Vitamix vs Nutribullet
We drink smoothies in this house. I find it is a great way to add some extra fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds into my kids regular diet! I make smoothies for my 3 kids a few times a week.
This year my husband surprised me with a SIX HUNDRED DOLLAR Vitamix!
We had been using a nutribullet for over 4 years and I was using it very frequently, but we had started to outgrow the capacity.
So, now that I have used both, which would I recommend?
Here is my experience:
Now the Vitamix and the Nurtibullet are very different machines designed for different situations. The Nutribullet is designed for making individual smoothies one at a time. There is also a milling blade for seeds. I have used it to break down flax seeds, but it is nothing to write home about.
The Vitamix is designed to be used for all kinds of food preparation, you can make cold and hot food in it, grind grains, make nut butters, and knead bread!
I have found that for our family, doing one thing well is better than trying to do everything.
Cost
There are products at many price points for each blender. I have the Nutribullet Pro, 600 watts, and it came with the extractor blade, milling blade, 2 small jars and 1 large jar, plus some rings that screw onto the jars to make them easier to use as cups. This was gifted to me by my aunt who claims it saved her life. It is currently selling on Amazon for right around $50.
My husband bought us the Vitamix Pearl Grey Series 750 blender with a 64 oz container. It cost about $600. It came with a beautiful cookbook, 64 oz jar and the plunger to push food toward the blades.
So this is a HUGE difference. The Vitamix is a more versatile machine, and you pay for it.
Obviously there is a big following for the Vitamix and they are willing to pay. For me, the price has not been worth it. There are new things to learn and I may just be too new to my Vitamix, but I think the functionality of the Nutribullet was plenty for most things for less than a tenth of the price.
Functionality
I have used both machines to make smoothies. I can not speak to all the things that Vitamix is capable of, because I have not tried it all. The broccoli cheese soup was really great though.
Smoothies
I know this might shock some, but I have gotten much better smoothies out of my Nutribullet than my Vitamix. My kids prefer smoothies from my Nutribullet! I do not know how to explain this, but my Nutribullet doesn’t miss chunks as often as my Vitamix.
The smoothie that I make for my kids is
1 frozen banana
½ cup of frozen berries
½ cup of orange juice
1-2 T of flax seed
1 carrot (or several baby carrots)
¼ cup frozen spinach (salad spinach that I have thrown in the freezer)
Water as needed
This is the smoothie I have been making for years for my kids. When we started using the Vitamix I started finding pieces of spinach or frozen fruit that were not completely blended!
I decided to do a side by side test with these blenders using the recipe above. Here are the results.
The Vitamix missed a bunch of chunks:
You can see that the Vitamix missed a big chunk of carrot, a big chunk of frozen banana and quite a few flax seeds. This has been so shocking!
For me, the Nutribullet has out performed the Vitamix for smoothies. There is really no contest.
Now the argument I hear often is that the Vitamix will last forever, and I am sure it will, but my Nutribullet has been serving us really well for 4 years.
Hot Food
Now, this is something that only the Vitamix can do. This is a big selling point for the product, and I tried making the broccoli cheese soup from the cookbook that came with it.
It was incredibly delicious and very hot. It felt like I was running the blender for a long time! The recipe calls to run the machine for 5 minutes and 45 seconds. That was a long time to run a very loud appliance. My kids did not approve, my husband was looking at me like I had lost my mind.
I like my small immersion blender better for blended soups.
Capacity
This is why we bought the Vitamix. I was starting to outgrow the capacity for smoothies and I did not want to go to making 2 batches every morning.
The Vitamix container is 64oz and the max capacity of the Nutribullet comes with two cups, the smaller one is 18oz and the larger one is 24oz, but you cannot fill them to capacity. If you fill over the max line stuff leaks out and its a mess.
I did a side by side and I was surprised to find that the Nutribullet cup held 2 ½ cups of water under the Max line, here are the blenders side by side with the same amount of liquid.
I am happy with the enormous capacity of the Vitamix and I doubt we will outgrow it anytime soon. Will we ever need a blender with a 64oz capacity? I do not know, but I hear teenagers can eat quite a lot.
If It Breaks
The incredible 7 year warranty offered by Vitamix is the best in the blender business. I have not had to use it, I have only had my Vitamix for a few months, but they have a phone number, email address, and a physical address listed on the site! It is incredibly easy to find and they seem very open to communication. This makes me very confident that I could resolve any issues that may arise.
The Nutribullet comes with a modest 1 year warranty and when I broke the cup, I just decided to buy replacements.
You see those little plastic teeth? There are 3 around the lip of the cup and they are what push down the buttons around the base to make the blender turn on. This is a big design flaw in my mind. We broke one off of one of the blending cups and we were no longer able to use it! It will not work unless all three buttons are pushed.
Bottom Line
The Nutribullet is a better smoothie blender than the large professional VItamix. If you need more capacity, just make 2 batches.
Disagree? Let me know what you think. Do you use a different blender for your family?
