This guide compares some of the best filter coffee grinders of 2025 for home use, across a range of budgets, after testing many different models.
All opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Probably three or four times a week, we get emails and Instagram messages asking us for our top recommendations on coffee equipment. Most frequently, we're asked about the best filter coffee grinders for home – so this blog is an attempt to synthesise some of the thoughts that we have regarding this topic.
This guide is going to cover:
- Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £100
- Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £500
- Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £1000
It was also going to include the best coffee grinders over £1000, but those are verging on commercial equipment, and we will make a separate guide for this.
Remember, these are just our personal opinions on this topic. I have used probably 30 or 40 different filter coffee grinders in my time, and this guide only includes the best of those coffee grinders – ones that I have tested personally – and not any coffee grinders that I have never used. So while this guide is quite comprehensive, some grinders may not appear here for this reason.
While you can use our post as a buying guide, we always recommend doing your own research.
Coffee Grinders I Wouldn't Recommend
As always with these Harmony Coffee guides, I always include a brief section for coffee grinders that, personally, I wouldn't suggest buying.
Most of the time, I actually have nothing against the piece of equipment in question – sometimes they are actually very good – but oftentimes there are cheaper pieces of equipment that perform to a similar level.
Krups Expert Burr - £55
Mahlkonig X-54 - £400
I actually have a great relationship with the Mahlkonig guys, and I am always first to recommend their espresso grinder technology. In my opinion, the X54 is just not a very good grinder for filter brewing.
It's always an interesting choice trying to fit flat burrs for a filter coffee grinder and then not vertically mounting them, as you're fighting against gravity and relying on centrifugal forces. Grinding tends to be slower and less effective without a feeder.
Additionally, I think that the market is moving in the general direction of fractionation – meaning that people are preferring to buy specialised equipment that does one thing very well, rather than one grinder that offers lots of uses but doesn't really do any of them all that well. As it transpires, I think that this grinder is simply outgunned in its budget category.
Sage Pro Coffee Grinder - £189
Baratza Encore - £150
Niche Zero - £549
Mahlkonig EK-43 - £2300
The EK43 has become a fashionable "prosumer" coffee grinder, but I would not recommend buying one for filter coffee under virtually any circumstances.
Most EK43s come mounted with their standard "coffee" burrset or the "Turkish" burrset. As you can imagine, Turkish is more espresso-focused, and the coffee burrset has a bit more of a multipurpose angle to it. I actually quite like using the coffee burrset for brewing turbo shots of espresso, because it has a slightly more unimodal style of distribution.
The EK43 is notoriously bad for factory alignment. Naysayers say that because it undergoes CNC machining, this is better than manual alignment, and those people have either never tasted coffees out of a poorly aligned EK, or have never aligned their own EKs properly.
It is possible to align the EK by shimming the burrset using small bits of foil to lift the burrset up in certain places. The best video for this is Barista Hustle's guide on aligning an EK43 – but this is a hassle, and can take several hours to do properly, and you have to be quite considerate with where you shim.
Can the EK produce good quality filter coffee?
Yes, of course it can. It's partially why it's such a popular coffee grinder, because it really does do that very well. The thing that we need to take into consideration is that this is a commercial tool, designed for grinding entire bags of coffee in a coffee roastery – it was never built to be a coffee grinder for the home or to make great tasting filter coffee for cafés.
These days, for the price, there are simply much better options out there for the home consumer that have much more precise machining. At 26kg, an EK43 is not a very practical grinder for home use – and the short version is not much lighter.
Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £100
1. Wilfa Svart - £99
Note – if your budget is exactly £100, you will only be able to get the silver model, as the black models tend to be a little more expensive. The reason for this price difference is because the Silver model has a faster motor, which means the burr chamber tends to run a little hotter – negatively impacting flavour characteristics... However, grinding one dose of coffee at a time would mean the result from this would be extremely marginal.
Generally speaking, if you're looking at electric filter coffee grinders, there's really nothing better under £100 than the Wilfa Svart. For the price, the grind distribution is as good as many other coffee grinders that are above this price point.
This was my first home coffee grinder that I bought for myself back in 2016 (I did have a Krups grinder before this, but it was promptly booted from my home setup when I got this). I still have it (somewhere) and it still works! So for the price they are really quite durable, and a great entry-level coffee grinder.
