The Best Automated Espresso, Latte, and Cappuccino Makers

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A good latte or cappuccino is like a rich, milky mug of heaven. Just writing about these delicious, warming drinks makes us want one. Sadly, creating the perfect cap or caffe latte at home can be a hassle. Making a barista-worthy espresso is tough enough, but adding the right amount of milk and foam, perfectly heated and combined, is surprisingly daunting.

That's why we've put together a list of machines that make excellent milk-based or alternative-milk-based beverages at the touch of a button (or a couple buttons). The machines here differ from the picks in our Best Espresso Machines roundup in a couple of important ways. Here we're gathering machines that make it easier, specifically, to make milk-based or alternative-milk-based drinks. That includes machines with built-in containers for milk, or machines that effectively do the steaming for you. In that way, these machines are automated or semi-automated and are great for anyone who wants a device that specializes in dispensing coffee at the touch of a button.

Updated January 2025: We've added the Ninja Luxe Café Premier and Casabrews 5700 PRO and updated links and prices.

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This Mr. Coffee machine sits at a comfortable intersection where ease of use, automation, and affordability. It can extract a flavorful espresso from almost any beans and grind, and its milk reservoir will automatically mix a cappuccino or latte for you.

This is basically a sturdier, better-designed version of the Mr. Coffee Café Barista, our affordable pick, with a nicer portafilter basket that takes ESE espresso pods and a larger milk reservoir that snaps in more firmly. Like the cheaper version, you have to load coffee into the portafilter basket and twist it on (use a fine grind and tamp it down with some pressure for the best taste), but the machine can mix a cappuccino or latte macchiato for you at the press of a button. It has two sizes of each and a manual mode that will just keep foaming or extracting espresso until you tell it to stop.

On the downside, you'll need to clean the milk canister at least once a week. (You can keep it in the fridge.) It also won't extract quite as much rich espresso flavor as the Breville machines below, but it is a lot easier to use. One day, for fun, I put standard Maxwell House coffee into it. The result was definitely Maxwell House-like espresso, but it was still an acceptable Maxwell House espresso—good to the last drop™. It pulls as nice an espresso as it can from almost anything. —Jeffrey Van Camp

The Café Barista is a downgraded version of our top pick, the Mr. Coffee One-Touch Coffeehouse. It's perfect if you want pure espresso and a machine that mixes the milk for you without much fuss, but it's also more plasticky and lightweight, which means you really have to steady the machine with your hand as you twist the portafilter into place. But other than that it makes fairly rich single or double-size espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes with the push of a button.

Like the One-Touch Coffeehouse, this machine's integrated milk container has its pros and cons. You will have to remember to remove and refrigerate it each morning and clean it every few days or it could clog up—cleanup is easy, thankfully. Milk tends to come out a little foamier than I prefer for a latte, and it took me some time to understand what size glass I needed for each drink. (A double latte, for instance, is 15 ounces, but a double cappuccino is only 10 ounces.) The slide-out booster is nice for smaller glasses. —Jeffrey Van Camp

I usually have mixed feelings on cooking equipment under the Ninja brand, but I gotta say, this machine is very impressive. It’s a unique take on an automatic espresso machine, offering not only espresso-based cappuccinos and lattes but also drip coffee and cold brew. It somehow manages to also be extremely beginner-friendly, featuring an intuitive digital user interface. Two nonpressurized baskets—a traditional double espresso basket or a deeper quad-sized basket—tell the machine whether you’re making an espresso- or coffee-based beverage. Depending on your chosen drink, the Ninja Luxe will recommend the grind size on its display screen based on the previous drink’s performance (whether it poured fast, slow, etc.).

Then comes possibly one of the most exciting aspects of the Ninja Luxe not offered in other espresso machines: an integrated coffee scale. Insert the portafilter underneath the conical burr grinder and the machine will dose out the perfect amount of coffee grounds. Drip coffee is made with a coarse coffee grind, and the cold brew is brewed similarly but at a slightly lower temperature.

Most aspects of your drink manage to be customizable, from brewing temperature to drink volume. Milk and milk alternatives are frothed with an automatic steaming wand, which results in some seriously velvety foam. You can even froth cold foam. The Ninja Luxe is designed to ease the mental load of making good coffee, yet still, it took me several practices to finally dial in on a solid shot of espresso. Eventually, I was able to pour a tasteful shot, and then the drink options felt endless. —Tyler Shane

The delta between home espresso machines and the commercial workhorses used by busy third-wave shops is still thousands of dollars, but that hasn’t stopped both beloved brands and scrappy upstarts from infiltrating the space with more approachable units. Skip the junk and level up to the Casabrews 5700PRO (7/10, WIRED Review), which offers an unfussy take on the art of homemade espresso drinks.

Instead of bewildering noobs with a million settings and onboard tutorials, this 12 x 11 x 16-inch tank of a machine keeps it simple with easily accessible controls for things like temperature and dose volume for extraction, and run time for the onboard grinder. There's only one boiler, which means you can’t froth your latte milk at the same time as pulling a shot, but the texture of the frothed milk is perfectly malleable and up to snuff for a basic leaf or rosetta pattern.

The guide rails that hold the portafilter in place are a bit too close to the output spout of the grinder, and temperature controls that dealt in absolute rather than relative values would be welcomed improvements, but until Casabrews implements our feedback, this is still a solid unit that’s a great pick for anyone who’s ready to never leave their house for a cappuccino ever again. —Pete Cottell

The Breville Barista Pro is a coffeehouse in a box. The built-in pressure-activated conical burr grinder gives you fresh grounds however you like them, and the pressure gauge and options let you adjust the water temperature and shot amount. You have to froth your own milk, and the steam wand makes it easier than the competition, with a handle and the ability to tilt in any direction. It cleans itself, and you can get hot water from the machine to brew tea or make an Americano.

Previously we recommended the Express model because it's cheaper, but it was also more difficult to use. The Pro has revamped the controls, and operating it is much simpler and more intuitive. All the accessories you need are included here: a stainless steel milk jug, magnetic tamp, trimming tool, and more.

The Barista Pro isn’t cheap, and it's probably overkill if you already own a burr grinder, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a sturdier, more authentic latte and cappuccino machine that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars.

Tip: Use the double-walled filters—they deliver better crema—and when heating your milk, try to position your steam wand just below the surface. If you have it right, the milk will spin as it's heating. Slowly lower the jug to add foam.

Breville also makes a slightly pared-down version of the Bambino Plus, called the Bambino. It's nearly as capable as its more expensive sibling but lacks a manual brew button, and it's a bit lighter. That means you're essentially stuck with Breville's one- and two-shot settings. You can time your own espresso shots, but it's fiddly and requires holding one of the brew buttons. If you're not careful, that new shot timing can overwrite the original one- or two-shot setting. If you're only ever going to use the one- or two-shot options and don't really mind not being able to easily pull your espresso by hand, the Bambino is a great pick and saves you a bit of cash.