The best espresso machines in Australia

A home espresso machine is three things in one box: a way to heat water to a steady 90-something degrees, a pump, and a steam wand for milk. What separates a $244 machine from a $2,699 one is mostly how it heats, how many drinks it can make in a row, and whether it grinds your beans. Prices below were checked at Breville, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, Myer, Kitchen Warehouse, Appliances Online and Di Pacci on 18 October 2026; for the models also sold on Amazon Australia, check the current price on Amazon. We compared maker specifications and retailer listings; we have not pulled shots on these machines ourselves.

Heating system: the spec that sets the price

Almost every argument about home espresso comes back to how the machine heats water.

• Thermoblock, thermocoil and ThermoJet heat water as it flows through a hot metal block or coil. They warm up fast (Breville rates its ThermoJet at 3 seconds, the Sunbeam Slimline is under 60 seconds at JB Hi-Fi) and they are cheap to build. The catch is that one heater does both jobs, so you pull the shot, then switch to steam and wait.
• Single boiler machines such as the Rancilio Silvia hold water in a small boiler (300 ml on the Silvia). Temperature is stable shot to shot, but the boiler has to heat up further for steam, so again it is one job at a time.
• Heat exchanger machines such as the Lelit Mara X keep one large boiler at steam temperature and run brew water through a pipe inside it. You can steam while the shot runs.
• Dual boiler machines such as the Breville Dual Boiler have a separate boiler for each job, each held at its own temperature. This is the easiest way to make four flat whites in a row.

Look for PID temperature control alongside any of these. It is a digital controller that holds the water at a set temperature instead of letting a thermostat swing it up and down. Every Breville here has it; the Silvia V6 does not.

The bar number does not matter

Boxes shout 15, 19 or 20 bar. That is the pump’s maximum. Espresso is brewed at around 9 bar, and Breville’s own pages describe its 15 bar pump delivering a 9 bar extraction. A 19 bar De’Longhi is not stronger than a 15 bar Breville. A pressure gauge, on the other hand, is useful: it shows whether your grind is too fine or too coarse while the shot runs. The Barista Express, Dual Boiler, De’Longhi Opera and Lelit Mara X have one.

54 mm or 58 mm portafilter

The portafilter is the handle that holds the coffee. Breville uses 54 mm on everything except the Dual Boiler, which is 58 mm. Sunbeam’s Origins range, Rancilio and Lelit use 58 mm, the size most café machines use, so more baskets, tampers and dosing cups fit. A 54 mm basket still holds the 18 g dose Breville designs around. The retailer listings we read did not state the portafilter size for the De’Longhi or Ninja machines.

Built-in grinder or separate

Fresh-ground coffee matters more than the machine. The Barista Express (16 settings), Barista Pro (30) and La Specialista Arte (15 at JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys) grind straight into the portafilter. The trade-off is that if the grinder wears out or you outgrow it, it goes with the machine. A Bambino Plus with a separate Breville Smart Grinder Pro costs $811 ($487 plus $324), against $649 for the all-in-one Barista Express. Our coffee grinder guide compares eight grinders from $95.

The price ladder

The picks

The Breville Barista Express is still the machine we would tell most people to buy. It grinds into a 54 mm portafilter, holds temperature with PID, shows extraction on a pressure gauge, and steams milk on a manual wand. It was $649 at Breville, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys and Myer, and $598 at JB Hi-Fi in the Liquorice colour. Its weak points are the 16-step grinder, which is the coarsest of Breville’s built-in grinders, and the thermocoil, which makes you wait between the shot and the milk.

The Bambino Plus is the pick if you want café milk without learning to steam. Set the milk temperature and texture, put the jug under the wand and it does the rest. It has the same 54 mm portafilter and PID as the Express, a 1.9 L tank and a two-year warranty, for $487 at JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and The Good Guys. You need a grinder or fresh-ground coffee.

The Barista Pro is the Express with ThermoJet heating, 30 grind settings and an LCD, for $949. Breville lists no pressure gauge on it. The Dual Boiler is the step up for households that drink milk coffee: two boilers, a heated group, a 58 mm portafilter and a 2.5 L tank, $1,199 at Harvey Norman.

The De’Longhi La Specialista Arte is the cheapest way into a built-in grinder at $497 at The Good Guys. Retailers disagree on its grinder: JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys list 15 settings for the EC9155MB2, Amazon lists 8 for the EC9155.MB. The Breville vs De’Longhi comparison goes through it against the Barista Express.

The Sunbeam Origins Slimline puts a 58 mm group and PID in a 16 cm wide body for $244 at JB Hi-Fi, with a one-year warranty and dual-wall baskets in the box. The Rancilio Silvia V6 ($1,445) is the long-running single-boiler machine with a commercial brass group but no PID, and the Lelit Mara X V2 ($2,699) is a compact heat exchanger with two gauges. Both come from specialist Di Pacci and need a good grinder.

If you would rather press one button, see the bean-to-cup guide. If this is your first machine, the beginner guide ranks them on how forgiving they are, and the under $500 guide covers the budget end.

Where to buy

Breville’s own store, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys and Myer had almost identical Breville prices on the day we checked, so buy where returns and delivery suit you. Breville and De’Longhi also sell through their Amazon Australia stores. Amazon marks some De’Longhi machines, including the La Specialista Arte, as non-returnable for change of mind; faults are still covered under the Australian Consumer Law. De’Longhi’s own Australian store blocked our browser, so we could not read its prices.

The one trap

Spending the whole budget on the machine. A $1,199 machine fed with stale pre-ground coffee will make worse espresso than a $487 Bambino Plus with a $324 grinder and beans roasted in the last month. If the machine you want has no grinder, add one to the price before you compare, and if it ships with dual-wall (pressurised) baskets, know that they hide a poor grind rather than fix it.