The Best Faucet-Mounted Water Filter of 2025

Top pick

With 70 NSF/ANSI certifications, the Pur Plus system is the top-performing faucet-mounted filter available.

The Pur Plus Faucet Filtration System is our pick for faucet-mounted filters. It is ANSI/NSF certified to reduce, below EPA limits, 70 contaminants including lead, mercury, microplastics, multiple pesticides and industrial chemicals, and a dozen so-called emerging compounds of EPA concern in drinking water, among them pharmaceuticals, BPA, and estrone, a form of the human hormone estrogen. It is not certified for so-called forever chemicals, or PFAS.

We found the Pur Advanced easy to install, drip-free, and durable under heavy use, and we preferred its sleek design to that of the Brita, which is utilitarian and visually bulky. Lastly, in addition to filtering the 70 certified contaminants, the Pur continued to improve the taste and smell of our Catskills tester’s sulfurous well water for several weeks after the whole-house carbon-block filter that he normally uses to control the issue stopped doing its job. That was a pleasant surprise, since sulfur compounds are not among the Pur filter’s certifications, and removing them from water is not something this sort of filter is expected to be capable of.

The complete list of contaminants the Pur faucet filters are ANSI/NSF certified for, found in the performance data sheet, include many that may already be on your mind: the toxic metals lead and mercury; multiple volatile organic compounds (VOCs); microplastics (via the surrogate Particulate Class I); multiple pesticides, and 12 “emerging compounds” that are increasingly showing up in the water supply, including the plastic additive BPA, the insect repellent DEET, and the widely used flame retardants TCPP and TCEP.

The filters are rated for three months or 100 gallons, and the housing contains a flowmeter so you’ll know exactly when they reach their 100-gallon limit. A small LED on the housing turns from green to yellow (time’s almost up) to red (time to replace).

Installing the Pur Advanced is simple—but again, no faucet filter works on faucets with integrated pull-out sprayers. On standard, no-sprayer faucets, you just unscrew the aerator (where the water flows out of the faucet) and screw in the correct adapter. Pur supplies several adapters to match the various sizes and threading patterns of most aerators. (Our tester had no trouble installing his test model on a fairly old faucet.) Then you simply screw the filter housing into place on the adapter.

To use the Pur Advanced faucet filter (and any other), you flip a toggle on the housing to direct the water through the filter and out a separate dispenser, and you flip it back the other way to send regular, unfiltered water out of the faucet. That’s a practical design for a couple of reasons. For one, the filtered-water flow (0.52 gallon per minute) is lower than the normal faucet flow (typically around 2 gpm), so when you need a lot of water fast—filling a pot, say, or doing the dishes—it’s helpful to have the option to use the faucet itself. Second, because hot water can damage many water filters—anything over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Pur filters’ case—you need to be able to bypass the filter when you want hot water out of the tap. Of course, this also means you have to be mindful when you want to toggle to the filtration setting: If you’ve just been drawing hot water from your faucet, switch the tap to cold for a few seconds first to clear the pipes.

The Pur filter stood up to heavy usage without developing any problems such as leaks—which was not the case for the Brita filter we also tested. “Since we have a lot of power outages that affect our ability to get water from the well, my husband and I make it a habit to regularly fill two 1½-gallon water bottles, so we always have extra water on hand,” our Pur tester wrote in his summary notes. “We refill them approximately every two days, so we were working the filters pretty hard.” Under that workload—to which our tester added regular daily fillings of glasses and coffee pots—the filters hit their 100-gallon limit in about six weeks, versus the three-month rule of thumb that Pur suggests. Just something to bear in mind if your household goes through a lot of water. Replacement filters cost about $10 (Pur Faucet Filter, RF-3375) or $11 (Pur Plus Mineral Core Filter, RF-9999) apiece.

Top pick

The Pur Basic filter is certified for 70 contaminants, including lead. Each lasts for 100 gallons or about three months.

The Mineral Core filter has the same 70 certifications and adds a (supposed) flavor-improving element. Each lasts for 100 gallons or about three months.

The Pur Plus model that we tested is available in multiple finishes, including shiny chrome, white, black, sage green, and several brushed metallic shades. Every Pur faucet filter, regardless of model, comes with either a Pur Plus MIneral Core filter (RF-9999), which adds tiny amounts of calcium carbonate (limestone) to theoretically improve the filtered water’s taste, or the Pur Faucet Filter (RF-3375), which does not do so. Either filter can be used in the Pur Plus when the time comes for a replacement, and both have the same NSF/ANSI certifications.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Our tester found that “the constant slight pressure you place on the filter’s valve to turn on the filtered water caused our faucet to start to come loose at its base a couple of times.” He continued: “Another contributing factor is that the shiny chrome gets dirty easily, so you’re constantly wiping it clean, which applies more pressure. It was easily fixed by tightening the faucet base whenever we noticed it happening, and I’m not sure if the same thing would happen for someone with a better faucet, but it was a mild annoyance.”

He added that the Pur’s horizontal orientation can be an issue in very small sinks, as the filter takes up a lot of real estate under the faucet. If the sink is shallow, for instance, getting a glass beneath the spout can be difficult if anything else is sitting in the basin. For our tester, it was a good incentive to keep dishes from piling up.