What makes a great cooktop? On its highest settings, it should be able to bring a pot of water to a rolling boil in a hurry. Then, on its lowest simmer setting, it should be able to melt chocolate smoothly, without scorching the bottom of the pot. And it should be reliable, because repairs can be both difficult and expensive.
“The right cooktop makes cooking smooth and satisfying,” says Kenneth Sutton, Jr., the engineer who heads CR’s cooktop testing program. “The wrong one just gets in the way at every single meal.”
The question of which brand makes the best cooktops is tougher to answer. CR’s engineers test hundreds of cooking appliances in our labs each year, and currently, we’ve got more than 90 cooktops in our ratings. If you’re shopping for a new cooktop, it’s smart to start with our ratings and look up the specific models you’re considering. But what if we haven’t tested the specific cooktop you’re considering? In that case, our overall cooktop brand scores can be a big help.
To determine which brands make the best cooktops, CR created a statistical model that incorporates the Overall Scores for every gas, electric smoothtop, and induction cooktop in our ratings. Our calculations reflect lab performance, available features, predicted reliability, and owner satisfaction scores. We also look at prices: Brands get credit for delivering high performance and reliability more affordably than their competitors.
Below, CR members can see the best brands in two categories: gas cooktops, and the combination of induction and conventional smoothtop electric cooktops. For each of those categories, we only included brands with at least three cooktops in our current ratings.
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