De'Longhi Magnifica Duo vs Rivelia vs Eletta Explore: which automatic espresso machine should you buy?

Magnifica Duo vs Rivelia vs Eletta Explore at a glance

Head to head

The best result in each row is marked, and rows without a mark are a tie. Where two machines share the top result, both get the mark.

The tally is not my verdict. Some wins, like width or app support, matter a lot to one buyer and not at all to the next.

Design, size and build

All three are slim from the front and deep toward the wall. That is typical for bean-to-cup✕Bean-to-cupA fully automatic machine that grinds, doses, tamps, brews and dumps the used coffee by itself, all at one button press. machines, and it is the measurement I would check first.

The Magnifica Duo is the narrowest at 9.45 inches wide. It slotted into a gap on my counter where many automatic machines simply would not fit.

The Rivelia is close behind at about 9.6 inches, and it is the shallowest of the three at 16.9 inches deep. Its rounded corners make it look less boxy, although there are no handles or finger recesses when you want to move it.

The Rivelia's bean hopper and screen both sit on top, so leave room under your cabinets.

The Eletta Explore is the biggest machine here. At about 10.2 inches wide, 17.7 inches deep and roughly 25 pounds, it needs a proper spot rather than a gap.

Build quality is similar across the range. Each machine uses a composite body with metal-look details, and the Eletta Explore feels the most solid when you press on the panels.

Counter width compared

The water tanks are placed differently, and that changes daily life more than you would expect. The Duo's tank sits on the right side, the Rivelia's clips onto the side and fills from the top, and the Eletta Explore's slides straight out of the front.

The Rivelia's top-fill tank was my favorite of the three. I could pour water in without lifting anything out.

Cup clearance favors the Eletta Explore. With the drip tray moved out of the way, I fit a 7-inch travel tumbler under its spouts, while the Duo tops out at about 5.5 inches.

Our tip: Measure the depth of your counter and add a hand's width above the machine before you order any of these three.

Grinder and dosing

All three machines use stainless steel conical burrs✕Conical burrA cone-shaped grinding part that crushes beans between two ridged surfaces for an even grind, unlike a blade that chops. with 13 grind settings. On paper the grinders are close, but in use they behaved quite differently.

Each one doses by time rather than weight. The strength setting decides how long the grinder runs, and that decides how much coffee lands in the brew unit✕Brew unitThe removable part inside the machine that compresses the ground coffee and pushes hot water through it..

Largest coffee dose I measured

The Eletta Explore ground about 1.5 grams per second in my tests. At its highest intensity it packed 13.5 to 16 grams, depending on the beans.

The Rivelia was close behind, at roughly 15 grams after about 10 seconds of grinding. Its 44 mm brew chamber is the reason it can hold that much coffee.

The Duo delivered 10 to 13.5 grams at its five-bean setting. That sounds smaller, yet it still made the strongest espresso of the three, which I will come back to.

The Magnifica Duo's grind dial sits inside the bean hopper on top.

The Rivelia's Bean Switch System

This is the feature that sets the De'Longhi Rivelia apart. It comes with two 8.8-ounce hoppers that lock onto the grinder with a quarter turn, and a shutter closes when you lift one off so nothing spills.

The swap itself took me about three seconds. The catch is the coffee that stays between the hopper and the burrs, which weighed close to 10 grams on my scale.

The machine lets you either grind that leftover coffee away or use it in a transition drink. When I switched to decaf in the afternoon, I always ground it away, because a transition drink still contains caffeine.

Beans purged by switching habit on the Rivelia

There is one more limit. A single grinder means a single grind setting, so pairing a pale light roast with a dark one never quite worked for me.

Two coffees with a similar roast level, such as a medium blend and a medium decaf, worked beautifully. That is the pairing I would recommend.

Bean Adapt on the Rivelia and the Eletta Explore

Both of these machines use Bean Adapt, a setup helper that asks about your beans and suggests a starting grind. On the Rivelia it lives on the touchscreen, while the Eletta Explore runs it through its app.

In both cases the suggestion was a sensible first guess rather than a final answer. It mostly removes the blank-page feeling for new owners.

Our tip: Only turn the grind dial while the burrs are spinning, because turning it when the grinder is still can jam bean fragments between the burrs.

