Best steam cleaners 2023: The best for carpet, tiles, floors and more

Yes, it’s expensive, but there’s a good reason for that: the Karcher SC5 easyFix Premium Steam Cleaner is the best cleaner that we’ve tested. With its near 2-litre capacity, 2kW+ heater and powerful VapoHydro mode, this is a steam cleaner that can handle everything, based on our experience using it.

Variable steam control power lets you control the SC5’s output, so you can tackle more delicate jobs. It’s the VapoHydro that really grabs attention: this mode mixes water with steam, giving a kind of pressure-washer action that we found was incredibly effective at cleaning off tough dirt on things like brick walls and garden tiles.

Karcher provides accessories that let us use it for almost every job during testing. There’s an Easyfix floor mopping head complete with washable microfibre cloths and a carpet glider. A large square brush gives you power for tough cleaning. And, a detail nozzle which takes a small round brush, small detail brush and power nozzle. In fact, the only thing missing is a window cleaning tool.

On all surfaces from hard floors and carpets, to tiles and window sills, the SC5 proved itself to be a powerful performer, shifting stubborn dirt. With its wide floor head, the SC5 tackled our hard floor in double-quick time, doing the job perfectly and removing all traces of dirt.

Carpet sliders on steam cleaners don’t normally do a good job, but the SC5’s did better than we’d expect during testing. For deep cleans, a proper carpet cleaner will be needed, but the SC5 managed to tackle surface stains our on our test rug surprisingly well. That makes this a versatile cleaner, as you can use it on all floor surfaces.

Getting into detail work, the SC5 restored mouldy grout to its pristine state, made short work of our dirty window frame. With VapoHydro mode, cleaning is impressive but expect puddles of water from this mode. We recommend keeping a cloth handy for mopping up at the end.

For all-round cleaning ability, the Karcher SC5 easyFix Premium Steam Cleaner is the ultimate choice.

Full review: Karcher SC5 easyFix Premium Steam Cleaner review

Reviewer: Richard Stevenson

If you’re looking for a steam floor mop to quickly clean up hard floors, the Shark Klik n’ Flip S6003UK Steam Mop could well be the model for you. This well-priced steam mop is focused on floor cleaning, shipping with a double-sided mopping pad that clips to the bottom of the mop. It’s a huge mop, making short work of floors, as you can clean large areas with a single swipe based on our tests.

Cleverly, the Klik n’ Flip head can flip over partway through a clean, giving you the clean side of the pad to keep cleaning with, without introducing a lengthy changeover. This is a feature we found super handy, that let us clean larger areas without having to stop and start.

Cleaning performance was excellent, with the Shark Klik n’ Flip S6003UK Steam Mop tidying up mud on our tiled floor with ease, and picking up everyday kitchen stains: the steam blast function is particularly useful for cleaning up tougher stains, and we found that this helped remove dried-on pet food without having to get down on our needs.

Thanks to the design of the cloth, we found that we could push the S6003UK right into the edges of our room, giving us edge-to-edge cleaning. We needed to get down on our knees and manually clean areas far less with this model than rivals.

Easy to use, easy to move and brilliantly priced, the Shark Klik n’ Flip S6003UK Steam Mop is the best steam mop that we have ever tested. If you’ve got lots of hard floors, this is a great model to buy

Full review: Shark Klick n’ Flip S6003UK Steam Mop review

Reviewer: David Ludlow

If you want a steam cleaner that can do everything, the Hoover Steam Capsule 2in1 is a great choice. It looks and acts like a steam mop, and it is: you get two microfibre cloths, a lift-out brush, and there’s a carpet slider, so you can tackle everything from hard floors to carpets with ease.

Cleaning performance was very good on hard floors: we found that using the cleaner on minimum steam was enough for most cases, leaving our floors relatively dry as well as clean. For tough stains, the floor mop can be removed to reveal a brush. We found this great for scrubbing tough stains to agitate the dirt and remove them, and it doesn’t need too much effort.

The trick with this cleaner is that you can lift-out the handheld section and use the selection of tools for detail cleaning, such as for grout, windows and ovens. We found a lot of steam pressure on maximum (although there was a lot of water run off). We used this to clean up our dirty oven shelf and door, getting it back to a pristine state. The same was true for the grouting that we tackled.

The minor issue is that the steam cleaner goes through cycles, so we got a burst of steam for a few minutes and then the system had to refresh. This makes bigger jobs a little tricky to tackle.

It’s also a little fiddly to hold the handheld unit’s trigger in, so we found longer jobs fatiguing. However, as a maintenance cleaner, preventing the build of stains and mould, this steam cleaner excels. Overall, you can get cleaners for bigger jobs on this list, but if you’re after a well-priced mop that can turn its hand to smaller jobs, the Hoover Steam Capsule 2in1 is a great choice. If you need more in-depth cleaning then go for the Karcher SC5.

