The Two Best Brooms We Tested Cost Less Than $20

Things I loved: This is a good broom and dustpan set. The bristles weren’t too stiff or too soft, and the length of the handle felt comfortable in my hands. It also swept up all of the messes we threw on the floor really well. The most difficult debris to clean up was the cat litter. It was the only hard debris this broom didn’t sweep up into a pile in one swipe. Even so, it left the least amount of cat litter behind after a single swipe. All the other debris was gathered into a neat pile with no additional sweeping necessary. Its dustpan was also great, one of only two that didn’t leave the dreaded line of debris behind just under its lip. 

The handle length (which isn’t adjustable) felt comfortable to me and one of the 5-foot-8-inch testers, but another tall tester complained that the cushioned spot at the center of the handle made him place his hand in an uncomfortable position. Our 5-foot, 10-inch tester thought the handle could have been a bit longer. My hand didn’t sit exactly where the cushion was positioned, but I didn’t consider this a deal breaker. 

It arrived in our labs assembled and looked as good as when I unboxed it after giving it a couple of rough shakes and rinsing it under running water several times. It has a hole at the top to store it on a hook. 

Things I didn’t love: First, hair became tangled in the bristles instead of being swept into the dustpan, so I had to reach down and pull it off the broom with my hands while I was sweeping. At home, I’ve often felt pretty grossed out having to do this with the broom I own. It was no different in the lab, even though I knew exactly what the hard debris stuck in the bristles and hair was. Unfortunately, none of the brooms I tested with bristles totally remedied this problem.

The second thing I didn’t like was that the dustpan requires you to bend over and hold it in place while debris is swept into it. It works really well, but I just can’t get behind sweeping things into a dustpan while my face is so close to the floor. The dustpan also has a built-in comb to remove any stuck-on hair and debris from the broom’s bristles, but it didn’t work as well as others. My perfect broom and dustpan set is this broom plus the O-Cedar dustpan below.

Things I loved: This is also a good broom (but more on why it isn’t as good as the Up&Up model follows). What really makes it a standout product is its dustpan. Usually, I won’t even look at a dustpan I have to bend over and pick up off the floor, but I’d make an exception for this broom and dustpan set any day. The dustpan is designed to form a seal between the lip of the pan and the floor when you step on it and keep your foot on the handle. That means you can stand upright to sweep debris into it. It’s a simple design but an effective one. Yes, you still have to bend down and pick the dustpan off the floor, but at least there’s no sweeping happening mere inches from your face. As with the Up&Up dustpan, there was no line of debris stuck under the lip after sweeping any of the dry messes. 

Though the bristles appear to be less densely packed than the ones on the Up&Up broom, the broom still did a great job in our tests. Oats, cereal, and dry rice were swept up with no stragglers left on the lab floor. 

The O-Cedar set arrived assembled, has holes at the top for storing on a hook, and is both lightweight and sturdy. After shaking, rinsing under water, and allowing to dry, the bristles still swept up the hard debris we threw their way. 

Things I didn’t love: This broom struggled to sweep up two types of debris: cat litter and hair. After one swipe, it left more cat litter and human hair behind than the top model. After a second swipe, the rest of the debris was taken care of. As with the Up&Up broom, hair became stuck in the bristles of this broom, requiring me to remove it by hand.

The combs on the dustpan are meant to remove hair and debris from the broom’s bristles, but they don’t penetrate deep enough to remove the stuck bits.

This Libman broom swept up oats, rice, and cereal well but struggled with the finer bits in the cat litter we used in our tests. Even after multiple swipes, I could feel the small granules of litter under my feet as I walked around the lab. The bristles of this broom felt stiffer than all the others we tested. This was the single feature that all three of my additional comfort testers noted when they tried it, too.

I didn’t like the dustpan included with this broom at all. I had to play that annoying game where I swept debris into the pan, pulled it back, swept more into the pan, over and over, until finally I just picked up the last bits of oats, rice, and cat litter with a moist paper towel. I generally stay away from any broom sets that include the kind of dustpan you have to lean down for, and this one is a perfect example of why. It didn’t work well, and it was uncomfortable having to sweep with the long broom into the small dustpan while you’re low to the ground. And like the Libman and O-Cedar dustpans, the combs on this one just couldn’t get all of the debris stuck in the broom’s bristles.

The broom from Amazon Basics arrived in three easy-to-assemble pieces. After twisting them on, they remained firmly in place while I was sweeping. It handled all of the dry debris on the lab floor well, and it was easy to remove the hair that became tangled in its bristles. Because it doesn’t come with a dustpan, I paired it with my favorite one from O-Cedar and found that they worked really well together. 

The broom’s handle was comfortable and not too heavy, and the three comfort testers liked it well enough.

This broom and dustpan set from Oxo was the most expensive product we tested. It was also the only broom that included a dustpan with a long handle. But its performance was a bit disappointing. The soft bristles handled the sweeping of all the dry debris into neat piles well, but the dustpan’s lip didn’t lie flat on the floor, so it was difficult to sweep the debris into it. Each time I tried, most of the debris went right under it. 

Its dustpan had the best comb for removing long hair from the bristles. But this wasn’t enough to earn a top spot.

The most notable quality about these squeegeelike silicone brooms is that long strands of hair don’t stick to them the way they do to brooms with bristles. They also sweep up dry messes really well and can help wrangle puddles of spilled cereal and milk well, too. This particular model’s two biggest flaws are that it’s too lightweight, and when you sweep, its movement over vinyl floor tiles feels halting instead of smooth. 

When cleaning up wet spills, you have to make sure to get it all in one swipe. If you go back for a second one, you risk transferring whatever wet mess you’ve swept up into a neat pile back onto the parts of the floor you just cleaned.

But if I had to choose just one silicone broom to use at home, it would be this one because it’s easier to assemble than the Helio AirBroom below.

My colleague Lisa Fogarty said it best when she described the hassle of assembling this five-piece broom for a separate test. As for me, none of the pieces seemed to fit together, no matter how much I turned or pushed on them. After 5 minutes of trying to get the broom head onto the handle, I asked another colleague for help. He applied a significant amount of force to finally get the head into place. 

In addition to the assembly problems, when adjusting the handle length, I found that I had to give the handle more than one firm twist in the locking direction before it finally locked into place, like when a screw is stripped. 

Dry and wet messes were gathered in neat piles with little effort, and as with the Broombi, I liked that no hair became stuck to this silicone broom.