The grinder settings that worked best were similar across the three. With medium-dark beans, my sweet spot was between 2.5 and 4 on the Duo and between 2.0 and 4.0 on the Eletta Explore.

All three grinders could go fine enough to stall the pump with fresh beans. That tells me none of them will hold you back at the fine end, where good espresso lives.

Espresso quality

I expected these three to taste almost identical, since they share a maker and a grinder design. They did not, and the differences come down to dose, water temperature and how each machine handles the shot.

The Magnifica Duo surprised me most. I measured its espresso strength as TDS✕TDSTotal dissolved solids: the share of the cup that is dissolved coffee. Higher numbers mean a stronger, heavier-tasting espresso., and at the stronger settings it reached 8.6%.

Espresso strength (TDS)

In the cup, the Duo's shot had a heavy body and a dense, tight crema✕CremaThe golden-brown layer of fine foam on top of a fresh espresso, made from coffee oils and gases.. With a dark roast, the flavor leaned firmly toward cocoa and dark chocolate.

Its brewing water runs at about 185 to 194°F, which is on the cooler side for espresso. That suits dark roasts well, but light, fruity roasts can taste a little sharp.

The Eletta Explore made the most balanced espresso of the three, with low acidity and a lasting crema.

The Eletta Explore made the most balanced shot. With a medium-dark blend and a 15-gram dose, I tasted milk chocolate, macadamia and nougat, with low acidity and no harsh finish.

It starts every shot with a short pre-infusion✕Pre-infusionWetting the coffee with a little water before full pressure, so the water soaks through the puck more evenly.. Its pump is rated at 19 bar, but the coffee itself sees roughly 9 bar during a normal shot, which is the classic espresso target.

The Rivelia's espresso was intense and chocolate-forward, with cocoa and toasted nuts from a medium blend. Its generous 15-gram dose gave the shot a full body that held up well under milk.

None of the three gives you the clarity or fine control of a manual machine with a separate grinder. For a drink made with one press, though, all three are very good.

How I got the strongest shot from each one

On the Duo, my best double shot came from the Coffee Crema button at five-bean strength. I stopped it by hand once about 32 grams had come out, which gave me a very dense shot with thick crema.

On the Eletta Explore, the Doppio+ grinds for 9 to 10 seconds and packs 15 to 16 grams. It is the strongest drink on its menu and the best base for a milk drink that tastes like coffee.

On the Rivelia, intensity 5 and a small cup size gave me about 30 grams of espresso from 15 grams of coffee. That is a classic 1:2 ratio, and it tasted like it.

Our tip: Rinse your cup with hot water from the machine first, because a cold ceramic cup pulls a lot of heat out of a small espresso.

Hot milk drinks

All three use De'Longhi's LatteCrema Hot carafe. You fill it with milk, clip it on, choose a drink, and the machine froths the milk and pours it straight into your cup.

Each carafe has a dial for foam level, from flat milk for a flat white to tall foam for a cappuccino. The results were close, but not identical.

A layered latte macchiato from the Rivelia's hot carafe.

The Eletta Explore made the best foam of the three. At about three-quarters of the way toward thick foam, its hot carafe gave me glossy microfoam✕MicrofoamMilk frothed into tiny, even bubbles so it feels silky and blends into the espresso instead of sitting on top. that blended into the coffee.

The Duo's foam was fine and repeatable across its three dial positions. The Rivelia's was smooth and stable, just slightly airier than the Eletta Explore's.

The Eletta Explore's hot carafe holds about 500 ml, the most of the three.

Milk temperature in the cup

The Duo had the widest range of milk temperatures. If you like a very hot latte, it reaches the highest numbers of the three.

The Rivelia stayed between 140 and 149°F, which is where milk tastes sweetest. People who like their lattes piping hot may find it a touch mild.

The Eletta Explore's hot carafe is the biggest at about 500 ml, enough for several drinks. Oat milk frothed well on all three, and barista-style plant milks held their foam longest.

Our tip: Keep the milk carafe in the fridge between drinks, because cold milk makes finer foam that lasts longer.

Cold foam, iced drinks and cold brew

This is the biggest difference between the three machines. If you drink iced coffee all summer, this section may settle the decision for you.

