The best upright vacuum in 2024, tested by editors

Upright vacuums — modern twists on the traditional vacuum cleaners of yesteryear — are more compact and easier to store than canister vacuums, and more powerful than stick vacuums. They’re also easy to use, so they’re good for spot cleaning and well-suited to households full of pets or kids that require heavier-duty spot cleaning than a handheld vacuum can provide.

To help you choose the best upright vacuum, we spent two weeks testing seven highly rated models. We put each one through a series of tests, from cleaning up the fur left behind from two dogs and three cats to sucking up cat litter spills, assessing performance, overall ease of use and usefulness of attachments. In the end, we found three winners capable of handling your cleanup needs.

Best upright vacuum overall: Shark Rotator Professional Lift-Away NV501

The Shark Rotator Professional Lift-Away NV501 was a standout in all of our testing. It was one of the easiest vacuum cleaners to maneuver, thanks to its swivel head and fairly light weight. It weighs 15.8 pounds, which doesn’t sound especially light, but compared to the others it was easy to pick up and move around. It also has a large padded handle that was especially helpful when utilizing the lift-off feature, which lets you remove the motor unit to use as a sort of miniature canister vacuum with upholstery and other above-the-floor accessories.

The canister easily comes off the vacuum base with the push of a large button, so when we needed to vacuum the stairs or extend into the corners of the ceiling, we could detach the pod and carry it independently. Next to the canister release lies another button that releases the wand, so in just two moves the lift-off pod is off and ready to go.

The Shark Rotator comes with an upholstery tool, a dusting brush and a crevice tool, which all worked well. The attachments fit onto the end of the handle, so you can use them when the vacuum is intact or when you’re taking advantage of the lift-off feature. The tube has a nice amount of stretch to it, which made it easier to get into harder-to-reach areas without having to keep moving the vacuum.

An extra bonus was how neatly?the attachments fit onto the machine. They’re easy to grab and remove, and they don’t get in the way when you’re utilizing other features. They also firmly clip into their respective holders so they don’t fall out when you’re moving around or accidentally bump into something.

It also has headlights, a useful feature when vacuuming on hard floors. While not as handy on carpet (since dirt and debris sink in instead of lying on the surface), the headlights helped illuminate missed spots on the wood and vinyl flooring.

As far as suction power and performance go, the Shark Rotator Professional Lift-Away NV501 got high marks across the board. Both the main brush head and the attachments picked up pet fur in one pass on all types of floors, and the main brush head made easy work of pulling cat litter out of high-pile carpet.

The Shark’s XL dustbin allowed for continuous cleaning — we were able to get through the entire house and then some without stopping to empty it — and it was simple to detach and empty. The design itself was similar to the other bagless models on this list, with a latch on the bottom that opens to release everything into the trash can. But, because this vacuum has three filters (including a HEPA filter), there was no dust or blowback when emptying the machine.

The only real flaw we found was when the dustbin was off, the vacuum itself sometimes toppled backward given the uneven weight distribution, landing hard on the floor a couple of times before we got the hang of better positioning it.

Though not a deal breaker, we didn’t love the red and white color scheme. It looked a bit outdated when compared to other models. We would have also loved a retractable cord, but none of the units we tested had one, so we can’t hold that against the Shark.

Best upright vacuum for pet hair: Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Lift-Off Upright Vacuum

Similar in design to the Shark Rotator, the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Lift-Off Upright Vacuum lives up to its name in its ability to pick up cat and dog hair. It was comparable to the Shark in almost every way: ease of use, design, ease and cleanliness of emptying and suction power/performance. It features a similar lift-off motor unit that makes using it on upholstery and other above-the-floor objects easier.

The Bissell has a swivel head that makes it easy to maneuver and a detachable pod that lets you drop the base and more easily vacuum stairs and out-of-reach places. The wand and base both detach with the touch of a button, and you can change from low carpet to plush carpet with a lever that’s conveniently positioned on the thumb portion of the handle.

One standout feature of the Bissell is the Pet Turboeraser tool from which it gets its name. While the Shark comes with a regular crevice tool, the Bissell’s Turboeraser has a spinning brush head with bristles that pull hair off upholstery and stairs. This tool worked well on the cat tower and shorter-pile carpets, though it did need some help on the high-pile stairs. It never got jammed up though, even when pulling up longer human hair, and was a welcome addition to the setup.

