The 4 Best Water Fountains for Cats and Dogs of 2025

The Petlibro Dockstream App Monitoring Water Fountain was previously an upgrade pick because it’s simple to clean, easy to move around, and relatively attractive (for a fountain). It also monitors how much water your pet is drinking, and it can send you that info (and more) via an app. But this fountain is pricey and it had a few critical failures in our long-term testing: The fountain stopped charging for one tester, and another tester discovered the tank had sprung a leak (luckily she was in the room so a bigger, wetter catastrophe was averted).

The Catit Flower Fountain was a pick for several years, and I’ve personally owned this one. Although this fountain is attractive, has great capacity, and is easy to take apart and clean, it was also one of the loudest models we tested. The pump motor never stopped making a low, aggravating hum, which we could hear even from the next room over. While it didn’t register very high on our decibel meter, it was at a pitch that we found bothersome, especially when the room was quiet. Several online reviews also mention this buzzing, but it might not bother everyone. And it wasn’t something I noticed when I owned this fountain and didn’t have 11 others to compare it to. The fountain got high scores in all of our other tests, so it’s certainly still worth trying out, if you aren’t bothered by some noise.

If you prefer ceramic and are willing to pay for it, the PetSafe Drinkwell Seascape Ceramic Pet Water Fountain is a great, albeit heavy, option. The square ceramic tank and bulbous centerpiece are dishwasher-safe, but this model also has more small plastic pieces than our picks, and you still need to wash them by hand. Of the models we tested, the PetSafe fountain has the longest power cord—6.25 feet (75 inches), according to our tape measure—so you’ll have more flexibility when choosing a spot to put it. And its motor was as quiet as those on the rest of our wired picks. But this fountain was also the heaviest one we tested, so it was a pain to carry to and from the sink.

The Catit Stainless Steel Flower Fountain was loud, though not as loud as its plastic counterpart. It has a stainless steel dish and a blue LED light on the pump, similar to our budget pick, but this fountain is nearly twice as expensive. The stainless dish never nested properly in the tank, so it spun around easily, and that could startle some pets.

The Pioneer Pet Raindrop Fountain used to be a pick, and it’s still a great fountain. But we preferred its larger sibling, the Big Max, to appeal to a wider size range of animals. This model uses the same pump and housing as the Big Max, so it’s still an excellent choice if you want a lower-capacity stainless steel fountain.

The Petlibro Dockstream Battery Operated Cat Water Fountain is similar to the other Petlibro model we tested, with two key differences: This one can operate on a battery, so you don’t need to keep it near an outlet, and it doesn’t have an app. This fountain would be a winner except that when it’s in battery mode, it runs for just 42 seconds, after being triggered by a motion sensor. And in our testing, the sensor always took several seconds to kick in. So if an animal got near the fountain, they might walk away before it kicked on. The water also stops running unless the animal moves again. When it’s plugged into an outlet, this fountain works like the Petlibro model we recommend. Since it’s lacking the ability to run continuously on battery power, this one isn’t worth the cost.

The Veken Pet Fountain’s pump alternated between loud and quiet with unpredictable frequency. After the first week, there was visible dirt staining the inside of the tank where a water line had been. This refused to budge when we washed it with a soft sponge (we avoided using abrasives, so as to not scratch the plastic). The plastic top also doesn’t sit securely, so it can get knocked off easily.

The PetNF Transparent Cat Water Drinking Fountain’s clear plastic tank makes it easy to see when water is low or dirty. But unlike every other fountain we tested, this one lacks a clearly delineated slot or frame for the pump to sit in. That made it difficult to line up the pump with the upper spout tube when we cleaned or refilled the tank. The PetNF fountain’s pump also has a tiny lever that tends to fall off during cleaning and can easily get lost.

The PetSafe Drinkwell Pagoda Fountain may look nice in your kitchen, but it has many small parts, so it’s a pain to assemble and clean. It’s also noisy—both when it’s running normally (the water splashes) and when it’s low on water.

The PetSafe Drinkwell 360 Fountain was a nightmare to assemble, and the plastic clasps that held the centerpiece of the fountain in place were not secure enough to keep the fountain together during assembly or use. The extra rings to change the flow from the top of the fountain provided little practical benefit.

The PetSafe Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain is made up of many small parts and has lots of nooks and crannies. So it’s difficult to keep clean and free of hard-water buildup or slime.

For a low-cost fountain, the Cat Mate Pet Fountain is decent. However, it’s cheaply constructed, and it has a tendency to quickly accumulate dirt in all three chambers.

The ceramic version of the Pioneer Pet Raindrop Drinking Fountain, our former pick, is cheaper than its stainless steel sibling, so it may be enticing for pet owners on a budget. But it’s twice as heavy, and like the Catit Flower Fountain, it’s one of the loudest fountains we tested. Its ceramic design is thicker than that of the stainless steel version, so it has a narrower and shallower slope in the top bowl; that makes it easier for water to splash out if the pump is set on high or if the fountain is sitting on a surface that isn’t level.

The Catit LED Flower Water Fountain is an upgraded version of the Catit Flower Fountain. It has a blue LED light, which illuminates the fountain at night. And the mini water reservoirs trap water as it falls from the flower petal, so small pets can drink from the standing water, if they choose to. Like that of its predecessor, this fountain’s flower petal is removable, so you can control the flow of water. But in testing we had a harder time disconnecting the petal, and that could be a problem for people with limited hand strength. And when the flower petal was connected, it never consistently pooled water into the mini reservoirs.

The PetSafe Drinkwell Multi-Tier Dog and Cat Fountain’s waterfall feature can get noisy, especially when it’s low on water. And setting up this fountain was unintuitive.

This article was edited by Joshua Lyon and Harry Sawyers. A previous version of this guide was written by Rebekah Valentine, with additional reporting by Kaitlyn Wells.