The best coffee machines are those that make preparing your morning caffeine hit not only delicious, but which are convenient, easy-to-use and can potentially teach you a thing or two about what makes a good coffee, great.
Naturally, you'll find coffee machines to suit all budget types and all coffee styles. From wallet-friendly prices all the way through to back pocket-busting models that cost thousands and drip filter coffee through to barista-level machines for the home, there's a coffee machine for everyone in Australia.
And, while it may be true that the more you spend the closer to authentic "cafe quality" you're going to get, don't for one minute think that a 'cheap' machine is going to serve you a coffee you're going to want to immediately pour down the drain.
Below you'll find our pick of the best coffee machines in Australia right now, catering to all budgets, all machine types and all sizes of kitchen counter space.
Whether you like your coffee black or white, tall or short, hot or cold, there's a coffee machine out there for you. We've done the hard work so that you can just sit back and choose which one is for you. And don't worry, we've tried and tested them all – though not all at once. We don't drink that much coffee.
The best coffee machine overall
The Barista Touch Impress combines Breville's best home-coffee-machine innovations to make a semi-automatic machine that anyone can use. Whether a professional barista or a coffee novice you'll be able to make exceptional coffee in a compact, efficient and tidy machine. There's not really anything this one is missing.
The best coffee pod machine
This dinky Nespresso machine is easy to use, quick to heat up and produces a lovely thick crema. It'll pour an espresso in around a minute, including heat up time, with results never tasting bitter or burnt.
The best automatic coffee machine
Whatever coffee style you prefer, the De'Longhi Eletta Explore can brew it at the touch of a button. It's not cheap, but it's packed full of features.
The best compact coffee machine
The Vertuo Pop is Nespresso's most compact offering featuring the bigger Vertuo line of pods for larger Americano style coffee. This is a great Nespresso machine for anyone who likes the simplicity of Nespresso pods, but wants to cut down on size.
The best coffee machine under AU$1K
This compact all-in-one bean to cup manual coffee machine strikes a great balance between cost and performance. The inbuilt grinder is decent, the smaller 54mm portafilter produces café level espresso and the milk wand is a step up from the Barista Express
The best Nespresso machine
The Vertuo Creatista adds Breville’s latest Auto MilQ technology to an updated Nespresso Vertuo espresso system to make the best milk coffees of any pod machine.
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The best portable coffee machine
If you're going camping or you travel a lot, the Nanopresso can produce great coffee from this pocketable caffeine machine. It requires a bit more elbow grease, but you'll have plenty to spare where you're going.
The best filter coffee machine
For simple, reliable and great-tasting filter coffee, the Instant Infusion Brew does everything you need for an incredibly attractive price.
The best coffee machine overall
✅ You want good coffee that's simple: For a machine that will do everything easily and all for a good price, this is it.
✅ You want to experiment: With a raft of features including 30 grind settings, there's plenty of room for coffee experimentation.
❌ You love full manual control: The Barista Touch Impress is designed to be as automatic as possible. If you know what you're doing, you can find top-performing machines for less.
❌ You're on a budget: It's priced competitively considering what it can do, but if you don't have a few thousand dollars to spend, this isn't the machine for you.
If you want better coffee at home, but don’t really have the time or motivation to learn how to be a barista, then Breville’s Barista Touch Impress is built specifically for you. The company has done a lot of research into the main pain-points of manual coffee machines for first-time users and has pieced together a set of clever technologies into a machine that requires no existing coffee knowledge or barista experience.
The Breville Barista Touch Impress combines the user-friendly assisted tamping and auto-dosing of the 2022 Barista Express Impress with the intuitive touchscreen and automatic milk frothing of the Barista Touch to make the simplest manual coffee machine for first-time users available.
The integrated grinder and tamping mechanism gives you feedback on how much coffee is going into your basket and the touchscreen provides prompts on exactly what settings you need to change in order to grind the perfect amount at the optimum coarseness. When this info is combined with advice on what to do if the shot takes too long or finishes early, you get a coffee grinding feedback system that can easily be dialled-in for excellent coffee by anyone after just one run of the machine.