Full review: Hoover Steam Capsule 2in1 review

Reviewer: David Ludlow

The Shark S6003UK may be the most powerful steam mop, particularly with its steam burst, but the Shark Steam&Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK is the easiest to use. Rather than having a flat pad that you push around, the S6002UK has dual microfibre pads that spin using the integrated motor.

Rather than having to scrub at stains manually, we found that it was enough to hold the S6002UK over dirty areas, letting the automatic steam injection and powerful scrubbing take care of the rest. That makes it far less fatiguing to use this steam cleaner than many others, which we find need some manual work to remove tough stains.

Putting the S6002UK to work on our test floor, we found that general mess, such as footprints from the cats, was wiped out with a single quick pass. Dirt ground in, such as food stains, took more work; holding the cleaner over these stains was enough to remove them, all without too much work.

The minor downside with the round cloths is that they can’t get right into the corners of rooms, so there will always be a few patches that have to be tackled the old-fashioned way with a cloth and cleaning spray; the Shark S6003UK needs a bit more elbow grease but cleans into the edges of room better. Still, for the quality of clean you get with the little effort it takes, this is a compromise that we’d be willing to pay.

Full review: Shark Steam&Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK review

Reviewer: David Ludlow

If there’s one problem with cylinder steam cleaners, it’s that you have to wait for most of them to cool down before you refill and continue cleaning. Not so with the Polti Vaporetto Smart 100_B, which has a removable water tank, so you can fill it as many times as you need to complete your cleaning job, all without any cool-down time.

We found this makes this cylinder steam cleaner a great choice for large and difficult jobs, but its bulk means that it’s not an ideal tool if you only want to tackle smaller jobs or just mop floors.

Although the controls are a little confusing on this model (the steam dial goes from min to max, but it’s not clear where about you are in the range), performance is mostly excellent. The Polti Vaporetto Smart 100_B coped well with our tough floor challenge, brought grout back to life and easily managed to clean up a hard floor.

There are tools to tackle most jobs, but only one mop pad in the box is a little disappointing, as this gets dirty quickly. That said, for the price, this is an excellent choice and the continuous cleaning makes it brilliant for large jobs, particularly those outside of hard floors.

Full review: Polti Vaporetto Smart 100_B review

Reviewer: Helen Harjak

The Bissell Vac & Steam 1977E is a fantastic time-saver, vacuuming and cleaning at the same time. We loved the original, and now the 1977E model has had a small update and now comes in a fetching blue colour. As a standalone steam cleaner or a standalone vacuum cleaner, this model won’t win awards; yet, the combination of the two features produces some powerful cleaning results.

With a 400W bagless vacuum cleaner and 1100W steam heater, we found that small particles were sucked up before the microfibre pad steams the floor and picks up stains. For well-trodden areas in your home with hard floors, the Bissell Vac & Steam 1977E effectively halved our cleaning time. Bissell recommends three passes for a dirty area and that worked well for us, picking up dust and removing stains well.

The downside of the system is that it’s not very flexible, and it’s neither a good vacuum nor a flexible and powerful steam cleaner. Still, it’s the combination of parts that is important, and the Bissell Vac & Steam 1977E delivers on hard floor cleaning. We recommend this model for homes that need regular cleaning; our tester has dogs, so needs to clean daily, where the Bissell Vac&Steam 1977E came in handy. For deeper floor cleaning, the Shark S6003UK is a better choice.

Full review: Bissell Vac&Steam 1977E review

Reviiewer: Richard Stevenson

The Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner is our top pick for the best budget steam mop that can also use detergent.

It’s sturdy and a mop we found to be easy to work with, given how lightweight it is. We also think the Beldray cleaner looks the part with its turquoise and white colour scheme, too, and is able to be conveniently disassembled with the handle can be removed with a literal touch of a button. The fact there’s a 5-metre cable here also enables this cleaner to go rather far round your house, and also helps its manoeuvrability.

For its steaming powers, this Beldray mop comes with a 330ml water tank. That may sound small, but thanks to the fact it uses its water rather sparingly, you can actually go rather far before that tanks needs refilling. To go with the 330ml of water, this cleaner also has a 200ml detergent tank to help freshen up floors and offer a little more oomph for cleaning.

Beldray says water will heat up in 25 seconds, making this a relatively prompt mop to heat water up with. There isn’t much in the way of controls, apart from an onboard power switch, which is a handy addition considering other cleaners require you to physically turn it off from the wall. This appliance also comes with a Velcro-attached microfibre pad for the mop head, and a carpet glider to help it to move smoothly across carpeted surfaces.

In our testing, we found the Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner to do a pretty good job of removing most of the mess we’d left down in tiles in one fell swoop. In addition, it saturated the colours of our rug when steaming a patch for 30 seconds, although didn’t quite get rid of a small stain that was left. It arguably did a better job of dealing with laminate flooring, as our dried muddy footprints were fully gone within 20 seconds without any marks or residue. Our toughtest test involving a combo of coffee and tomato paste stains dried into a patch of tiles arguably pushed this cleaner to its limits, with it taking around two and a half minutes for the stain to be fully removed.

Reviewer: Helen Harjak

Full review: Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner review