Best hard floor cleaners 2023: Keep your floors clean the easy way

For tough stains and the best performance, the Karcher FC 5 Hard Floor Cleaner is hard to beat. This plug-in model automatically dispenses cleaning detergent onto the two microfibre rollers beneath the machine. These spin at high speed, buffing out stains and almost pulling you along with the rolling action.

As well as cleaning quickly, and even coping with tough, ground-in dirt, the FC 5 has a vacuum action that sucks up dirty water from the floor and puts it into a tank at the back of the machine. The result is that you don’t just get a visibly clean floor, but that you physically remove dirt and bacteria from the floor.

This machine has a variety of cleaning fluids available, although you can use it with most floor cleaners – and it’s safe to use on sealed wood floors, too. Once done, the rollers can be easily removed and put through the washing machine, prepping them for the next time you need the cleaner.

A touch heavy in the hand, the FC5 Hard Floor Cleaner is a great tool for any house with a lot of hard flooring, particularly those homes with mixed hard floor surfaces.

Reviewer: Richard & Jackie Stevenson
Full review: Karcher FC 5 Hard Floor Cleaner review

If you want a lightweight, cordless cleaner that uses detergent, there are few better than the Karcher EWM 2. This model (previously known as the FC3), is a smaller, lighter version of the Karcher FC5. The basic principle is the same: a detergent tank drips onto the powerful rollers that clean, and dirt is sucked up into the small tank, removing mess from the floor.

This model isn’t quite as powerful, but it’s a little easier to push around as a result. The convenience of battery power also makes this cleaner a little easier to grab and use when you need it. Battery life is 20 minutes, which is enough to deep clean larger room or tackle a regular floor of your house; you’ll need multiple charges if you’ve got a large home and lots of hard floor.

Cleaning performance is excellent with the dual microfibre rollers dealing with all of our stains, even the tough ones. Just empty the used tank regularly to prevent mess being left behind, and watch out for the front of the rollers, as they can leave dirt on a wall if you’re not careful.

That aside, if you want something small and convenient, using detergent to really clean, this grab and go model is easy to use and powerful.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Karcher EWM 2 review

Most hard floor cleaners require you to vacuum your floor before you can clean them. Not so, the Vax ONEPWR Glide. This model is a proper vacuum cleaner and hard floor cleaner in one – and it’s cordless, too.

To use the Glide, you just turn it on and start moving it over the floor. It vacuums up anything in its way, and can even tackle wet spills. Depress the handle  and water from the detergent tank soaks the roller at the front, letting it clean. And, cleverly, the vacuum then sucks up the dirty water, removing filth from the floor and depositing it in a separate tank.

There’s a comparatively small detergent tank, so you may need to fill it multiple times to tackle a large area. Neatly, Vax’s detergent is formulated for all floor types – although you can use your own cleaner if you prefer.

You can self-clean the roller by running the Glide on its dock. But if you buy from Vax direct then you’ll get a spare roller, so you can clean one in the washing machine and still be ready to tackle a hard floor.

The replaceable battery is rated to last for 30 minutes on a single charge. Or, you can buy additional batteries to increase run-time – which you may need to do if you’ll be cleaning large areas.

Excellent cleaning performance makes the Vax a pleasure to use, although a vacuum cleaner may still be required to get into the edges.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Vax ONEPWR Glide review

As good as many steam cleaners are for tackling your hard floors, they can all take a bit of manual work to scrub up. Not so with the Shark Steam & Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK, which uses two spinning microfibre cloths to do the hard work for you.

Pumping steam out automatically via the two settings (High for tiles and other hard surfaces, Low for wood and laminate), this mop steams and scrubs at the same time.

All you have to do is glide it effortlessly across the floor and it will do the hard work for you. Even tougher stains are dealt with, and I just had to leave the mop over the mess, letting its mop cloths do the work for me.

There’s one minor complaint: the round cloths can’t get into corners, so you’ll need to do a bit of finishing off yourself at the end. Still, for minimum effort and detergent-free cleaning, this mop is hard to beat.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Shark Steam & Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK review

If you’re looking for a simple-to-use hard floor cleaner that can replace an existing mop, the AirCraft PowerGlide could be for you. This battery-powered model lasts for 30 to 40 minutes per charge, but you can buy additional batteries to extend run-time.

This model uses two large spinning microfibre cloths that buff and remove dirt. To aid with this, you can spray the floor in front of you with detergent from the integrated tank (this accepts any regular floor cleaner). Just be careful how much detergent you spray; this model doesn’t have any suction capability to pick up dirty water from the floor.

In addition to cleaning, the PowerGlide can also be filled with liquid wax. You can then use the polishing cloths to give your hard floors a final protecting buff after cleaning. If you have special floors that need protecting, then the PowerGlide is a top choice.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: AirCraft PowerGlide review

If you’re after the ultimate flexibility and also want to tackle the occasional rug, the Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max is the model for you. This revamped cordless model has a 30-minute run time, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but the thick rollers and powerful suction mean that you can get over a lot of hard floors.

