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We tested seven hose nozzles in 2021 and have added the Melnor 65020-AMZ Metal Nozzle as our top pick.

Hose nozzles need to be durable. Hardly anyone gently sets them down, and they’re often left lying around, ready to be run over by a car or stepped on. This consistent low-grade abuse leads to leaks, and an unnoticed leak can lead to disaster—just ask the Wirecutter staffer who had their well run dry because of a leaky hose nozzle. We’ve spent years seeking the best hose nozzles available, including seven new models tested in 2021, and we haven’t found a more rugged and versatile tool than the Melnor 65020-AMZ Metal Nozzle.

Durable, easy to use, with a wide variety of spray patterns to choose from, the Melnor is the best hose nozzle we've found.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $13.

For a full-featured hose nozzle that can shower delicate flowers just as well as it can blast the mud off a truck tire, we recommend the Melnor 65020-AMZ Metal Nozzle. You can find a lot of similar nozzles, but the Melnor stands out due to its durable construction and good variety of spray patterns, as well as how nicely it sprays. The Melnor has a hefty metal body with a hard rubber padding at the grip area (the spraying nozzle itself is plastic). It has seven spray patterns that run the gamut from a car-rinsing jet stream to a mist that can water even the most delicate seedlings. Compared with six other nozzles we recently tested, the Melnor not only felt the most durable but also had a spray that was simply better: The shower setting was a perfect shape with hardly any spitting, the jet setting shot water the farthest, and we never saw any dripping out of the front of the nozzle, as we did with some others.

The Gilmour doesn’t have a wide variety of spray patterns, but it’s inexpensive and well made.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $5.

The Gilmour Full Size Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle is a dead-simple metal spray head with a comfortable pistol grip and an easy-to-squeeze, intuitive trigger that you depress in the palm of your hand while your fingers grab the stationary part. You can adjust the spray pattern by how hard you squeeze the trigger, creating a simple fan with a light depression and a steady beam with a full squeeze. You can also adjust the tension on the trigger, making the spray gentler or firmer overall. It’s like the Melnor, but with a manual transmission. Even though it’s one of the least expensive nozzles we’ve seen, the Gilmour is a durable, well-made model that lasts a long time and does not easily break down or leak.

In addition to hose nozzles, we’ve extensively tested hoses and hose reels, which you can find in our guide to the best garden hose and hose nozzle.

There truly is a better hose for you. We have nozzle and reel recommendations, too.

Durable, easy to use, with a wide variety of spray patterns to choose from, the Melnor is the best hose nozzle we've found.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $13.

The Gilmour doesn’t have a wide variety of spray patterns, but it’s inexpensive and well made.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $5.

We’ve discovered through hard experience that the vast majority of cheap hose nozzles are simply not worth it. They have sloppy sprays—and, worse, they can leak. Among full-featured hose nozzles, we recommend the Melnor 65020-AMZ Metal Nozzle for its durability and range of spray patterns, as well as the quality of those patterns.

The Melnor’s layout will feel pretty familiar to anyone who has used a hose nozzle in recent decades. A rotating clocklike face cycles through seven settings, the most useful of which are the beamlike jet setting; a gentle, plant-friendly shower setting; and a handy mist setting, which in our tests was perfect for succulents and seedlings. The other settings—full, cone, flat, and soaker—saw less action but still came in handy. You activate the spray by using a large trigger behind the grip area, and a knurled knob gives you a little control over the water pressure as you press the trigger. We tried a number of other styles, including the firefighting vibe of the FireHoseDirect Fan Stream Nozzle and the Gilmour 855032 Pro Fireman’s Spray Nozzle, as well as the twist of the Bon Aire Original Hose Nozzle, and none of them offered anything near the control in spray pattern or pressure that the pistol-grip Melnor did.

One of the benefits of the trigger system is that turning the flow off is as easy as letting go. Many other hose nozzles require quite a bit of twisting or actively flipping an on/off lever (a common failure point) on the hose itself.

What also stands out about the Melnor 65020-AMZ is its feeling of durability. It’s a substantial chunk of metal, heavy and solid. The spraying end is plastic, but to produce the varied spray patterns, that’s standard. If anything, the Melnor is a bit heavy, but after having had so many poor experiences with cheap hose nozzles, we’ve concluded that dealing with a little added weight is an easy trade-off to make.