It’s also excellent at making cafe-level milk, whether you know how to froth it or not. The Barista Touch Impress is best at turning full-cream cow’s milk into perfectly aerated coffee milk, but one of the headline features is that the new Auto MilQ system comes with customised steam presets that allow you to make great oat, soy or almond milks for your coffee as well. The automatic wand and temperature gauge combine to deliver good quality milk without you having to learn any milk folding techniques.
When you combine all these features you get excellent manual-machine level coffee that anyone can easily make by following prompts and pushing a few buttons. If you are a trained barista using a dual-boiler manual machine it’s possible to make better coffee faster… but the difference isn’t big enough to not be tempted by all the added conveniences of the Barista Touch Impress.
It’s expensive, but there isn’t another device around that you can use without any skill that’ll make better coffee, which makes the Barista Touch Impress the best all-round home coffee machine for everyone in our eyes.
Read our full Breville the Barista Touch Impress review
The best coffee pod machine
✅ You don't have much room: The Pixie is one of the most compact Nespresso machines we've tested.
✅ You prefer black coffee: This machine doesn't have a milk frother, so it can't make a latte or cappuccino.
❌ You want a menu of coffee options: The Nespresso Pixie only offers two choices: expresso or lungo.
❌ You want your coffee piping hot: The temperature is about what we'd expect at 154-167F/ 68-75C, but there's no option to adjust it.
The Nespresso Pixie is the best coffee pod machine you can buy, particularly if space is at a premium in your kitchen.
On test, our reviewer found that the Pixie was very easy to use, and offered a hassle-free way of making a morning coffee. It took on average 25 - 30 seconds to preheat, and an espresso took just 15 seconds to pour. We were really impressed with the thick crema that the machine consistently produced, too, which resulted in a coffee tasting neither burnt nor overly bitter.
Because it uses the Original size of Nespresso capsules (which many third-party coffee roasters also produce, meaning you have plenty of choice) it means the internal bin can hold 10 used pods. It's a great size considering the compact nature of the machine, and it's easy to remove and clean. As with all coffee makers, a descale will be required to help maintain the machine after every 1000 capsules.
Read our full Nespresso Pixie by Krups review
The best automatic coffee machine
✅ You live with other coffee fans: With multiple profiles to switch between, each household member can save their drink preferences.
✅ You don't want the full coffee-making ritual: All drinks are made at the touch of a button, meaning any coffee you want is easy to make.
❌ You mostly drink espressos and americanos: This machine has an excellent milk frother, but you can save money if you opt for a model without one.
❌ You're on a budget - especially if you're in the US: This is one of the more expensive machines in our roundup, and the cost is particularly high in the US.
Want a bean-to-cup coffee machine that literally does it all and don't mind paying for it? The De’Longhi Eletta Explore may well be the answer to your prayers. This impressive option manages to cram a whole load of features into a relatively compact footprint and it'll deliver everything from smooth espresso to cold brew coffee with you barely having to lift a finger.
We don't think it's the prettiest bean-to-cup machine but it's far from an eyesore with its black and deeper gray looks, and it comes with plenty of accessories including two milk carafes, a travel mug and even an ice tray for cold drinks. The Eletta Explore has a sizeable (but not airtight) bean hopper and a fantastic conical burr grinder with seven coarseness settings, while its touchscreen makes it a breeze to make exactly the drink you want; you can also use De'Longhi's Coffee Link app to get the best possible drinks out of your particular beans.
Our reviewer absolutely loved it, although she found some annoying design issues such as a water tank that wouldn't always slide back in properly, plus a frustrating need for separate hot and cold milk carafes. Note that you're in the US, this one's a harder sell as it retails for a lot more than you'd pay elsewhere.
Read our full De’Longhi Eletta Explore review
Best compact coffee machine
✅ You want your coffee quickly: The one-touch button will automatically detect the capsule size inserted to brew the perfect cup of coffee. A "mug" of coffee will take less than 30 seconds to brew and pour.
✅ You're on a budget: It's one of Nespresso's most affordable machines (and can often be found with discounts) yet doesn't scrimp on features. or quality
❌ You want more control: The one-touch button may be convenient for some, but others may wish to have more control over the overall taste and temperature of their coffee.
❌ Recycling capsules is a concern: Nespresso capsules can be recycled, but it's not the easiest to do. They can't go in your at-home recycling bin. Instead, you either have to send them in a paid-for bag, or return them to a store.
Nespresso added this sleek Vertuo coffee machine to its line-up in March 2023. The colourful Pop range is big on personality while minimising the overall footprint of the coffee machine for those kitchens tight on space. The Vertuo Pop is made from 35% recycled plastic and the company has done a fair bit of work to make it easier to recycle used capsules and reduce the overall environmental impact of the system.
Nespresso is still expensive as far as coffee goes, costing about the same per shot as beans from your premium local roaster. The Vertuo range of coffee pods were also designed to cater to individuals who prefer a more ‘Americano’ style coffee that can fill up to a 414ml cup without milk. So if you’ve got a Nespresso Classic machine and you like local flat whites then there’s really no need to switch.
There’s only 7.2 grams of coffee in a standard 40ml Nespresso Vertuo capsule, which is roughly a third the amount of coffee a café would use to produce a similar shot. Nespresso has done a great job in stretching the flavour of these shots, but these kinds of proportions are only going to be able to take you so far towards good tasting coffee. If you’re looking for café quality coffee at home, you'll have to look elsewhere.
The Pop range does offer a pro mode that will reduce the volume of coffee output depending on the type of pod to give you a more intense shot of flavour that will be better for coffee enjoyed with milk. I tested the pop with the new Bianco Piccolo range that, according to Nespresso, was designed for the Australian coffee palette, but even this more concentrated blend just doesn’t deliver the same viscosity and flavour as something made with 18g of coffee (or more) per shot.
The way the Vertuo Pop delivers coffee is still a major step forward from instant and many plunger coffees and you can get it for a fraction of the price of a manual or automatic bean-to-cup device. It's also exceptionally simple to use, fast and doesn’t require any oversight, so there’s plenty to like.
Read our full Nespresso Vertuo Pop review
The best coffee machine under AU$1k
The Barista Express has been the top of our favourite coffee machine pile for some time now thanks to its excellent balance of features and cost. So, it’s perhaps not overly surprising then that we were pretty excited about its spiritual successor, the Barista Pro.
Like it’s predecessor the Pro includes a grinder and bean hopper to save a little space on your kitchen benchtop. In addition to having a good quality conical burr grinder that is precise enough to ensure you get crema from reasonably fresh coffee beans, it’s also got customisable auto grind dosage timers that will measure out grind volumes automatically.
You will need to calibrate this yourself initially, based on the particular coffee beans you’re using, but even novices can work this step out with a set of scales and an online tutorial. This is a manual coffee machine so you should expect a bit of back and forth when dialling it in or when you change the type of coffee beans you use, but once it's calibrated the coffee making process is very streamlined.
The Barista Pro has replaced the analogue pressure gauge with a new digital screen that makes it a bit easier for the less savvy barista to interpret how to make their coffee better. Instead of pressure, the new screen only includes a shot clock, so you’ll have to look at shot volume using independent scales to determine if your grind needs to be finer or coarser, but the screen does show you which way to turn the grind size dial to adjust shot time and volume, which is helpful info for learning baristas.
One of the few pain points of the Barista Express was the fact that it only has one boiler, so there was a bit of wait time between pulling a shot and having your milk wand pressurised enough to fold milk. Breville make a big deal about the 3 second Thermojet technology in the Barista Pro marketing materials, so we had high hopes for this particular component, but it’s not quite the transformative leap we were anticipating. It definitely reduces the time it takes for the milk wand to be running at full speed, but you’ll still want to give it a 5-10 second head start to build up pressure.
With the right ingredients and a bit of know-how the coffee you can make on this machine is on par with what you’ll get at a good café. For anyone occasionally making coffee for guests then the bean to cup time on the Barista Pro is totally fine. If, on the other hand, you’re making any more than, say, four coffees in a row every day then you’d really benefit from the time savings of being able to froth milk simultaneously using a more expensive Dual Boiler machine.
The best Nespresso machine
✅ You want a Nespresso machine with an integrated milk frother: The milk wand is the most advanced automated milk frother you can get on a Nespresso machine. Its clever sensors allow you to adjust temperature and foam volume, without learning barista style milk frothing skills.
✅ You want the most premium Nespresso Vertuo on offer: We’ve seen similar Nespresso Creatista models that take the Nespresso original capsules, but this is the first of its kind and the most premium you can buy if you want to use the Nespresso Vertuo capsules.
❌ You love full manual control: The Barista Touch Impress is designed to be as automatic as possible. If you know what you're doing, you can find top-performing machines for less.
❌ You're on a budget: It's priced competitively considering what it can do, but if you don't have a few thousand dollars to spend, this isn't the machine for you.
The convenience of pod coffee means it’s still the go-to platform for many Australians making coffee at home and if you don’t mind the taste of your average capsule then it’s hard to look past Nespresso’s wide array of machines and coffee.
Nespresso has partnered with Breville to build a new Creatista machine that integrates the Vertuo centrifusion pod system with Breville’s milk frothing technologies.
While Nespresso has had a version of the Creatista available for some time, the Vertuo Creatista uses the newer style centrifusion pods that can (theoretically) produce more subtle flavours thanks to a different extraction technique that requires less pressure and heat. In reality, it tastes pretty similar to the old capsules so we wouldn’t recommend replacing your existing machine expecting an improved experience.
One thing that is likely to be much better is Breville’s Auto MilQ system for frothing the perfect accompaniment to your espresso. The milk wand system on the Vertuo Creatista isn’t as sophisticated as what you’ll get on something like the Barista Touch Impress, but it’s pretty good at turning cold, full-cream milk into a nicely textured milk at the perfect temperature on its own.
There are three levels of heat and foam to choose from, a selection that will get close enough to your favourite style for anyone interested in Nespresso. It’s an easy to use system, but it ends up causing the machine to be as expensive as some premium manual machines and it doesn’t really elevate the flavour of the coffee that much above what you get from any other Vertuo machine and Aeroccino frothing system.
The Vertuo capsule range features barcodes that will automatically deliver the shot size that each pod was designed for, making it as simple as possible to get the perfect shot and it includes a new function to make more concentrated coffee shots by double pressing the shot button.
Despite these improvements you can get way better flavour from a manual machine like the Bambino Plus with good quality coffee (that isn’t roasted for as long as Nespresso’s blends). If you absolutely have to have a Nespresso pod machine, however, then this is the best one for making milk coffee.
Read our full Nespresso Vertuo Creatista review
The best portable coffee machine
✅ You travel a lot: If you can't guarantee easy access to espresso when on the move, the Nanopresso serves up cafe-quality coffee from a machine that slips into a bag.
✅ You're an eco warrior: All you need to do is boil some water. There's no electricity use needed here, saving on power consumption and packaging.
❌ You don't have access to boiling water: The Nanopresso doesn't heat water, you need to add it yourself. If you don't have any, you can't brew a coffee.
❌ You want automatic coffee: The Nanopresso requires hand pumping to brew coffee.
The Wacaco Nanopresso is a pocket-sized coffee machine with the ability to brew hand-pumped espresso. So whether you’re not taken in by a blimp-sized domestic espresso machine or simply on the go so much that home means more than one place, the Nanopresso is a surprisingly worthy contender. There’s no battery or charging: it’s all done by creating up to 18 bars of pressure through hand-pumping, and the end result is comparable to what you’d be served in a cafe.