The grinder works by loading coffee beans into the top of the hopper, twisting the grind adjuster to your desired grind size and then grinding using the button on the side. The grinder will then grind your coffee into the collector at the base of the grinder.
The hopper itself fits enough beans to make a pretty sizeable brew, so this has become quite a popular entry-level filter coffee grinder for coffee shops wanting to experiment with serving batch filter coffee. I always recommend weighing out the exact weight in beans that you want to use for your brew, and then grinding until all of the coffee has been ground through.
The grind adjuster is stepped rather than stepless – this covers from Moka pot kind of fineness all the way through to the sort of coarseness that you would expect to use with a cold brew. I haven't counted, but there feels to be roughly 15 steps, which realistically means that you have about three viable grind settings for each brew method that you would want to use.
The dial on the side is utterly useless – all it does is change the amount of time that you are grinding for – and so this is only useful if you fill the entire hopper with beans and grind on a time-based situation rather than weighing what you put in.
Pros
- Great value for money – decent grind quality considering
- Electric grinder
- Decent hopper capacity
- Small footprint, lightweight
Cons
- Not particularly portable
- Time adjustment dial on the side is a bit useless
- Be careful who you buy from, because sometimes these come with an EU plug and without an adapter.
- Grind box is horrible to dose out of!
- Produces quite a bit of static, but this can be partially negated by using RDT.
- Grind retention not great.
2. Timemore C3 - £90
Pros:
- Surprisingly excellent grind quality for the price.
- Portability – you can take it on trips away.
- High quality materials, premium feel.
- Comes with an accessory case.
- CNC machined for very high levels of precision.
Cons:
- Not electric coffee grinding
- Small capacity
Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £500
1. Fellow Ode Gen 2 - £275 - £425 (With Redspeed Burrs)
So interestingly – I never really got on with the original Fellow Ode. I thought it was overhyped, and not that good. I found it clunky, it produced a lot of static, making it annoying to use, and I didn't like the grind quality at all. I always find ghost burrs to be an interesting decision – sometimes it works out really well, and other times they limit the user quite a lot. In Fellow's case (from memory) the original Ode was not rated to carry anything other than the manufacturer's ghost burrs, which meant no fitting SSPs, and that the grinder was limited to only brewing filter coffee.
The Gen 2 is a very different product, yielding a lot more precision, higher grind quality, less static creation and fewer fines generated.
The grinder itself has a fairly decent capacity grind chamber and cup – at around 100g, which is enough to make a large 1.5l batch if you want to impress a lot of guests at once. The clicker that it comes with for knocking out excess grinds is still quite an unimpressive feature. These grinders also have a fairly good second-hand market, so you will be able to get much of your initial investment back if you decide it's not for you.
The grinder itself is stepped, but there are over 30 different grind settings, which is more than the average person would need. It's lightweight, quiet and has a low grind retention, which makes it easy to go from one coffee to the next.
These are all quite nice features to have – but the one that stands out to me is actually the motor, which is PID controlled for high precision RPM and force.
The grinder itself has two burr options... The stock burrs, which would set you back £275, or you can have Red Speed burrs mounted for an extra £150. I would 100% recommend the Red Speed burrs if you are brewing filter coffees. In my opinion, the Red Speed burrs yield more acidity, more sweetness, more flavour clarity and work better with our coffee than the standard burrset.
Pros:
- Great grind quality
- Multiple burrset options depending on use case
- Reasonably portable for an electric grinder
- High quality materials, premium feel.
- Low static & retention
- Can grind up to 100g at a time
- Small footprint
Cons:
- Not very many – it's a great grinder for the price.
Of course, it's not as good as some coffee grinders that are 5–6 times the price, or some hand grinders in the same price bracket, but in the electric grinder market, this is about as good as you can get for under £500.
2. Comandante C40 - £250
To most people, I probably sound insane when I tell them that the best coffee grinder you can buy for under £1000 is a hand grinder. But I stand by that claim – I've made over 5000 coffees on my Comandante since I bought it in 2018. Even now, it's the grinder that we use in the roastery for QC, cupping, and day-to-day general brewing.
I know many shops that like to use this coffee grinder for their filter coffee offerings, and World Brewers Cup winners that have used this as their competition grinder, because the grind profile from it is simply that good. So yes, it's a very good grinder.
It has the advantage of also being very portable, versatile, with a very wide grind range – and you can also fit it with the Red Clix axle to give you twice the number of grind options.