No matter how well you take care of your hoses and nozzles, you’ll occasionally need to replace a gasket to stop any leaks that have emerged from the nozzle-and-hose connection point. Since the gaskets either wear out or go missing, pick up a pack of gaskets such as Danco’s ⅝-inch Hose Washers next time you’re at the hardware store.

The Gilmour doesn’t have a wide variety of spray patterns, but it’s inexpensive and well made.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $5.

The Gilmour Full Size Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle is notably cheap but feels solidly built. The body is cast out of solid zinc with a stainless steel spring. The nozzle has few moving parts, minimizing the ways in which it can get broken or jammed. Compared with other pistol-style nozzles, the Gilmour might seem a bit simple, but that makes it easy to hold and aim. Although it doesn’t have specific spray settings, you can adjust the spray through the pressure you apply to the trigger, creating sprays ranging from a shower to a stream. The Gilmour is limited compared with the Melnor, but after you use it a few times, dialing in the amount of water you want should become easy.

Over years of testing, several Gilmour nozzles in circulation among Wirecutter staff members have shown little sign of wear and tear.

Our goal is to find the best all-purpose hose nozzle—one that’s just as easy to use whether you’re hosing off a soapy car, filling up a kiddie pool, or watering some fragile little seedlings.

Durability is also important. Since a hose nozzle is simply the valve standing between you and a flooded lawn, an empty well, or a massive water bill, a hose nozzle needs to be able to tolerate some bumps and bruises. This includes kids dropping the nozzle on pavement and vehicles running it over.

We’ve spent years testing and using hose nozzles, so for this latest round, we simply evaluated the nozzles that were widely available and got our hands on a selection of the most popular models.

The other hose nozzles we tested included the Melnor 65032-AMZ, which has the all-metal simplicity of the Gilmour Full Size Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle but the varied settings of the Melnor 65020-AMZ. It’s a fine hose nozzle, but the spray selections aren’t as varied or nice as those of the 65020-AMZ, and it’s more expensive than the Gilmour Full Size Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle.

The Gardenite 10-Pattern Hand Sprayer and Dramm 12704 9-Pattern Spray Nozzle are also nice, but the spray patterns weren’t as consistent as what we saw from the Melnor 65020-AMZ, and neither model had the same heavy-duty feel. During testing, water often dribbled out of the front of the Gardenite while we were using it, getting our hands—and sometimes our pants—needlessly wet.

We also tested the Bon Aire Original Hose Nozzle, which was particularly limited in spraying options, going only from a stream to a messy shower. The same can be said for the $75 FireHoseDirect Fan Stream Nozzle and the Gilmour 855032 Pro Fireman’s Spray Nozzle, both of which are good for hosing off a car or wheelbarrow but aren’t as easy to use on garden beds and delicate seedlings.

The über-simple Dramm Brass Hose Nozzle is a popular, classic design. Similar to the Bon-Aire, the Dramm gives you a twisting system to turn it on or off and to cycle through the spray patterns. The solid brass construction is bombproof and pretty much impossible to break. We were underwhelmed, though, with its ability to generate different spray patterns, as both the Bon-Aire and the Gilmour produced not only a finer mist but also a longer throw. Unfortunately, because the Dramm nozzle is made out of solid brass, it contains enough lead that the company recommends washing your hands after use. No thanks.

Dramm’s Revolution 9 Pattern Nozzle is purportedly easier to turn on and off with just a thumb, but you still have to crank the ring around the nozzle to select one of the nine spray patterns. It’s made of metal and plastic, and it typically costs twice as much as our main pick, so we can’t recommend it.

Among watering wands, Steve Masley of Grow It Organically says that the Gardena Gentle Watering Wand is the best of its kind. “Every other watering wand I’ve tried—and I’ve tried many—had too hard a spray, and blasted the plants and soil, even when it’s set on ‘shower,’” writes Masley. At about $20 at the time of our research, it’s not a bad investment. However, unlike with the Dramm, you need to buy a separate shut-off valve, which adds to the cost.

We considered the Dramm Touch ‘N’ Flow, another watering wand, but it shuts off if you don’t push down on the handle.

Genevieve Schmidt, North Coast Gardening

Steve Masley, Best Watering Wand, Grow It Organically

Stoney, Does The Job, Amazon Review

Monica Hemingway, Ultimate Hose Nozzle Product Review, Gardening Products Review

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