In an unspoken sort of way, Roomba has been crowned "the best" on the sole basis that it's the most established brand in the robot vacuum market. But Shark has always had competitive street cred when it comes to vacuums in general, and its newest rounds of robot vacuums make Shark a force to be reckoned with among Roombas and Roborocks.
Having tested the top botvacs from all of the top brands, I can easily narrow down the best three Shark robot vacuums that you should be eyeing heading into 2025.
Are Shark robot vacuums as good as Roomba?
It's not the definitive one-word answer you were hoping for, but making an unequivocal call between the two brands without exploring the gray area just wouldn't make sense. As in the Instant Pot vs. Ninja Foodi debate, both vacuum brands are constantly growing their lineups, expanding their price ranges, and filling blind spots in which the other brand may have previously been the winner.
However, Shark typically does one thing better than Roomba: Making the best robot vacuum features affordable. Now that robot vacuums have firmly moved from the new-fangled The Jetsons vibe they gave off in 2017 to an appliance just as normal to have at home as an upright vacuum, a trifecta of standard cleaning features (outside of the regular vacuuming itself) has arisen that is kind of expected at this point in the robot vacuum game: These are mopping, smart room mapping, and automatic emptying.
iRobot and Shark both have several options that offer all three or some mix-and-match version of two. With Shark's debut of its Matrix robot vacuums in spring 2023 and then the fall 2024 release of its most automated robovac yet (the PowerDetect line with a NeverTouch Base), Shark is your best bet for securing more robot vacuum features at a lower price (compared to the prices on the Roombas with matching capabilities). There's also a high chance that any given Shark robot vacuum is on sale at any given time, especially if you're buying a robot vacuum on Black Friday. Below, we'll note the sale price we see most frequently in "The Good" section — so don't take that full price too seriously.
Shark really shines at spot cleaning
Sometimes, there's an unexpected mess that you want to clean without messing around with a map on the app. In those cases, Shark Matrix robot vacuums make spot cleaning much easier than Roombas do. Setting a zone for a one-time clean in the Shark app is as easy as dragging a square in the designated spot cleaning tab, compared to having to create and name an official cleaning zone on the map in the iRobot app. Most modern Shark robot vacuums also have a physical cleaning button if you want to pick the robot up and place it in the right area — an underrated feature that modern Roombas completely skip.
Though the list of Shark robot vacuums to choose from isn't as big as iRobot's is, comparing the differences between them on paper can still get confusing. That's why I've tested most of the main Shark robot vacuums in my own home to compare them to each other in an IRL setting — as well as compare them to other robot vacs from iRobot, Roborock, Eufy, and more that I put through the same standardized obstacle course. Here are the best three Shark robot vacuums that I've tested, and that I think you should eye on Black Friday 2024:
