onto our list of the best and most affordable humidifiers available.

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Pure Enrichment outperforms Dyson and Honeywell in both Consumer Reports metrics, with a 4 out of 5 score in owner satisfaction and 5 out of 5 in expected reliability, making it one of a handful of brands with a perfect score in the latter. Perfect reliability isn’t the be-all-end-all, of course, and it won’t make up for a poor-quality product, but it’s definitely a positive.

Despite the solid ratings, none of Pure Enrichment’s products have earned a recommendation from Consumer Reports. The Pure Enrichment PureZone seems like the company’s hot product based on Amazon data, with 4.7 out of 5 stars based on over 4,600 ratings, but other review sites like TechGearLab weren’t as keen on the PureZone, calling it an “average performer” best suited for small bedrooms and nothing more.

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Winix, like Pure Enrichment, is something of a specialized company, with its U.S. product line consisting solely of air purifiers and humidifiers. Winix performs identically to Pure Enrichment in Consumer Reports’ evaluation, with a 4 out of 5 score in owner satisfaction and a maxed-out 5 out of 5 rating in predicted reliability.

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Diving deeper into specific products, the floor-standing Winix 9800 scores very well in Consumer Reports’ testing. It’s not the best air purifier for large rooms, but a solid score of 75 certainly makes it a solid choice if you need filtering for a space that’s between 350 and 650 square feet. The low-speed noise rating of 3 out of 5 isn’t necessarily outstanding, so that’s something to watch out for if you’re particularly noise-sensitive, but it looks like a good choice for an air purifier otherwise — and solid enough to earn a recommendation from Consumer Reports.

For the record, we’ve placed Winix just above Pure Enrichment because of the 9800’s above-average performance in Consumer Reports’ product tests, especially considering the lack of a Pure Enrichment product in the upper echelons of Consumer Reports’ product ratings.

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We’re entering the upper tiers of air purifier brands, with all of the following sporting a coveted 5 out of 5 score in Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction chart. The first of the top five brands is Alen, an Austin, Texas-based company focusing solely on air purifiers.

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Alen places behind the other elite air purifier brands for one reason: reliability. While owners seem to be very pleased with the company’s products, Consumer Reports only gave Alen a 3 out of 5 for reliability. Thus, we opted to rank it behind other brands with better predicted reliability scores. That said, Alen has two purifiers sporting the CR Recommended mark, so the company definitely knows how to make good products — it’s just that Consumer Reports isn’t as confident about their long-term use.

The Alen BreatheSmart 45i Pure, for medium-sized rooms, received a solid 70 points from Consumer Reports, with the site rating its filtration capabilities and noise performance as mixed. The other recommended Alen purifier, the larger Alen BreatheSmart 75i Pure, didn’t perform quite as well, with only 65 points, but it still did well enough to be one of the few extra-large room purifiers Consumer Reports has recommended as of December 2024.

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IQAir is the first of the small handful of air purifier brands that scores a maximum of 5 out of 5 points for both owner satisfaction and predicted reliability. The Swiss company specializes in air quality, operating a real-time air pollution tracker alongside a range of air monitors, air purifiers, and face masks for both consumers and businesses.

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Despite perfect scores in both of Consumer Reports’ charts, the brand has yet to earn a CR Recommended award for any of its air filters. The IQAir HealthPro range of products, equipped with HyperHEPA filters, seems to be the brand’s most popular product range on Amazon, with 4.4 stars from 1,641 ratings. The circular — and oh-so-stylish — Atem X also looks to be a solid product and was good enough to earn a spot on our list of the best home air purifiers of 2023 — albeit at a not-insignificant retail price of $1,399 at the time of writing.

The Atem X’s price isn’t an exception, either; IQAir’s floor-standing air purifiers are all expensive, even compared to some of the best air purifiers out there. That doesn’t mean they’re a bad choice, only that the company’s offerings may not always be the best bet for everyone, especially those on a tighter budget.

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Rabbit Air and IQAir are in a similar situation: Both manage 5 out of 5 in Consumer Reports’ brand rankings, but neither has products that have earned the CR Recommended award as of December 2024. So, really, these two brands are essentially interchangeable — but we’re placing the Los Angeles-based company higher simply because its more affordable products are likely to appeal to a larger demographic.

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Unlike some other air purifier brands, Rabbit Air seems to have focused on quality over quantity for its product range. Instead of a dizzying array of products and codenames, Rabbit Air’s lineup consists of three air purifiers, each designed for different room sizes. The most expensive, the Rabbit Air A3, is a wall-mountable unit capable of cleaning the air in rooms up to 1,070 square feet.

