The 5 Best Personal Blenders - Summer 2024

The best personal blender we've tested is the Ninja Foodi Power Nutri DUO. This small blender is versatile enough for all kinds of recipes, so it's a good option for smoothie making or even multi-purpose use in a cramped kitchen. Its 'smoothie bowl maker,' a jar with rotating arms inside, allows it to easily process thick smoothie bowls or other recipes like nut butter. Naturally, it comes with personal jars with resealable drinking lids and easily blends extremely silky smoothies with fibrous fruits and vegetables. Add in its fantastic ice-crushing ability, and it can help with most recipes.

Its controls include a few automatic blending programs, which is unusual for a personal blender and means you don't have to manually stop it when it's done. The blending programs also let you step away from the blender as it's running, which may be useful because it's quite loud for a personal blender. It's easy to clean by hand, and all of its components are dishwasher-safe.

The Ninja Fit isn't as feature-packed as the previous pick, but it's a good option if you want the best personal smoothie blender for less. It doesn't come with a 'smoothie bowl maker,' making it harder to use for small batches of nut butter or hummus and less versatile. However, it smoothly processes stubborn smoothie ingredients like spinach or blueberries. It can easily handle ice cubes in your smoothie and produce well-blended slushies and blended margaritas. It's quieter, so blending an early-morning smoothie is less likely to wake everyone up.

This blender's 16oz jars have a narrow shape, and depending on the recipe, you may need to stop and shake the jar so that everything reaches the blades. However, its main drawback is the controls—it has no buttons, and you need to push down on the blending jar and hold it to blend. If you want a blender with more convenient controls, the Cuisinart Soho Compact Blender is quieter, better built, and has a start/stop button and a pulse button. However, it only comes with one jar and doesn't achieve quite the same smooth blend with fibrous ingredients as the Ninja.

Ninja, NutriBullet, and Magic Bullet are among the most popular personal blender brands. If you want to know more about how they stack up against each other, read a more detailed comparison here.

The Magic Bullet Blender is the best mini blender in the budget range we've tested. This inexpensive blender is less sturdy than previous picks like the Ninja Fit. It's not meant for crushing ice without liquid in the jar, which limits its versatility. However, it makes a smooth blend with difficult smoothie ingredients like leafy greens and fruit. Its controls are a little more convenient since you don't have to constantly push down on the jar to blend.

It comes with 13 and 15-oz jars, as well as a 4-oz cup for small batches of salad dressing or salsa. Unfortunately, it only comes with a single to-go lid, which isn't ideal if a few people at home like a smoothie in the morning. Its jars are dishwasher-safe, but you must clean the blades by hand. You'll probably need a brush to clean the sharp blades properly, but it's still fairly easy to clean by hand.

Despite its relatively small size, the Ninja Foodi Power Nutri DUO is one of the louder blenders we've tested. That might not bother you much for occasional use, but a roaring blender can get annoying if you use it often or make recipes with longer blending times. If the noise level is a priority, the best small blender we've tested is the Beast Health Blender. While it's not cheap, it's one of the quietest personal blenders we've tested, and it's still powerful enough for various recipes.

Its premium price tag comes with a very sturdy build quality and fantastic performance for most purposes. It easily liquifies difficult ingredients like leafy greens, handles thicker recipes like nut butter, and makes snow-like crushed ice. It comes with a drinking lid for its 34oz jar, but the jar has a shorter, wider shape than most personal blender jars, which might make it a little harder to carry around like a travel cup. The jar's ribbed design gives it a nice look but makes it harder to clean by hand than most picks here since food tends to get trapped in the ridges.

Portable blenders are battery-powered personal blenders that you can carry around and use to blend a smoothie or protein shake at the office, gym, in your car, or anywhere you can't plug a blender in. The NutriBullet Flip stands out from other models for its blending performance. It can make a mostly smooth blend with fibrous ingredients like fruit and leafy greens, so it'll do a good job with a variety of smoothie recipes. Adding a couple of ice cubes isn't an issue, either.

You can drink directly from the jar right after blending with a spout built into the motor base or use the additional lid with or without the included straw. You can buy it with a plastic jar or an insulated stainless steel jar, which helps keep your drink colder for longer. It's well-built and quiet when it's running, and most of its components are dishwasher-safe. However, like many portable blenders, its blades are built into the motor base, which can't be immersed in water. That makes it tricky to clean by hand since you have to be careful not to get water in the charging port. 

If you want more options, check out our list of the best personal smoothie blenders with a battery-powered design here.