I tend to use grind size 23–26, but you can immediately notice the difference between each step, which enables you to indulge in immense precision.
Yes, it's a hand grinder – but you know, it's really not a faff – only if you're grinding a lot of coffee in one go. The crank is pretty good. Maintenance is easy, it's zero retention, low static, and produces incredible results – plus it's portable! You can take it anywhere you go – and despite having a glass grinds catcher, it's very strong – I've only ever broken one in seven years.
If you don't mind hand grinding, this is the last grinder you'll need, as upgrades in grind quality beyond this start costing you thousands and thousands (like the EG-1, P80, etc).
Pros:
- Stellar grind quality
- Very portable
- Can combine with Red Clix to give you many, many grind settings.
- High quality materials, premium feel.
- Low static & retention
- High precision equipment, recipes easily transferable
Cons:
- Hand grinder
- Low capacity (40g)
Best Filter Coffee Grinders Under £1000
DF83V - £695
I will say, I have only used this grinder a few times myself. But some trusted friends who use this every day have seconded my opinions, which has given me the confidence to include this grinder in our guide.
This grinder is a variable RPM coffee grinder, which covers RPM from 300 to 1600. There are lots of nice little features on this grinder, such as the magnetic catch cup, auger feed system and built-in bellows for low retention and high grind quality.
We have my favourite... A vertically mounted set of 83mm flat burrs. Although this grinder is advertised as an espresso grinder, it produces a really quite decent grind distribution profile for filter coffee brewing.
It's exceptionally quick to grind, and very quiet. It's easy to take apart for regular maintenance and it has a stepless grind adjuster for high precision brewing in micro increments. Additionally, the grinder boasts a plasma generator – this claims to reduce static buildup, although this is not a claim that I can personally back, because I am not familiar with this science. Coffee Chronicler has written a very comprehensive review here.
Overall, a very solid coffee grinder, and wonderful for the price.
Pros:
- Quiet
- RPM adjuster
- Anti-static technology with plasma generator
- Quick to grind
- Comes with bellows for low retention
- High quality grind distribution for filter coffee
- Vertically mounted burrs
Cons:
- Personally, I don't really like the shape of this grinder – it's a bit of a personal thing, I just think it looks a bit ugly.
- Big and bulky, not really something that can easily be transported when compared to other grinders.
- When beans enter the pre-breaker, sometimes coffee dust can collect inside the hopper, so this requires regular cleaning.
Timemore Sculptor 078 - £695.00
NOTE, this is for the 078, not the 078s.
The 078 is a grinder that I have a great amount of experience using!
This is what we have been using at the roastery (although it's on loan to Brew and Brownie at the moment) when making a little batch filter, or if we want to do a number of quick side-by-side comparisons.
The coffees that are made with this coffee grinder tend to be extremely balanced, with a well-integrated acidity and very pleasant body. It's one of the ongoing jokes that we have in the roastery – if we have a tea-like coffee, we can always use the Timemore to pull some body out of it!
Let's go over some of the things I love about this grinder: The burrset is vertically mounted, which I love – I think that's the best way to do it. It's got a variable RPM dial, which covers anywhere from 800–1400 RPM. It's extremely quiet, to the point where I can't actually tell if it's on without putting my ear right up to it. It's actually really great for a café environment for this reason, if you want great café-quality coffee without making lots of noise – but that's aside from the point... SO quiet.
The magnetic catch cup is just a glorious feature. The rotary clicker is quite satisfying.
However, here are some things that I don't like about this grinder: Even though they have attempted to design this grinder with minimal popcorning, it still popcorns quite badly. They have decided to use the smallest possible hopper, so the grinder fits maybe 50g at most. You can get a hopper extender, but I don't know why they didn't just build it with the hopper extender as default. One last complaint – the coffee grinder produces quite a lot of static, and although there is a rotary knocker, the static buildup has already happened by the time you go to use the knocker. This is contrary to the findings of Nucleus, who also posted a review of this grinder, but as I say, I'm just referring to my experience. This can be partially negated with an RDT, but as it comes, the grinder does produce static in my opinion.
It's worth noting that because these burrs are 78mm, there are very few manufacturers that produce 78mm burrs, and so you may find your options for changing these out quite limited. The existing burrs which are fitted to the grinder are 78mm turbo (ghost) burrs, which are a stylistic preference, but I wish they had allowed the user to make up their own decisions to allow for other burr sets to be added, should they so choose.