Lighter, smaller, easier to pump and yet twice as powerful as its Minipresso predecessor, the Nanopresso comes with a built-in espresso cup and lightweight case that’s moulded perfectly to house the device.
If you’ve never used an outdoor espresso maker before, it takes a bit of time to work out what’s going on, especially when slotting it all back in together, but it gets much easier after the first few uses. This is definitely not a machine to try for the first time at 7am on a weekday morning, but it’s great for taking high quality espresso with you no matter where you go.
In effort, cost, and experience required, the Nanopresso couldn’t be further from the Breville the Barista Touch Impress, yet you can get a similar tasting shot of espresso with a bit of practice. It is more of a faff, as it does involve boiling water first (the Nanopresso doesn't heat water for you) and finding a flat spot if you’re outside, but the end result is seriously impressive.
Read our full Wacaco Nanopresso review
The best filter coffee machine
✅ You want a reasonably priced coffee machine: The Infusion Brew is a budget friendly machine that's well-built and produces good coffee.
✅ You drink black coffee: With this being a filter coffee machine, you're free to put whatever ground coffee in you like. No integrated milk frother means this is one for black coffee fanatics.
❌ You want espresso-based coffee: You can't make single or double shot espresso-based drinks such as flat whites or cappuccinos.
❌ You want coffee quickly: Despite being programmable to turn on while you're asleep, it can still take a few minutes for the carafe to fill – just under 10 minutes for the full 12 cups.
Not all of us want or need a fancy, high-tech, all-singing, all-dancing coffee machine at home. Some of us might just prefer a simple cup or mug of black filter coffee in the morning before they go to work or just to start their day. If this sounds like you, then we can't think of many better machines – and certainly nothing as affordable – that does the job as well as the Instant Infusion Brew.
Hailing from Instant Brands, maker of some excellent air fryers and Instant Pots, the Infusion Brew has a brewing pot that's large enough to pour 12 cups of coffee. In order to get that amount of coffee, all you need to do is press a button. What's more, the Infusion Brew uses a reusable mesh filter as opposed to the more common paper filters, which not only reduces the ongoing costs, but also minimises the time it takes to get the machine to start brewing.
You don't always need to brew 12 cups every time either, as the water tank on the rear has guide lines for 4, 6, 8 and 10 cups too. Plus, in the Australian version of the machine, the warming plate will stay on for four hours to keep your brewed coffee warmer for longer (in the UK it only stays on for 40 minutes). And, as you may expect from a machine like this, there's a 24-hour time that allows you to set it up before you go to bed so that you can have a fresh cuppa ready to pour as soon as you rise the next morning.
For a completely no frills approach to coffee, the Instant Infusion Brew should be at the top of your list.
Read our full Instant Infusion Brew review
How to choose the best coffee machine for you
The first decision you're going to want to make is do you want a pod machine or an espresso machine that uses freshly ground beans?
Pod Machines - Pods offer peak convenience allowing you to get decent coffee at the push of a button and have your coffee ready in no time. If you rush in the mornings or you aren't willing to dedicate a weekend to learn how to be an at-home barista then pod machines are for you.
Manual Espresso Machines - If you're an ex barista or you are a coffee obsessive that will do anything to get the perfect cup of coffee int he morning then you're probably going to want a manual espresso machine. Basically manual machines get more rudimentary as they get less expensive, so those with more skill/ time/ determination will be able to make café level coffee from a $500 machine that's almost as good as what can be done on machines that cost thousands.
Automatic Espresso Machines - The other end of the ground coffee spectrum are automatic espresso machines. There are some legacy at-home machines that'll do milk and coffee in a vending machine style, but these devices are often expensive and don't taste great. Fortunately there's a new wave of automatic and semi-automatic espresso machines that have a manual machine appearance but will do everything for you. If you can afford to drop $2K on a device then the top manual espresso machines offer low barrier to entry and great coffee.
Cost - You'll get the most bang for your buck with full manual espresso machines, but the Morning Machine pod coffee maker is an affordable option for super simple café level espresso.
