And finally, it’s heat resistant, making it a good stand-in for a trivet when you need space to rest things like hot skillets off the stove, casseroles out of the oven, and cooling baked goods. You may have to deal with fingerprints and hard-water spots, but mold and gunk should be far less of a problem on this steel rack than on a plastic one. Once attached, the tray slopes toward your sink and allows water to drain down and out impressively well. In comparison with most of our other picks (except the Chef’n DishGarden), it has a smaller footprint, but it manages to hold about the same amount of dishes as our top pick does. The utensil caddy is smaller than those on the KitchenAid and SimpleHuman racks, but we like that the divider is removable for easier cleaning and the holder can sit anywhere on the rack, inside or out.

The addition of the wine-glass holder allowed us to more confidently dry our stemmed wine glasses without their taking up any extra space in the rack. It's also worth considering for larger households where most loads go into the dishwasher and only random dinnerware gets washed by hand. We ruled out any racks that lacked varied slots and prongs for different types of dishes, eliminating roll-up dish racks along the way (though we still plan to consider those for future updates). Easy to clean: Lin also noted that the best dish racks should work for someone who is lazy—someone who is not likely to clean the dish rack more than once every few months and who is also not likely to have a dishwasher to throw the rack in whenever it gets gross.

There will be the danger of it tipping if you overfill this, especially since there isn't enough room for multiple piece of cookware. The silicone-coated wires were far enough apart to fit thick dinner plates or sheet pans but still close enough to keep everything upright.

If a spot for drying stemware is important to you, we recommend the Simplehuman Steel Frame Dishrack, which has a wine-glass holder.Both tiers have drip trays to catch excess water, and although it's made from plastic, it’s pretty sturdy. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.