The Duo and the Eletta Explore both come with a second carafe, called LatteCrema Cool. It whips cold milk into a thick, silky foam without heating it, so it can float on an iced latte.

Cold brew comes straight from the Eletta Explore's central spouts, no carafe needed.

The Rivelia ships with the hot carafe only. De'Longhi sells a LatteCrema Cool upgrade set separately, which unlocks six cold milk recipes, but it does not add cold brew.

The Rivelia's iced coffee buttons simply pour hot coffee over ice. That works with plenty of ice, but it is a different drink from cold brew.

How cold extraction works

Traditional cold brew steeps coffee in cold water for 12 to 24 hours. The Duo and the Eletta Explore use cold extraction✕Cold extractionDe'Longhi's way of making cold brew in minutes: low-pressure pulses of cool water through the coffee instead of a hot, high-pressure shot. instead, pushing cooler water through the coffee in slow, low-pressure pulses.

Both finished a cold brew in about three minutes every time I made one. The result was smooth, low in acidity and naturally sweet, though lighter in body than a long overnight steep.

Time to a glass of cold brew

The Eletta Explore's water left the spouts at about 98°F during cold extraction. Over ice, my finished cold brew settled at 35.6 to 37.4°F.

The Duo's cold extraction ran warmer, at around 122 to 136°F in my readings. It still tasted smooth, but it relies a little more on the ice to get cold.

Both machines hold heat after hot drinks. On the Duo, a cold brew made right after several espressos started noticeably warm, and the Eletta Explore runs a short purge to cool itself before cold extraction.

Our tip: Make iced drinks before hot ones on a busy morning, because leftover heat in the system can warm the start of a cold brew.

Drink menu, screens and profiles

The menus tell you a lot about who each machine is for. The Duo and the Rivelia each offer 18 coffee and milk drinks, while the Eletta Explore has more than 50 on the machine and over 100 in its app.

Drinks on the machine

The Duo's 18 drinks split almost evenly between hot and cold. You get espresso, Coffee Crema, a two-cycle drip coffee and Americano, five hot milk drinks, four cold coffees and five cold milk drinks.

The Rivelia's menu is mostly hot, from espresso and cortado to flat white and latte macchiato. The Eletta Explore adds tea settings, hot cocoa and to-go recipes sized for its included travel mug.

The Magnifica Duo uses a 2.4-inch color display with buttons rather than a touchscreen.

Screens and controls

The Duo uses a 2.4-inch color display with soft-touch buttons beside it. It took me a day or two to learn where my drinks lived, but the buttons wipe clean easily.

The Rivelia has a sharp 3.5-inch touchscreen, but it lies flat on top of the machine. Standing over it, the view is excellent, but my kids could not see it easily, and neither could someone seated.

The Eletta Explore has the best controls of the three. Its 3.5-inch touchscreen faces you, and shortcut keys for Hot, Cold, To-Go and Favorites do most of the navigation.

The Rivelia's touchscreen lies flat on top, so it reads best when you stand over it.

Profiles and the app

The Rivelia and the Eletta Explore save four user profiles, and the Duo saves three. Each profile keeps its own strength, size and milk settings, which matters a lot in a shared kitchen.

Only the Eletta Explore has an app. Its bean setup guide and extra recipes are useful, but changing a setting from the phone took several seconds each time.

Remote start is also less useful than it sounds. Every power-on triggers a rinse, so unless a cup is already under the spouts, that hot water lands in the drip tray.

Noise

Noise is where these machines differ most in daily life. I measured each one with a decibel✕Decibel (dB)A measure of loudness. The scale is logarithmic, so a few decibels more sounds noticeably louder. meter during grinding.

Grinder noise in my kitchen

The Rivelia was quieter than I expected, at the level of a normal conversation.

The numbers look close, but the sound itself was not. The Duo's grinder has a sharp, high-pitched tone that cuts through a quiet house, even though its pump was a calm 55 dB while brewing.

The Duo's pump is calm, but its grinder has a sharp, high-pitched tone.

The Rivelia sat at the level of a normal conversation. Its grinder runs for about 10 seconds per drink, and milk frothing adds only a soft hiss.

The Eletta Explore was the quietest, with a low, round hum. De'Longhi builds the Eletta range with an acoustically insulated body, and at 6 a.m. it was the only one I did not mind running near a sleeping house.

