The Best Lawn Mower

Over the past nine mowing seasons, we’ve spent more than 140 hours researching nearly 250 mowers, interviewing experts, and extensively testing some of our top picks. We’ve spoken to landscapers, lawn mower retailers, and product managers at Cub Cadet, Ego, Honda, Toro, Troy-Bilt, and other manufacturers.

Personally, I maintain a rural property in New Hampshire that is far too large for a push mower to cover and provides ample room to test our recommendations. This guide’s editor, Harry Sawyers, assists with testing mowers on his Los Angeles property and draws from his previous experience as a professional landscaper.

If you want to be able to stand the sight of your yard, you need a lawn mower. Anything larger than a half acre gets into riding-mower territory, but a self-propelled push mower is perfect for a half acre or less. Going at a pace of about 3 mph (roughly the average adult walking speed), it takes about an hour to cut this amount of grass. If you have a particularly small lawn, a reel mower is an option—but using one is quite hard work. If you want much less work and have a much larger budget, we’ve also tested robotic mowers.

We prefer cordless mowers. Cordless mowers start with the push of a button, are easier to maneuver, and don’t need oil changes, gas, spark plugs, or air filters. In contrast to gas models, they’re much quieter, they don’t smell, they don’t produce emissions, and they’re easier to store in the off-season. The run time is relatively limited, and charge times can be slow, but the latest models close the performance gaps between cordless and gas. Still, we understand that some people prefer gas mowers, so we do have a gas recommendation in this guide.

Self-propelled mowers make life easier. With the mower moving itself across the lawn, all you have to do is throttle and steer, rather than forcing the mower’s full weight up every incline and over every bump. A self-propulsion feature adds to a mower’s price, but after using both kinds of mowers during testing and in our regular lives, we’ve concluded that this feature is well worth the investment.

We favor easy-to-use controls and features. It’s important to have a nicely cut lawn, but it’s equally important to have an easy time making that happen. In evaluating models, we place an emphasis on user controls and features. How difficult is it to adjust the push-bar height or to raise and lower the mowing deck? Can you intuitively control and adjust the self-propulsion? Is the bag a pain to put on and take off? Does a model have other design details that make startup smoother or assist with storage?

We look at cost in terms of long-term value. Gas mowers are cheaper up front, generally, but they bring long-term costs—and hassles—that cordless mowers avoid. Those drawbacks include the cost of supplies, such as gas, oil, stabilizers, air filters, and spark plugs, as well as the time and labor required to care for a gas mower, namely getting gas, changing the oil, and emptying the tank at the end of the season. With cordless mowers, the battery claims a large percentage of the price tag. But cordless-mower manufacturers typically offer a series of outdoor tools (leaf blowers, string trimmers, hedge trimmers, and the like), all compatible with the same battery, and usually you can purchase them without a battery at a greatly reduced cost. So for a high cost up front, a cordless-mower investment may open the door to an affordable expansion into that manufacturer’s other yard tools.

Charge time and run time are critical. For cordless candidates, we examine both of these primary factors, which together determine whether a mower’s battery will be adequate or frustrating. Because these two elements are so important, we consider only those mowers that use a battery of at least 40 volts.

For the best in convenience, battery run time, cut quality, and value, we recommend the Ego LM2156SP Power+ 21″ Select Cut XP Mower. Compared with a gas mower, it’s quieter, it doesn’t create exhaust, and it requires almost no maintenance. Among cordless models, the LM2156SP has a long run time, as its battery is good for a solid hour of mowing; it also has a short, one-hour charge time. The control interface allows you to operate the propulsion with either hand. The mower cuts with two blades, creating a finer cut and allowing for better mulching, and the motor is powerful enough to handle wildly overgrown grass. Rounding out the features are two forward-facing LED lights, an easy-to-use cutting-height adjustment, and a battery port that faces the battery gauge toward the operator. In addition, the battery is compatible with Ego’s other lawn tools, such as the company’s leaf blower, chainsaw, and string trimmer.

It has a solid run time, but that may vary depending on how, and what, you’re mowing. The LM2156SP comes with four different blades. One is the established upper blade, which always stays on the mower, and you add any of the other three—a mulching blade, a bagging blade, or an extended-run-time blade—depending on the need. Ego states a maximum run time for the mower of up to 75 minutes, which is with the extended-run-time blade cutting a light load of grass. We tested the mulching blade on tall grass and got about 40 to 45 minutes of run time, which represents the low end of the spectrum. The mower’s manual (PDF) confirms this number and states that a medium load gets about 60 minutes of run time.

The manual also includes tips on extending the run time, such as keeping a sharp blade, never cutting off more than 1.5 inches of grass, and keeping the mower at a reasonable speed. Such differences between the advertised run time and reality are not exclusive to Ego’s mowers, however: When we tested a Milwaukee mower under circumstances similar to those for this Ego model, we got about 25 minutes of run time rather than the advertised 60 minutes.

Another way to extend the run time is to purchase either an additional battery or another Ego yard tool that comes with a battery. The batteries alone are pricey: Depending on their ampere-hour rating, they currently range in price from about $130 (for a 2.5 Ah battery) to about $600 (for a 12 Ah battery). They all fit in the mower, and if you have a second one on the charger while the first one is out working in the yard, you can minimize or even eliminate downtime.

This two-bladed model offers superior power. We’ve put the mowers on some rough tufts of knotty crabgrass, knee-height rye grass, and thick stalks of weeds, and although many of the other mowers could handle the task, the LM2156SP hardly slowed down at all and left a much better cut in comparison with the competition. Other models either significantly slowed down or periodically stalled out.

The cut quality is very nice—especially compared with that of single-bladed models—and leads to a healthier lawn. With its two blades, the LM2156SP cut grass into smaller pieces than tested single-bladed mowers did. This leads to better mulching, since smaller pieces decompose more quickly, as well as more efficient bagging, since you can fit more grass into each bag.The LM2156SP’s second blade puts it into territory formerly exclusive to mowers such as those in the highly regarded dual-blade Honda HRX series. Even going through taller grass, the LM2156SP left a nice-looking lawn in our tests.

Controlling it is easy and intuitive. Like many mowers, the LM2156SP has a metal bar (called a bail) that you hold against the handle to activate the blades. To activate the self-propulsion, you press either of two buttons in the upper corners of the handle. A central dial controls the mower’s speed; you can operate that dial with your thumbs or your palm (if you’re holding the upper part of the handle).

It emits no exhaust fumes. Without the stink of gas-engine exhaust in your face, the smell of mowing the grass while using the LM2156SP is entirely different and much more pleasant. Unfortunately, the allergens are exactly the same.

It offers a number of convenience features. The headlight, something not found on gas mowers, provides some illumination as the day draws to a close. The single-adjust height control, a rarity on gas mowers, allows you to set the cutting height with a single lever. (On most gas mowers, you have to adjust the cutting height at each individual wheel.) The LM2156SP has seven cutting heights, between 1.5 to 4 inches—a wider range than on most cordless mowers, which top out around 3.5 to 3.75 inches.

It outshines gas mowers in storage convenience. Its design allows you to fold it up and prop it up on one end and then roll it like a dolly. Once folded, the whole thing is the size of a large suitcase, with multiple rails to grab. Although it weighs a little over 50 pounds, it’s quite a bit lighter than, say, our also-great gas-powered recommendation from Honda (89 pounds). We had no problem lifting the LM2156SP over large thresholds, hauling it up a couple of garage steps, or fitting it through a door.

It’s expensive up front, but it includes many features that typically come as premium options on gas mowers. At around $850, the LM2156SP represents a serious investment, but it offers a lot of convenience, including a push-button start, the ability to stop the blades but not the motor, and self-propulsion. Add in all the avoided long-term costs of gas and maintenance, as well as the LM2156SP’s two-blade system, and the value proposition starts to look a lot more even.

Once you purchase the mower and battery, you can buy other tools in Ego’s 56-volt lineup. The batteries are compatible across Ego’s line of yard-care tools, so with this mower’s included battery and charger in hand, you can purchase any of the others at a reduced price as bare tools, minus the battery and charger. Ego’s blower, chainsaw, and string trimmer have all been excellent performers in our testing. The company has also announced the release of a mini-bike (no joke), so it isn’t just making lawn tools anymore.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The self-propelled system’s controls could use some improvement. Because the throttle buttons are so integrated with the handle, on occasion we’ve accidentally goosed the mower when we didn’t intend to. Usually this isn’t an issue, but often the moments when you’re grasping to get a better grip on the handle are the times you least want to engage the self-propulsion. For example, if you are mowing across a hill, you’ll have a brief moment during a turnaround when the mower is pointing up or down the hill. When you’re adjusting your grip to make those turns, you may inadvertently tap the throttle, destabilizing your stance or your grip on the mower.

It isn’t a true variable-speed mower. The central dial only sets the speed, and the throttle buttons on the handle activate it. As a result, you can’t really pull off a quick-reflex slowdown or acceleration. You can move the speed dial while the mower is operating, but the process is not as smooth as we would like.

If our top pick, the Ego LM2156SP, is not available, we also like the Ego LM2135SP Power+ 21″ Select Cut Mower. Our previous top pick, this model shares many of the characteristics of the LM2156SP, including the drive system and the dual-blade cutting system. The LM2135SP’s motor is a little less powerful, and it comes with a smaller, 7.5 Ah battery, which gives you less run time, maxing out at just under an hour in our tests. Typically the LM2135SP costs roughly $150 less—quite a discount—making this model a great option if you have a smaller lawn or know that you can get your mowing done in about an hour or less.

If you strongly prefer a gas mower, we recommend the Honda HRX217VKA. Its roughly $800 price tag puts it in the upper echelon of gas mowers, but all evidence indicates that it is worth the cost, in performance and long-term durability. This mower stands apart for its superior dual-blade cut quality, its unique ability to balance the ratio of mulched and bagged grass, its ability to shred leaves enough to replace raking entirely, and its nearly indestructible—and fully warrantied—composite mowing dome.

It has a unique mulching system. Honda’s Versamow System employs a 10-position toggle at the rear of the mower that allows you to adjust the opening between the mowing dome and the bag opening. On other mulching mowers, the dome is either completely open or completely closed off, so 100% of the grass gets bagged or mulched. But with this Honda mower, you can make adjustments, such as setting one-third of the grass to be bagged and two-thirds to be mulched. This feature helps you respond to your yard’s conditions and makes mowing easier.

In the fall, it can shred leaves. This leaf-shredding feature, another benefit of the Versamow System, may sound like a minor thing, but it’s actually effective enough that in some cases it allows this mower to replace a leaf blower, which can cost hundreds of dollars. According to Honda (and this is something we confirmed in our tests), if you set the HRX217VKA at a certain level between bag and full-mulch, that forces leaves to stay longer in the mowing dome, which completely shreds them and sends them back onto the lawn or disposes of them in the bag.

The composite deck is a nice detail that helps ensure a long-lasting mower. Most gas mowers have steel or aluminum decks, which dent on impact; in contrast, the HRX217VKA will only flex in that situation. The deck also has a lifetime warranty.

It’s missing a couple of features. This mower lacks a blade-stop system (to stop the blade without stopping the engine), an electric start, and a washout port to attach a hose directly to the mowing dome for cleaning. These features are nice but not essential; however, our top pick from Ego offers both the electric start and the ability to run the mower without engaging the blade.

Adjusting the height is fiddly. To change the cutting height, you need to adjust each wheel individually. This is typical for gas mowers, but it’s not an issue on our top pick from Ego, which you can adjust with a single lever.

It’s noisy and smelly, and it needs maintenance. Honda gas-mower engines are known for their reliability, but they still need oil changes, proper winterization, and general maintenance. Once your mowing is done, cordless models, in contrast, need almost no attention.

We’re currently investigating the Ego LM2167SP Power+ 21″ Select Cut XP Mower with Speed IQ. In many ways, it’s similar to our top pick—it has two blades and a 21-inch width—but it also has some significant differences. The first is that it comes with a 12 Ah battery instead of a 10 Ah battery; this translates into a battery life of 90 minutes per charge, 15 minutes longer than the run time of the battery included with our pick. This new mower also offers Speed IQ, a propulsion system that matches your walking pace, similar to the Toro Personal Pace system, which we’ve always liked. In addition, it has a digital readout that indicates the battery life and blade speed. But these extra features add up to a mower that costs roughly $1,000. That’s a serious investment, especially since we’ve found our top pick to be so solid for $850 (which we already consider a premium price). We plan on testing the LM2167SP in the spring of 2024.