And, this cleaner is also certified for use on rugs and carpet that can be wet washed. You don’t get the full cleaning ability that a carpet cleaner gives you, but for regular maintenance, this model does a great job.

Hard floors are where this cleaner excels, dealing with stubborn stains with ease, leaving a nice shiny floor at the end. Impressively, the CrossWave Cordless Max is also a decent vacuum cleaner in its own right, so there’s no need to clean up with a vacuum cleaner first; in fact, the only thing you’ll need a regular vacuum cleaner for is to get into tight gaps and for edge cleaning.

Simple controls on top let you select the mode (carpet or hard floor), and there’s a trigger to push out cleaning detergent when you want to use it, letting you control the amount of fluid: more for tough stains and less where the floor isn’t so dirty. When you finish, there’s a self-clean mode, so there’s not much cleaning up.

Sure, this model is quite expensive, but if you want the flexibility of a cordless device without having to sacrifice power, this is a great choice.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Bissell CrossWave Cordless Max review

If it’s a properly affordable steam mop you’re after, the Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner should be a fantastic choice.

It comes in a turquoise and white colour scheme and is a mop that’s both sturdy and easy to work with. This Beldray candidate can also stand up on its own and be easily diassembled as the mop’s metallic handle can be removed at the touch of a button. In addition, we also found this mop to be easy to move around thanks to the fact it’s both lightweight and comes with a 5m cable.

The 330ml water tank offers a decent amount to work with, and since it’s used sparingly, we were able to cover a good amount of ground before needing to refill it. As for other elements besides the water tank, this Beldray mop also comes with a plastic protected on off switch; there aren’t any other controls, but the fact it can be turned on and off from the device is a win over other options where you physically need to turn it off at the wall. Returning back to the water tank for a moment, it’s pretty speedy to heat up – Beldray says it’ll take 25 seconds to heat. As well as also being a steam mop, as the name of the cleaner suggests, it is also possible to freshen up floors some more with the addition of a 200ml detergent tank. This appliance also comes with a Velcro-attached microfibre pad for the mop head, and a carpet glider for helping it to move smoothly across carpeted surfaces.

In testing, the Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner did a decent job of getting rid of most of the messes we’d left on both smooth and textured tiles in one go. When taking these tests individually, in steaming a patch of rug for 30 seconds, there was a saturation in the colours of the rug after the 30 seconds, although the mop hadn’t quite got rid of a small stain the rug. When removing dried muddy footprints from a laminate floor though, the mop fully removed them in 20 second without any marks or residue, while in our toughest test (a combo of coffee and tomato paste dried into a patch of tiles), it took around 2 and a half minutes for the stain to be fully removed, although only 30 seconds to remove the superficial staining.

Reviewer: Helen Harjak

Full review: Beldray Detergent Steam Cleaner review

Coping with wet and dry messes, as well as self-cleaning, the powerful Roborock Dyad is both a vacuum cleaner and a hard floor cleaner.

It has two tanks: a 850ml clean water tank, which can also take suitable machine detergent for extra cleaning power, and a 620ml dirty water tank, into which all the dirt is sucked. The cleaner will tell you when the dirty water tank is full. There’s also a filter for any solid mess.

The controls on the handle include a power toggle button plus a button to change modes. You can get a visual indicator of the level of dirt by looking at the coloured bar that runs around the LCD: the more red there is, the dirtier the floor.

Pushing the Dyad around is easy, with the smooth joint on the head making it quick to zip around chairs. And when you’ve finished, you simply tap the button on top to run the automatic cleaning process, which delivers clean water over the rollers and works brilliantly.

In our tests the Dyad performed superbly, cleaning up loose debris and tougher stains and bringing hard floors back to their best. And with battery life of up to 35 minutes, this floor cleaner should be able to cope with large areas without needing to be recharged.

Full review: Roborock Dyad

Reviewer: David Ludlow

First things first: this is a super-expensive robot vacuum cleaner and mop. So, what’s it doing on this list? Quite simply, it’s the best automated mop that we have reviewed before. While most robot vacuum cleaners that can mop usually just drip water onto a microfibre cloth, the X1 Omni is different.

This model has dual spinning microfibre cloths that actually agitate and remove dirt. It does almost as a good a job at cleaning as a manual steam mop or floor cleaner, only with no actual effort. Used in a well-used kitchen, we found that we only needed to get out a manual floor cleaner every couple of weeks or so, and that was mostly to get right into the edges where the robot can’t reach.

Thanks to its large docking station, the X1 Omni can automatically clean its mopping pads, ditching the dirty water into a large tank, and then it dries itself and takes on a fresh supply of water for the next run. Oh, and it will automatically empty its bin, too, so there’s very little to do.

Vacuuming performance is just as impressive. There are a few minor complains: the software isn’t quite as flexible as some of the competition, and if you have carpets it can be fiddly working out how to clean them without getting them wet. We’d also avoid using the integrated voice assistant, as it’s hard to get it to understand.

If you’ve mostly got hard floors and want them looked after automatically, then this is an exceptional robot vacuum cleaner and mop.

Full review: Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni review

Reviewer: David Ludlow