Cleaning and upkeep

All three rinse their coffee paths automatically and prompt a quick milk-line clean after each milk drink. All three also have a removable brew unit that only needs rinsing under warm water.

The real difference is in the milk carafes. That is the part that takes your time each week.

Every part of the Magnifica Duo's carafes can go on the top rack of the dishwasher.

The Duo's carafes come apart completely, and every piece is top-rack dishwasher safe. The catch is that you have two of them to store, and possibly two in the fridge.

The Rivelia has one carafe, which I took apart and washed once a week. It was the easiest machine of the three to keep clean.

The Eletta Explore asks the most of you. Its clean cycle flushes the lid and spout but not the milk tube or container, so I took both carafes apart every 2 to 3 days.

My cleaning scores

One carafe and a weekly wash made the Rivelia the easiest of the three to keep clean.

A small Rivelia quirk is worth knowing. When I pulled out the drip tray and grounds container, the assembly tended to drop at the front, so hold it with your other hand.

The grounds bins on the Duo and the Eletta Explore each hold about 14 used pucks. Whichever you choose, empty it early, because warm, damp pucks✕PuckThe cake of used coffee grounds the machine ejects after each drink. can grow mold within a few days.

Descaling on the Duo took me 25 to 30 minutes, and most of that is waiting. Set your water hardness correctly during setup on any of these machines, because it decides how often you will be asked to descale.

Our tip: Set a phone reminder for the full carafe wash, because none of these machines will remind you about the hidden milk tube.

Daily use

Specs only tell you so much. The real question is what each machine is like at 7 a.m. with a full day ahead.

The Duo was the fastest to get going. Its thermoblock✕ThermoblockA heater that warms water as it flows through, instead of keeping a tank of water hot. It is ready in under a minute. was ready in 35 to 45 seconds from cold, and I had a flat white about a minute later.

The Rivelia and the Eletta Explore also use thermoblocks and start with a short rinse. On the Eletta Explore, I learned to keep a cup under the spouts for that rinse.

With profiles saved, a cappuccino on the Rivelia is one tap away.

The Magnifica Duo was ready to brew in under a minute from cold.

Back-to-back drinks went smoothly on all three. None can froth and brew at the same moment, but for two or three cappuccinos the wait was barely noticeable.

The Rivelia's 1.4-liter tank empties fastest. After every milk drink the rinse also draws water, so with a family of four I refilled it more often than the other two.

For an evening decaf, the Duo and the Eletta Explore both have a pre-ground chute. It works, but the Rivelia's decaf hopper is far easier when you drink decaf every day.

Real-life scenarios: which machine fits your home?

I find it helps to picture a normal week with each machine. These are the situations where the choice became obvious to me.

Notice that no machine wins every situation. The right choice depends on which of these looks most like your own week.

My scorecard

These are my scores out of 10, based on my testing and the measurements above. They are a judgment call rather than a lab result, but they show clearly where each machine pulls ahead.

Eletta Explore: 8.6 overall

Magnifica Duo: 8.6 overall

Rivelia: 8.5 overall

Which one should you buy?

It comes down to two questions: do you drink cold coffee, and do you drink more than one kind of bean? Those answers narrow three machines down to one quickly.

For the widest choice of hot and iced drinks, the Eletta Explore is the one I would buy.

Pick the Eletta Explore for variety and quiet mornings. Pick the Magnifica Duo for hot and iced drinks in a small space. Pick the Rivelia for regular and decaf from one machine.

Magnifica Duo vs Rivelia vs Eletta Explore specifications

From manufacturer specifications and my own measurements. Checked November 11, 2026.

How I tested and compared them

I used each machine as my everyday coffee maker, making espresso, long coffees, hot milk drinks, iced drinks and, where available, cold brew. I weighed doses and shots on a coffee scale, took temperatures with a probe thermometer and measured noise with a decibel meter.

I also worked through each cleaning and descaling routine and checked my notes against the manufacturer specifications. Where my measurements and the spec sheets differed, I used my measurement for performance and the spec sheet for hardware.

• Coffee: dose, strength, body, crema and flavor.
• Milk: hot and cold foam quality and temperature.
• Cold drinks: cold brew, cold foam and iced recipes.
• Ownership: controls, noise, cleaning and size.