Best Refrigerator Brands of 2026

French-door refrigerators are one of the most popular configurations on the market. In our lab tests, most French-door models do a good job of keeping food cold, but their performance can vary significantly when it comes to energy efficiency, noise, and ease of use. In addition, they tend to be less reliable than other types of refrigerators, such as top-freezers.

LG’s high brand score might surprise some people, given widely reported problems with the compressors in some of its French-door refrigerators. Our reliability survey data show that LG French-doors, side-by-sides, and built-ins have been more prone to failing or faulty compressors than competing models, but they provide comparable reliability overall. These fridges generally do very well in our lab tests.

Side-by-sides have taken a back seat to French-doors in popularity, but they’re a great option for tight kitchens because of their narrow doors. They tend to be a bit more reliable and budget-friendly than French-doors. But their performance in our lab tests varies widely.

Top-freezers aren’t considered the coolest fridges (pun intended), but they’re very practical. These refrigerators tend to be less expensive and more reliable than other types of fridges, and high-end models typically perform well. Cheaper top-freezers tend to do worse in our lab tests, but there are exceptions. As a group, top-freezers tend to perform poorly in our ease-of-use evaluations, in part because their temperature controls are in hard-to-reach places.

We provide three crucial pieces of information that can help you find the best refrigerator for your kitchen.

Model performance: We capture highly detailed performance data on hundreds of individual refrigerator models in every configuration. You can find all that information in our refrigerator ratings and use a quiz to help you narrow down your choices. Of course, you can also search by model for detailed results. These individual ratings are the best indicator of how a particular refrigerator will work in your kitchen.

Reliability and owner satisfaction: Each year, we survey hundreds of thousands of CR members about the products they buy and, in particular, how well those products hold up over time and prolonged usage. We use the information to generate a brand-level predicted reliability score for every type of major appliance we test. We also ask people if they would recommend their appliance to a friend or relative, and use those responses to tabulate a brand-level owner satisfaction score. The results can be found in our ratings charts and in our rundown of the most and least reliable refrigerator brands.

Brand-level performance: These scores, shown above, reflect how well the refrigerators from a particular brand perform in our testing and surveys, and whether they provide a good value. The scores aren’t model-specific, but they can provide a good backup if you’re interested in a particular model we haven’t tested. Just remember that a high brand score isn’t a guarantee that every model in that manufacturer’s line is a winner. It’s possible for a company to earn an overall high score for its products even if it has a few duds in its lineup. And brands with lower Overall Scores might still offer some refrigerators that provide great performance and value. Note, too, that brand performance can vary widely from one style of refrigerator to another.

We rate refrigerators based on their thermostat performance, temperature uniformity, noise output, ease of use, energy efficiency, crisper performance, and icemaker performance (for models that have that feature). 

Every refrigerator we test gets wired with 15 temperature sensors. We then monitor those thermocouples for more than a month in one of three temperature-controlled chambers, collecting more than 5.4 million temperature readings for each fridge we test. The results tell us how well a refrigerator maintains a set temperature and how temperature varies in different areas of a fridge, so we can determine which models will keep your food fresh longer.

Our testers measure the noise when the compressor starts up and the steady hum while the fridge is running. For ease of use, we examine the fridge’s layout, controls, and lighting.

Our process includes tests for icemaker performance based on how much ice a fridge produces per day and how much it can hold in its reservoirs. We evaluate crisper performance to judge how well the crisper drawers retain moisture to keep your food fresh for longer periods of time.

We also factor in survey data from thousands of CR members to judge brand reliability and satisfaction. All of that data and more inform CR’s refrigerator ratings and each model’s Overall Score.