These are the best vacuums for pet hair, and Dyson isn't your only option

Our best overall pick is the BISSELL CleanView Rewind Pet Vacuum Cleaner. We selected it because it has the most pet-friendly features for the fairest price point. The powerful motor, clear canister and Pet TurboEraser Tool help you beat those piles of fur that tend to accumulate in a home with pets before you know it.  

Different machines are best for different needs. Review the situations below to see which products make the most sense for you:

If you have multiple pets and/or pets with thick coats: Dogs with thick double coats, multiple pets or pets with long hair will require the heaviest duty machines. Look for vacuum cleaners that have powerful motors, clear bins so you can see when they are full and large dirt cap capacities. Off our list, the Hoover Power Drive would be a good option, with BISSELL CleanView and EUREKA PowerSpeed as other good options. 

If you have small, tight room spaces: Stick vacuums like the Dyson V8 Animal Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner were made for these types of situations. If a stick vacuum isn't for you, look into a vacuum with a swivel head for easy steering and plenty of multipurpose pull-off tools to get into tight areas, like the Hoover Power Drive. The BISSELL Pet Hair Eraser Handheld Vacuum might also be a good choice if you have the tightest spaces to clean up.      

If you have mobility concerns: Look for a very lightweight vacuum. This might be another situation when the stick vacuum models work. Handheld models are also perfect for many people with limited mobility.  

If you or someone you know has pet allergies: Get an internally sealed vacuum, so it doesn't spread allergens and has a HEPA filter. On our list, the BISSELL MultiClean Allergen Lift-Off Vacuum with HEPA Filter is a good choice for people with allergies.   

If your pets are on the furniture often: Make sure to get a vacuum with a strong upholstery tool to help clean stubborn hair off of fabrics. BISSELL is known for its Pet TurboEraser Tool, which has a rotating brush inside the attachment piece to help pick up stubborn pet hair.   

We chose these products based on a number of criteria like vacuum features, ease of use, and reviews quality. 

Those features entailed:

• What about the product that made it suitable for pets: Our first consideration was how the design made it ideal for pet hair and other pet-related debris. Ideally, the product needed to contain some multipurpose tools that specifically helped pick up pet hair. Ideally, the product should have also had technology that helped avoid clogging and tangling from pet hair. It should have also been durable with a powerful motor to get plenty of suction for even the most stubborn and coarse pet fur types.    
• Features that helped with ease of use: We also considered how easy the product was to use. Multipurpose tools like upholstery cleaners are also factored into this section. Proverbial bonus points went to swivel steering features, models that converted into handheld options and attachments that helped you get to hard-to-reach places. Clear models that show you when the canister is full were also important to avoid clogging from too much pet fur in the machine. Long power cords and hoses were also a plus.      
• Online reviews: We were also careful to make sure these products had strong reviews online. No vacuum model on the list had a lower rating than 4.3 on Amazon at the time of writing.
• Price: Another strong consideration was the price. For instance, one of the reasons our top pick was the BISSELL CleanView Rewind Pet Vacuum Cleaner was because it had a decent price point at just over $100 and still a good number of features at the price point. 

Pet hair vacuums are designed all the way around to work effectively with a large intake of hair. One top feature is that these products usually have a no-tangle roller to avoid hair clogs. Large see-through canisters often help you know when the machine is full to avoid pet fur backup. A wide variety of multipurpose tools help you clean pet fur, dirt and dander off of different surfaces. Multi-level filtration, multiple motors and MultiCyclonic designs help keep suction strong even in the face of piles of pet fur. These products also tend to feature larger canisters and dirt cap capacities so you can vacuum bigger messes for longer.  

HEPA filters work by pushing air through a fine mesh, which then traps small particles like pet dander, dust mites, pollen and smoke. That's why a HEPA filter can work so well if you have to clear up pet allergens: it can help trap and clear up pet dander.  

AW stands for air watts. An air watt measures how many watts are used to carry air through a vacuum cleaner. It's a measure that tells you how strong the vacuum's suction power is. On canister vacuums, 220AW+ is an excellent rating, and over 100AW is great for other types like stick vacuums. Suction is a strong consideration for pet hair vacuums since strong suction can help you get fur off of surfaces much easier. Many specs don't list the AW rating instead of listing other power-based specs like motor power, so don't worry about AW ratings too much.  

A good stick vacuum will have plenty of suction to handle pet hair with ease. Added features like powerful motors, two-tier radial cyclones and whole machine filtration, like on the Dyson V8 Animal Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner, make it powerful enough to handle stubborn pet hair. 

However, the bin and dirt caps will naturally not be as big as a canister vacuum, which is a point to consider when comparing canister and stick vacuums. Stick vacuums also tend to be more expensive.  

Other strong products could be good choices but didn't quite make the list because of price, dirt capacity, online reviews or not as many pet hair features. 

Some of the honorable mentions include: