The trope goes that there are two types of people in the world. And when it comes to kitchen clean-up, that's true: there are those that have a dishwasher in the kitchen, and those that are the dishwasher in the kitchen. For this second type of person, finding a great dish rack is a very, very real struggle. I know, because I am one of these people.
That's why I recently gathered 13 dish racks and draining boards from various kitchenware brands and gave them a go in the Epi Test Kitchen. My goal: to find the ultimate dish rack among them. Of course, what works in a spacious kitchen may not work in a tiny one, so I broke down my research into two major categories: best dish rack for a standard kitchen, and best for a small one. The results revealed three winners, which I'll disclose in a minute. But first...

How We Tested

We fit plates of various shapes and sizes into the slots of each rack to see how they fit. We did the same with coffee mugs and wine glasses when racks had designated spaces for those items. We then took the top contenders and poured full glasses of water into them to test the draining features: did it leak all over the counter? Does it pool water instead of drain? (Spoiler alert: every dish rack we tested leaked at least a little bit when we dumped in a full glass of water, so, uh, maybe don't try that one at home. For what it's worth, we also tested leakage with traditionally washed and rinsed plates and cups.) Finally, we tossed utensils big and small into the designated caddy with all the ferocity of a dinner party host left to clean up alone with not one guest offering to help.

What We Looked For

1. IS THE DISH RACK STURDY?

Right out of the box we wanted to know if the dish racks felt stable. If a rack isn't stable to begin with, we don't care to stack our nice dishes into it just to wait for the inevitable game of dish dominoes.

2. IS IT EASY TO ASSEMBLE?

Not just right out of the box, but also each time you pull out the rack to wash it. Are there a lot of moving parts? Do they move around easily?

3. IS THE RACK ITSELF EASY TO CLEAN?

Yes, you may be loading cleaned dishes into it, but trust us: your dish rack needs a good cleaning.

4. IS THERE ENOUGH ROOM FOR A SINKLOAD?

If you can only fit three plates and a creamer into your dish rack, it's not doing you much good. We wanted to know how many dishes a rack could comfortably hold—or at least ensure it could handle the after-dinner dishes for a family of four.

Best Dish Rack for a Standard (i.e. Large) Kitchen: SimpleHuman Steel Frame Dish Rack

PHOTO COURTESY OF SIMPLEHUMAN
If you're looking for a dish rack with all the bells and whistles—and don't mind the price to match—it's hard to beat this offering from SimpleHuman. The roomy capacity, sturdy wine rack, four exterior hooks (which can hold coffee cups or dish rags), and swiveling drain spout (which can be positioned to best suit your needs) makes it our winner. Note, however, that the size is both an advantage and a limitation: it's large enough that you probably won't want to move it around much, or be able to stash it away and pull it out only when you need it. For that reason, this dish rack is for a kitchen that has plenty of space on the countertop. (SimpleHuman makes a "Compact" version of this rack which we also tested, but we found the compact version too big to really be considered compact, yet too small in capacity to be totally practical.)

Best Peg-Style Dish Rack and Best Budget Buy: OXO Good Grips Peg Dish Rack

PHOTO COURTESY OF OXO

In doing the testing for this article I discovered that I prefer peg-style dish racks to slot-style. It's a choice everybody has to make for themselves, of course, but in my singular opinion they offer more versatility, even if they can sometimes be more difficult to clean. This peg-style rack doesn't suffer from that problem, though, as the pegs are far enough apart that it's easy to get a scrub brush in for that weekly dish rack cleaning. Other things that make this rack great: the all-plastic body (less expensive—and less likely to rust—than steel racks), and the drain spout, which can fit on three sides of the rack via interlocking pegs, and is thus easy to remove for cleaning. It's true that the utensil caddy is a little short (top-heavy items like wooden spoons had a tendency to fall out when placed handle-side down). And this model also leaked a bit more onto our countertops than the SimpleHuman. But at half the price of the SimpleHuman, those flaws are easy to bear.

Best Dish Rack for a Small Space: Joseph Joseph Extend Dish Rack

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSEPH JOSEPH
Out of the box this dish rack might seem a little gimmicky. But soon after using it, I fell in love. The rack can be used as a 32x36.4-inch rectangle, or expanded up to 52.7x36.4 inches. That means it can accommodate both small or large loads, with tons more capacity than other compact models, and yet still stashes away easily. The drain spout swivels (though not to the extent of the SimpleHuman spout), and the rack utilizes versatile, rubber-tipped steel pegs. One major downside: those pegs sit on the base unattached, and while this feature does make cleaning the base easier (just lift the pegs out and wash), it also makes the unit hard to stow away on its side, since the pegs will just unceremoniously fall out.

THE OTHER DISH RACKS WE TESTED

We tested OXO's Foldaway Dish Rack, that brand's best seller in this category. We loved it, but one of our food editors noted that she had used one previously in a test kitchen and the folding hinges didn't stand up to daily wear and tear. The slots in SimpleHuman's Wire Frame Dish Rack didn't fit every plate style we tried to use with it, but if you have plates that you know will fit, it's a sleek, sturdy version that otherwise performed well. Joseph Joseph's Connect Dish Rack and MadeSmart's Drying Dish Rack—which requires a separately sold draining board—both felt a little unsteady, so we had to give them a pass. MadeSmart also offers a Collapsible Dish Rack which has pegs that don't hold anything upright, but works well if you're looking for a draining wash basin to put inside your sink. Finally we tested Kohler's Lift Dish Rack which features a very unsteady wine rack and is quite heavy in comparison to the other models on our test.
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