We’re also researching the Ryobi RY401210 40V HP Brushless Whisper Series Self-Propelled AWD Multi-Blade Lawn Mower. In many ways, this mower is comparable to our top pick. It has two blades and a similar run time and charge time, but its drive system appears to be more of a true variable-speed variety. It’s usually $50 more expensive than our top pick, but if you’re invested in the Ryobi 40-volt lineup, it may be a great option.

In 2023, we tested the Milwaukee M18 Fuel 21″ Self-Propelled Dual Battery Mower. This is a very nice machine with excellent handling. Unlike our top pick from Ego, it’s a true variable-speed model, with the ability to accelerate and decelerate in an instant. It runs on two 18-volt batteries but does not match the run time or power of the Ego LM2156SP. In thick grass, it bogged down more and didn’t leave as nice of a cut. It’s also priced around $1,200, roughly $350 more than the already-pricey LM2156SP. Considering what that Ego model offers, we don’t see the need to spend so much more.

Prior to 2023, we recommended the Ego LM2102SP Power+ 21″ Self-Propelled Mower. It’s a good mower, but it has a shorter run time and is not as powerful as our current picks. It also has an older control system that we don’t like as much as the new one.

Ego’s other self-propelled model, the Ego LM2142SP Power+ 21″ Self-Propelled Mower, has a slightly longer run time than our pick: On a light load, the two-battery LM2142SP can run for up to 80 minutes. But it has only a single blade and requires two batteries.

The Ryobi RY401150 40V HP Brushless 21″ Self-Propelled Multi-Blade Mower and the Ryobi RY401140 40V HP Brushless 21″ Self-Propelled Mower have nearly the same set of features as our top pick and runner-up, respectively.

The Ryobi RYPM8010 80V HP Brushless Whisper Series 30″ Cross Cut Self-Propelled Lawn Mower uses four blades and Ryobi’s new 80-volt battery. Though it’s about the size of a regular push mower, it staggers two sets of blades, like a riding mower, to achieve a 30-inch cut. It promises 90 minutes of run time and a charge time of less than an hour. It’s a heavy-duty model, and it carries a heavy-duty price: It sells for about $2,000, which is a whole lot of money for a push mower, no matter how good it is.

Greenworks mowers boast long run times and short charge times, but none of them have two blades. If you’ve already bought into the Greenworks system and have other tools and batteries from that lineup, they’re a solid option.

Toro’s 20340 22 in. Recycler Lawn Mower with SmartStow was a previous gas-powered pick. It has the unique ability to stand on its end for storage, but now, with the success of the cordless models we’ve tested—which can tolerate being stored on any side—that feature now seems mundane. This model has also gone up in price since we first recommended it; your money is better spent on a good cordless option.

The Toro 20366 Flex-Force Power System 60V Max 22 in. Recycler Lawn Mower offers the company’s innovative and successful Personal Pace drive system, but it also has a long, three-hour charge time and a 50-minute run time, failing to match the performance of our picks from Ego in both respects.

We researched models from Worx, but none can rival the Ego LM2156SP’s combination of a high run time, a low charge time, and convenience features such as a headlight.

Other gas mowers in the Honda HRX line, such as the HRX217VYA and the HRX217VLA, have pricey features such as electric start and a blade brake clutch, which are nice but not essential. Honda also has the new HRN line, which lacks the Versamow System and the composite deck. Also, the warranty is only three years long, not five, and the HRN models have a less powerful engine (167 cc).

None of the other gas mowers we considered have the stellar reputation and features of the models we’ve recommended from Ego, Honda, or Toro. Models by Ariens, Cub Cadet, Husqvarna, Lawn-Boy, and Troy-Bilt were among the 50 we considered (and mostly dismissed) in our most recent research.

Corded electric mowers have so many limitations that most people would find them frustrating. Mowing around trees, hedges, or any other obstruction is an exercise in extension-cord management. Anyone looking to avoid a gas engine would be much happier with the cordless Ego LM2156SP.

This article was edited by Harry Sawyers.