Pros:
- Great grind quality, produces a very balanced cup with great body
- Very, very quiet!
- Small and portable, you could theoretically take this with you when you go away
- RPM adjuster
- Rotary knocker
Cons:
- Static buildup
- Tiny hopper! Why?
- RPM dial feels a bit cheap, but does work
- One burr option
It's worth also noting that this coffee grinder will not produce espresso-fine grinds even at the finest setting. This is not a con, because we are reviewing filter coffee grinders, but if you are buying for multiple purposes, maybe consider a different grinder.
Conclusions
This concludes our little guide on the best filter coffee grinders for the home in 2025.
It's worth noting that all of the opinions expressed here are my own; we have not been paid to advertise any of the coffee grinders featured in this guide – it's only for the benefit of the consumer. If you are looking for the very, very best coffee grinders (even better than the ones in this guide), this will be appearing in our Best Commercial Filter Coffee Grinders guide, which targets quality above all, rather than this guide which focuses more on a price to quality ratio.
If you want to support our business so that we can continue to make guides like this, or if you have bought one of these coffee grinders and want to try brewing some coffee from our range to test it with, check out our coffee offerings here, or our coffee subscriptions here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a grinder good for filter coffee at home?
For filter brewing, you want a grinder with a consistent particle distribution, minimal fines, and enough adjustment range to dial in different brew sizes. Consistency and cup quality matter far more than speed or the number of grind settings. Many “all-rounder” grinders don’t perform well specifically for filter coffee.
Why don’t some popular grinders appear in this guide?
This guide only includes grinders I've personally used and trust. I've tested more than 30–40 grinders over the years, but only those that meet my standards for quality and value were included. If a grinder isn’t here, it might simply be one I haven’t tested yet.
Why are there grinders you don’t recommend?
Some grinders are either outperformed by cheaper options or don’t deliver good filter coffee for the price. Many are popular or frequently recommended online, but in your experience the cup quality, usability, or value doesn’t justify choosing them when better alternatives exist.
Why include a £90 hand grinder (Timemore C3) in an electric grinder guide?
A well-engineered hand grinder like the Timemore C3 can outperform many similarly priced electric grinders. Because hand grinders don’t need motors or electronics, more of the cost goes into burr quality and precision. The C3 offers excellent grind quality, portability, and good ergonomics, making it a strong option even alongside electric models.
What’s your pick for the best filter grinder under £500?
If hand grinding isn’t an issue, the Comandante is the overall pick for this price bracket.
Is a hand grinder like the Comandante C40 really worth it under £1000?
In my experience, yes. I've made over 5000 coffees with my Comandante C40, and still use it for QC in the roastery. It offers stellar grind quality, portability, low retention, and extremely fine grind control. Improving meaningfully beyond it often requires spending several thousand pounds.
Why don’t you recommend the Niche Zero for filter brewing?
The Niche Zero is a good espresso grinder but not ideal for filter coffee. It produces a high number of fines at filter grind settings, causing choking and inconsistent flow. For the price, there are better grinders dedicated to filter brewing.
Should I buy a commercial grinder like the Mahlkönig EK43 for home filter coffee?
Generally, no. While the EK43 can produce great filter coffee, it’s a commercial grinder designed for roasteries, not homes. It’s heavy, expensive, often poorly aligned from the factory, and may require time-consuming alignment work. There are far more practical and better-machined home options for the same (or lower) price.
Can I use this guide to choose a grinder without researching anything else?
This guide is an excellent starting point, based entirely on hands-on use, but I still encourage readers to do their own research. Consider your brew method, budget, and preferences, and read multiple sources before making a final decision.
Take your brewing game to the next level:
Espresso lovers can also find our guide on the Best Coffee Tampers here.
Filter coffee lovers can find our guide on the Best Pourover Filter Coffee Recipes here.
Find some of the best free tools to accompany your brews here.
Find your perfect coffee from Harmony's selection of coffee beans here.
Check out our guide on resting coffee to get the most out of your brews here.
Find the Best Coffee Scales here.
Learn about why RDT reduces static in coffee grinding here.
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About the Author
Ben is the Head of Coffee at Harmony Coffee, a competition barista and trainer with over a decade in specialty coffee. He’s trained hundreds of baristas, competed in UK coffee championships, and spends an unreasonable amount of time testing coffee grinders.