Ultimately, this vacuum didn’t earn the top spot because it’s a bit heavier than the Shark (it weighs almost 18 pounds), has a smaller dustbin that needed more frequent emptying, and it didn’t perform as well as the Shark on hard floors. But if you’re looking for a vacuum cleaner specifically to get control over the mess left by shedding pets, the addition of the Turboeraser makes this a good choice.

Best budget upright vacuum cleaner: Eureka DashSprint Dual Motor Upright Vacuum With Headlights

The Eureka DashSprint Dual Motor Upright Vacuum is significantly less expensive than the Shark Rotator and Bissell Pet Hair Eraser, and cheaper than most other options we tested. As such, we didn’t have high hopes for its performance, but were pleasantly surprised in all areas.

The Eureka is the lightest of our recommendations, weighing in at just 12.6 pounds, and it was easier to maneuver and carry from one floor to the next than the others. The swivel was the smoothest; it could move on a dime, plus it didn’t get tripped up on high-pile carpets or when transitioning from hard floors to area rugs. It had excellent suction power, too. While it didn’t do an exceptional job on hard floors, especially during the cat litter test, it performed well on all carpet heights and the attachments made easy work of cleaning the couch and cat tower.

It comes with a Pet Pal Turbo tool that’s almost identical in design to the Turboeraser that comes with the Bissell. While it wasn’t quite as impressive as the Turboeraser — it occasionally needed two passes instead of one — it did a stellar job 90% of the time.

The dustbin is larger than the Bissell’s, 1.5 liters compared to Bissell’s 1, but it needed more frequent emptying since its filter — located in the center of the bin — is larger than the Bissell’s, so we found ourselves needing to clear debris trapped around it more often. Emptying it was simple enough, using the same process as the others: Just open the latch at the bottom and the debris comes out into the trash can. However, we ended up having to reach into the canister repeatedly to clear out debris by hand.

There’s no lift-off feature, which was kind of a bummer, but the wand does come out of the base to clean harder-to-reach above-the-floor areas. The tube isn’t attached to the wand like the others, so you have to detach the tube from the base then hook it up to the wand before you use it, a straightforward enough but still additional step.

Why buy an upright vacuum?

Upright vacuums are, for the most part, less bulky and less expensive than canister vacuums and more powerful than stick or handheld models.

As all-in-one products with the motor housed inside the main unit, upright vacuums are easy to carry around the house to take care of various tasks and, true to their name, can simply stand up on their own when stored. Typically they include a range of accessories for above-the-floor tasks like upholstery, drapes and stairs, though since the motor unit is integrated with the floor head, they aren’t quite as suited to such use as canister vacuums or cordless stick vacuums (though lift-off models like our top recommendations address this issue).

With wider cleaning heads embedded with a turbo brush, upright vacuums are also a good choice if you have lots of rugs or wall-to-wall carpets, and since there’s less stuff to lug around, you’ll be able to clean much larger areas in a shorter period. They feel more natural when you push them since you’re not dragging a canister behind you.

Since everything is integrated, however, they may be harder to maneuver around furniture or obstacles in the room than the wand and floor brush of a canister vacuum. They are also not the best for lugging up and down stairs, and since the motor unit is right in front of you, they do tend to be noisier in use.

Many current uprights (including two of our top-rated models) have a “lift-off” feature that mitigates these concerns and makes them better all-around performers. These let you separate the motor unit from the frame of the vacuum so it can be used separately with a hose, wand and above-the-floor accessory heads as a miniature canister vacuum.

How we tested

We looked through user reviews and product specifications and landed on six models that are marketed toward pet owners, not just because pet hair is such a common application for vacuum cleaner purchasers, but also since these vacuums are typically more powerful and full-featured overall and include upholstery tools that work equally well in pet-free households.

We rated each vacuum based on setup, design features and performance, considering things like suction power and effectiveness on different floor types and pile heights.

Setup and assembly

While setup was a consideration in our rating, we didn’t weigh it too heavily since you only have to assemble the vacuum once during its lifetime. We did take note if any were especially difficult to put together.

Design

Performance

Other upright vacuums we tested