4 Best Electric Kettles of 2026, Lab-Tested and Reviewed
We tested kettles from brands like Amazon Basics, Breville, and Cuisinart, and four boiled water quickly and kept it warm for an hour or more
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Electric kettles are a simple way to make an everyday task easier. They heat water quickly and shut off automatically, and many keep water warm for an hour so you don’t have to watch the stove or reboil. Having hot water ready makes tea, coffee, oatmeal, hot cocoa, and ramen faster and more convenient to prepare. But with so many options on the market, which one should you pick?
We tested nine popular models and feature the four top-scoring electric kettles below. They appear in alphabetical order, not in order of rank. For more details and more models, see our electric kettle ratings.
This stainless steel AmazonBasics kettle is one of the least expensive kettles we tested. It’s small, though, holding just 4 cups of water—the smallest capacity of the group. It was among the fastest to bring the water to a boil, clocking in at just under 4 minutes and earning a very good rating in our time-to-boil tests. But this kettle was the hardest to clean. The warranty lasts one year.
The 7-cup Cuisinart PerfecTemp CPK-17 boils about as fast as the other kettles featured here. It costs more, but it has six preset temperature settings for making different types of teas or French-press coffee, and it has a three-year warranty. It garners a very good rating in our convenience tests, and you’ll have no trouble reading the markings.
The stylish Oxo glass kettle holds 7 cups of water and was the easiest to clean of this group, earning an excellent rating in that test. But it didn’t keep water hot for as long as the others. It was also the tallest kettle in our tests, at just over 11 inches. So if space is a concern, you may want to consider another model. The warranty lasts two years.
The 7-cup Secura Original electric kettle is our top-rated model. It’s plastic on the outside, stainless steel on the inside, and nearly 11 inches high. It’s the only model to snag an excellent rating in our time-to-cool tests. It can keep 4 cups of boiled water warm for 75 minutes, longer than any of the other kettles. The warranty lasts two years.
How CR Tests Kettles
We tested kettles from Amazon Basics, Bella, Black+Decker, Breville, Cuisinart, Hamilton Beach, Ovente, Oxo, and Secura. Capacity ranged from 4 to 7 cups, and prices were $20 to $180. There were markings in liters on all of the kettles, though the Breville and Oxo also display a scale in cups.
Our testers boiled a liter of water (slightly more than 4 cups) in each kettle and compared how long it took to boil the same amount of water on a gas range and in a 1,200-watt microwave. The electric kettles brought the water to a boil in about 4 to 5½ minutes, while the gas stovetop took a little over 4½ minutes, and the microwave took 6 minutes and 45 seconds.
We recorded how long each kettle kept a liter of water warm and how easy the markings on the kettle’s exterior and interior were to read. We also assessed how easy it was to wipe the interior clean and to remove the scale filter, which captures calcium deposits in the water and needs periodic cleaning.
