Which Milk Frother Should You Buy?

A light and foamy cloud of frothed milk can elevate your daily cup (or cups) of coffee, whether you prefer drip, cold brew or espresso, and it can also make matcha drinks and hot chocolate tastier (and fancier). Instant’s Milk Frother is the easiest and most affordable way to bring this barista-level detail to your lattes, cappuccinos and more with the push of a button. In our tests it frothed milk better than machines that cost four times as much, creating the long-lasting, velvety “microfoam” you’ll see at cafes and coffee shops.

Instant’s appliance has a straightforward, utilitarian design that’s great as long as you’re someone who will take extra care while cleaning its pitcher (see our editor’s note below). If you’re looking for a sleeker version to keep out on your kitchen counter, Smeg’s Milk Frother is a stylish choice that makes excellent foam too, and being able to throw its pitcher in the dishwasher is a big plus. It also makes a great gift. For people who value control over automation, we recommend Subminimal’s NanoFoamer Lithium, a hand-held frother.

If you’d like to read how we vetted and tested milk frothers and which experts we consulted, scroll down for more detail.

• Best overall milk frother
• Best higher-end milk frother
• Best hand-held milk frother
• Others you should know about
• How we picked

Best overall milk frother

Pros

• User-friendly, two-button control system
• The best foam quality for the price 
• Very quiet

Cons

• Basic design
• Not dishwasher safe; requires delicate cleaning or it can stop working

Instant’s Milk Frother is the right tool for nearly anyone wanting to top their coffee creations with foam from dairy or nondairy alternatives, making it a great buy. The foolproof controls ensure quality results every time without any skill or experience needed. There are four settings: cold foam, warm foam, warm thick foam and hot milk. Press the “function” button to toggle between them, and the “start/cancel” button once you’ve selected the one you want. The frothing process takes about 90 seconds, which is pretty standard for electric models, and it’s nearly inaudible.

The warm foam setting produces a very light microfoam with an airiness that is ideal for dollopping on top of your drink. As its name suggests, the thick foam setting yields noticeably more dense foam. Our tester, New York City–based coffee educator and two-time Latte Art World Champion Emilee Bryant, was impressed with the “nearly pro-level” output, especially for the price. We measured the temperature between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, which is on the low end of what a barista would normally be looking for but not unacceptable.

Editor’s note: In our longer-term testing of the frother, we had two models conk out on us and we contacted the company to confirm if this is a known problem. The company responded that “similar issues were caused by exposure to moisture and/or water to the control panel, which caused the product to stop functioning.” It directed us to the care instructions that say to wipe the exterior with a damp cloth rather than rinsing. What this means for you: If you’re a household where careful cleaning of the pitcher is realistic, then this is a great frother at a much lower price than our second pick, which is dishwasher safe. We are researching other models and will update this guide.

Best higher-end milk frother

Pros

• Produces excellent foam that’s similar to what a barista would make 
• Elevated design
• Dishwasher-safe pitcher

Cons

• More expensive than frothers from other brands
• Significantly larger than many electric models

The beautiful, retro-style Smeg Milk Frother makes the best foam of any frother we tested, and it’s a cinch to use and clean. It comes in a variety of chic, glossy colors too, like classic black and white and a vibrant red that will pop on a countertop. These attributes come at a cost, as this is the most expensive unit by a fair amount, but you’ll likely be happy with every aspect of this one if it fits your budget. It makes a generous gift for coffee lovers.

In addition to the light and thick hot froths the Instant version makes, the Smeg has corresponding modes for cold milk, along with a hot milk feature (which simply heats the milk without frothing it) and a setting for hot chocolate, which stirs in your hot chocolate mix while heating up the milk. Bryant said the frothed milk looked “ like actual microfoam,” silky and stable. And it’s easy to pour the foam with precision from the removable, dishwasher-safe steel jug (we’ve put the pitcher and lid through more than a dozen dishwasher cycles without issue).

Best hand-held milk frother

Pros

• Produces quality foam faster than other hand-held options
• Offers good control of foam consistency
• Rechargeable battery this

Cons

• Doesn’t heat milk
• Pricier than many others in this category

Hand-held milk frothers take up much less room than the countertop models we recommend above, and the manual frothing process gives you greater control. If these aspects are priorities for you, we recommend Subminimal’s NanoFoamer Lithium. Unlike our countertop picks, this device requires more effort than pouring in milk and pressing a button. Instead, you need to provide your own vessel, heat up the milk (typically in the microwave) and then insert the NanoFoamer and let it run until the foam has reached your desired consistency. There’s more room for error, of course, but this also gives you a greater opportunity to create a frothy drink exactly the way you like it.

