COMFEE vs Farberware Professional: Countertop Dishwasher Face-Off

If you want the quick answer: my COMFEE' Portable Countertop Dishwasher is still running every single night on my kitchen counter in Tucson, and after comparing it directly against the Farberware Professional countertop model that keeps showing up in every roundup, I'd buy the COMFEE' again for a kitchen shaped like mine. But "better overall" and "better for you" aren't the same sentence, and after thirty years running a school cafeteria kitchen for 600 kids a day, I've learned the right appliance always depends on how many people you're actually feeding and how much counter space you can spare.

I looked hard at the Farberware Professional before I ever unboxed my COMFEE', and my neighbor Diane down the street has run one in her one-bedroom casita for about a year, so I borrowed hers for two weeks to run side by side against mine under the same hard Tucson tap water. Both machines solve the exact same problem, a kitchen with no dishwasher hookup, using a faucet adapter and a countertop footprint instead of a plumber. But the differences show up fast once you get past the spec sheet, so here's the side-by-side breakdown I wish I'd had before I spent a dime on either one.

	COMFEE' Portable Countertop Dishwasher	Farberware Professional Countertop Dishwasher
Capacity	6 place settings, fits two people's daily dishes plus a lid or two	5 place settings, fills up noticeably faster past one skillet meal
Wash Programs	8 programs, including Baby-Care and a Hi-Temp sanitizing cycle	5 programs: Standard, Rinse, Glass, Quick, Delicate
Noise Level	About 55 decibels on the hottest cycle, by my own kitchen meter	About 54 decibels on the Quick cycle, slightly quieter in practice
Installation	Faucet adapter kit with three sizes included, no plumber needed	Faucet adapter kit with one universal size, also no plumber needed
Interior Material	Stainless interior tub with plastic-coated wire racks	Stainless interior tub with similar plastic-coated racks
Energy Rating	ENERGY STAR certified	Not ENERGY STAR certified as of this writing
Eco-Style Cycle Water Use	About 2 gallons per full load on the ECO program, by my own before-and-after meter readings	No dedicated ECO program, Quick cycle runs shorter but uses more water per Diane's utility bill comparison
Best Suited For	One to two people, apartments, older homes with no dishwasher rough-in	One to two people who rank quiet operation above program variety

First Week Setup, Side by Side

Setup on my COMFEE' took about 25 minutes, most of it spent testing which of the three included faucet adapters fit my older Delta fixture. Diane's Farberware Professional came with a single universal adapter, and she had hers hooked up and running an empty test cycle in under 15 minutes flat. If you dread reading instruction manuals, that's a real point in Farberware's favor, and I'll say so plainly even though I ended up preferring my own machine.

Where the COMFEE' pulled ahead again was the test-cycle documentation. The manual walks you through running an empty cycle with test strips before you ever load real dishes, a habit that matched thirty years of testing cafeteria equipment before it touched food-service dishes. Diane's Farberware manual mentioned a test cycle too, but skipped the strips entirely, and she told me she just ran plain water through it once and hoped for the best. Neither approach is wrong, but I trust numbers over hope, so COMFEE's more thorough first-run instructions earned my confidence early.

Where COMFEE' Wins

The program variety is the biggest gap. COMFEE' built this unit around eight wash programs, including a Baby-Care cycle I've genuinely used for my grandson's bottles and a Hi-Temp Wash that hits real sanitizing temperatures, not just a rinse that looks clean. Diane's Farberware Professional tops out at five programs, Standard, Rinse, Glass, Quick, and Delicate, with nothing built specifically for baby items or a true sanitizing pass. After thirty years running a cafeteria line, that distinction matters more to me than almost anything else on the spec sheet.

Capacity is the other clear win. COMFEE' fits six place settings, which covers two adults' daily plates, bowls, and mugs with a little room to spare. Diane's five-place-setting Farberware fills up faster in her casita, and she told me she runs it twice most days if she's cooked anything beyond a single skillet meal. COMFEE' is also ENERGY STAR certified, which the Farberware Professional isn't as of this writing, and over six months my water bill dropped by roughly 12 percent running COMFEE's ECO program instead of hand washing everything at the sink.