The middle child — and seemingly most popular product — is the Rabbit Air MinusA2, which the company recommends for rooms of up to 870 square feet. The most affordable of the three, the Rabbit Air BioGS 2.0, is good for rooms up to 550 square feet — although the company recommends limiting it to 275 square feet if you suffer from allergies.

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It’s time for the top three air purifier brands on our list. In third place is AirDoctor, with the same 5 out of 5 score in Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction as the past two brands. However, unlike IQAir and Rabbit Air, AirDoctor has a CR Recommended award for one of its air purifiers, giving it the edge — at least as far as our ranking goes — over IQAir and Rabbit Air.

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That particular air purifier is the AirDoctor AD5500, a large floor-standing unit for extra-large rooms of up to 2,086 square feet. The AD5500 earned a Consumer Reports review score of 72, with a notable 5 out of 5 in the site’s high-speed dust, pollen, and smoke removal test. Consumer Reports also expects the AD5500 to be a long-lasting unit, rating it 4 out of 5 for predicted reliability.

The AD5500 is AirDoctor’s top-of-the-line unit, with a retail price — $999 — to reflect that. But if you’re on a tighter budget or simply don’t need to purify that large a room, the company makes several more affordable air purifiers suited to smaller rooms, such as the AirDoctor AD2000.

South Korean company Coway comes in second on this list, thanks to a highly-rated air purifier, somewhat bucking the trend of air purifier specialization seen in the past few brands on this list. Unlike AirDoctor, Rabbit Air, or Alen, Coway doesn’t just build air purifiers. In fact, it’s hard to think of a household appliance that Coway doesn’t offer, with water purifiers, bidets, and even smart mattresses in its portfolio.

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But we’re not here to talk about bidets, as cool as Coway’s offerings may be. Instead, let’s turn our attention to the Coway Airmega ProX, one of the few air purifiers with more than 80 points in Consumer Reports’ testing as of December 2024. The ProX, which scored an excellent 85 points, seems to be a near-perfect air purifier in Consumer Reports’ view, with a maximum 5 out of 5 in reliability and air filtering capabilities, only stumbling ever-so-slightly in the noise tests — and even then, not by much.

The only downside to the ProX is that it’s meant for ultra-large rooms and has a $999 list price to match. But you get a lot of coverage for your money, with Coway claiming the ProX can cleanse the air in spaces as large as 4,253 square feet hourly. The company also offers a range of smaller air purifiers that may be more suited for household use, although none have yet managed to earn a CR Recommended award.

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Margins can be fine at the top, and that’s the case with air purifier brands as well. Were we basing our list solely on Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction charts, any of the last five brands could have taken the top spot. But we’ve opted to give that to Blueair, primarily because of how well its purifiers have performed in Consumer Reports’ testing.

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Most brands on this list have only had one or two models earn a recommendation from Consumer Reports. But Blueair has an impressive 11 units, ranging from the Blueair Blue Pure 211i Max for large rooms to the compact, desktop-sized Blueair Blue Pure Mini Max. And it’s not just quantity, either: The majority of Blueair’s products score more than 70 in Consumer Reports’ testing, with a couple — Blueair Blue Pure 311i+ Max and Blueair Blue Pure 211+ — earning 80 or more points. With that sort of track record, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the company had two of the 10 best-selling air purifiers on the market as of October 2023.

All in all, while Blueair certainly isn’t the only great air purifier brand out there, the evidence we can gather via Consumer Reports’ reviews and rankings indicates it’s likely the best, with a high-quality offering available no matter the size of the room you’re trying to keep clean.

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We ranked these air purifier brands primarily based on two of Consumer Reports’ brand rankings: owner satisfaction and predicted reliability. Consumer Reports bases its owner satisfaction scores on the number of a brand’s owners who reported they would recommend the same brand to friends and family, while predicted reliability is an in-house estimation of how many problems a brand’s air purifier products might face by the end of the fifth year of ownership, considering additional factors such as the warranty.

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However, we also factored in these companies’ products, prioritizing brands whose purifiers earned a CR Recommended award. While it wasn’t one of our primary criteria, having a product in the upper tiers of Consumer Reports’ product reviews is always a good sign. Including the products in our evaluation also helped differentiate brands that scored identically in the site’s ranking charts, with those boasting a recommended purifier moving up a spot (or more).