The stick-style NanoFoamer has an impeller—the rotor that moves the milk around—and replaceable mesh screens at its frothing end, rather than the whisks on every other hand-held model we’ve seen. These screens prevent large bubbles from forming, resulting in smooth, velvety microfoam similar to what a barista’s steam wand would make, with no large bubbles. What’s more, the Lithium version uses a USB-C-rechargeable battery for power, which means you don’t have to go through consumable batteries, and it’s also more powerful than the company’s battery-powered model.

Others you should know about

Nespresso’s Barista Recipe Maker is the most technologically advanced frother we tested. You can cycle through 13 froth recipes on the unit’s touch-based controls, and 14 more are available through a companion smartphone app. Bryant found the quality of the foam high but noted that, because of the inward-facing angle of the frothing vessel, which made the milk difficult to pour, and the frothing whisk came loose when pouring as well because it’s magnetically attracted to the base, not the vessel. It may be a good choice for a techie coffee lover who wants a variety of options, but for everyday use, most people are better off with the Instant Milk Frother.

Maestri House’s Detachable Milk Frother MMF930 is beautifully designed and offers adjustable temperature settings. But we measured the temperature at 20 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than what we had set it to. In multiple tests, milk that we had dialed in at 140 degrees registered as 160. A company representative told us this is due to heat conduction, and that the set temperature will deviate from the actual temperature. This wasn’t the case with other frothers so we consider this a flaw.

The components of Breville’s BMF600XL Milk Cafe Milk Frother look and function similarly to those of the Smeg Milk Frother, but we found the Breville unit to be the loudest of the bunch. It also did not froth as well as others, producing foam with large bubbles on the surface rather than the smooth, velvety topper we were looking for.

The Nespresso Aeroccino4 created thin foam that promptly broke apart in multiple tests of its cappuccino and latte macchiato settings, despite properly heating the milk.

Zulay’s Milk Boss, a hand-held frother available on Amazon, is popular, likely for its low price and multitude of colors. We found it messier than the NanoFoamer, splattering milk all over. It also requires batteries rather than using a rechargeable power source.

Golde’s Superwhisk appears to be the same device as many rechargeable frothers found on Amazon, like this one, with different branding; in our testing, Bryant gave it lower marks than the NanoFoamer because it made large bubbles.

How we picked

Trust us

I’ve been reviewing coffee gear for nearly a decade, including testing for and writing Buy Side’s guides to the best drip and cold brew coffee makers. To better understand the fundamentals of milk foam, I interviewed Carmen Clemente, the 2022 World Latte Art champion, and Tracy Jiang, who works at Intelligentsia Coffee in Boston and was the 2022 USCC Latte Art Competition second-place winner. I then tested the frother finalists with Emilee Bryant, the New York City–based regional educator for Counter Culture Coffee and a two-time Latte Art world champion.

We tested

We focused most of our research on all-in-one frothers that both heat and foam milk, making the process as straightforward and effortless as possible. This ruled out French press-style units that require you to both heat the milk yourself and then churn it as if you’re making butter. We also chose not to test frothers from lesser-known companies; although they appear to be popular on Amazon according to the number of customer reviews, we believe you’re better off buying from a name brand that’s more likely to provide warranty support if needed.

This resulted in a shortlist of appliances. To further narrow down the ones we would test, we considered the number of foam settings. Foam or froth is simply aerated milk. Almost every frother offers settings for two types of warm foam—light and airy or heavy and dense—as well as cold foam, so we ruled out any that were more limited in their options.

Once we had settled on our finalists, Bryant joined us to run at least two frothing cycles on each using refrigerator-cold organic whole milk. Together we observed qualities including ease of use, length of time for foaming process, noise level and of course the quality of the microfoam, relying on Bryant’s expertise to evaluate.

Our experts

• Emilee Bryant, New York City–based regional educator for Counter Culture Coffee and two-time Latte Art World Champion 
• Carmen Clemente, World Latte Art Champion, Rho, Italy
• Tracy Jiang, Intelligentsia Coffee, Boston and U.S. Coffee Championship Latte Art Competition runner-up