Where Farberware Professional Wins

It isn't a total wash, though. Diane's Farberware ran noticeably quieter on its Quick cycle during our two-week side-by-side test, closer to 54 decibels by my kitchen meter compared to the COMFEE's 55 decibels on its hottest setting. If you've got an open floor plan where the kitchen bleeds into the living room, or you do dishes while someone's on a work call in the next room, that couple of decibels is more noticeable in real life than it sounds on paper.

The Farberware's control panel is also simpler to learn. Five programs with plain labels beat eight programs where two or three exist mostly for the spec sheet, and Diane picked up her machine's settings faster than I picked up mine when we first swapped units for the test. If you're buying a countertop dishwasher for an aging parent, or for anyone who wants to set one cycle and never think about the other seven options again, that simplicity from Farberware is worth something real.

Cost of Ownership: Detergent and Descaling

Detergent matters more with either of these compact machines than it does with a full-size dishwasher. Both COMFEE' and Farberware Professional struggle with standard gel pods on their shorter cycles, they just don't dissolve fully in that smaller wash chamber. I switched to a powder formula made for compact dishwashers within the first month and the streaking on my COMFEE' cleared up completely. Diane made the same switch on her Farberware after I told her what fixed mine, and she saw the same improvement within a week.

Descaling tablets are the other recurring cost nobody mentions in the marketing copy. Tucson's hard water means both machines need a descaling cycle roughly every six weeks instead of the quarterly schedule either manual recommends. Budget for a box of descaling tablets and compact-formula detergent on day one no matter which brand you choose, because skipping that step is the single fastest way to end up disappointed with either the COMFEE' or the Farberware Professional.

Footprint and Everyday Convenience

Counter space matters just as much as capacity in a small kitchen. My COMFEE' sits a little wider than Diane's Farberware Professional, and on my narrow 1962-era counter that extra couple of inches means I have to unplug my toaster's outlet whenever the dishwasher is running. Diane's Farberware tucks into a slightly smaller footprint in her one-bedroom casita, which mattered more to her than it ever has to me since I've had the run of an empty counter since my kids moved out.

Both machines are marketed as portable, and both are, technically. In practice, moving my COMFEE' off the counter to store it away for holiday prep or company took two hands and a bit of a shuffle once the water reservoir was full. Diane says her Farberware weighs about the same once it's full, so neither one is something you're sliding in and out of a cabinet every day. If you plan to store yours between uses instead of leaving it out permanently, budget for that awkward lift no matter which brand you pick.

Long-Term Reliability

Diane's Farberware is coming up on a year old, and she's had one hiccup, a slow-draining hose in month five that she fixed the same way I fixed mine, by propping the drain line up slightly so gravity actually helps it along. My COMFEE' at six months and roughly 170 loads has had one minor issue of its own, a utensil basket clip that cracked slightly from being overloaded with steak knives. Neither machine has needed a repair call, but neither one is bulletproof either, and I'd tell any new owner of either brand to expect small quirks in the first month.

Where the two really diverge is descaling frequency in a hard water city like ours. My COMFEE' needs that six-week descaling cycle I mentioned above, and Diane says her Farberware needs the same attention on the same water, so that's a wash between them, not a COMFEE'-specific weakness like some reviews imply. Both units will leave you with cloudy glasses if you skip descaling in a hard water area, regardless of which brand name is stamped on the front panel.

I'll also say this plainly: a year of ownership on Diane's side and six months on mine isn't a lifetime test for either brand. But between the two failure points we've each hit, a hose that needed propping up and a plastic clip that needed lighter loading, neither machine has shown the kind of early breakdown that would make me steer someone away from either one. If anything, both units have held up better than I expected for their price range, which says more about how far countertop dishwasher technology has come in the last few years than it does about either brand specifically.

Two women, two countertop dishwashers, the same hard Tucson tap water. Diane's Farberware and my COMFEE' agree on one thing: neither replaces a real plumber, but both beat soaking pots in the sink every night.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the COMFEE' if you're feeding two people daily, want a genuine sanitizing cycle, care about the ENERGY STAR label, or you've got a baby's or grandbaby's bottles in the regular rotation. It's the more versatile machine of the two, and the eight programs earn their keep once you've actually lived with it for a few months instead of judging it off the box.

Buy the Farberware Professional if your absolute top priority is the quietest possible cycle and you're comfortable with fewer wash programs. It's a genuinely solid machine, Diane's had a good year with hers, but I'd only choose it over the COMFEE' if noise is your single deciding factor and you're not feeding more than one or two people with any regularity.