Keurig Rivo vs Nespresso: What's the difference?
Looking for a new single serve espresso machine?
You’ve come to the right place.
Keurig and Nespresso are the two biggest names in the single serve industry, and they market their products to slightly different audiences:
But while it’s true Keurig sticks to the coffee, they did venture into the capsule-based espresso and specialty beverage arena at one point.
Their attempt?
The Keurig Rivo.
Released in December 2012, the Rivo expanded upon Keurig’s initial models, which limited users to single cup coffees up to 12 oz.
With the Rivo, Keurig gave consumers a few different options:
Keurig’s plan with the Rivo was to siphon off some of America’s single serve espresso market, which Nespresso begun to invade.
Keurig did not succeed.
Four years later, in December 2016, Keurig pulled the plug on the Rivo and abandoned the specialty beverage market.
Instead, they put all of their effort into building out the Keurig 2.0 line, which features expanded pod-based coffee brewing options:
Check out two of Keurig’s best 2.0 models by reading our Keurig K475 vs K575 comparison.
A single serve monolith with a stranglehold on Europe, Nespresso is still pretty small in the United States.
Just take a look at this chart, which shows market share in the United States from 2011-2016.
Look, I’m from the United States and I think our coffee consumers need to wake the hell up!
In my opinion, Nespresso makes more reliable machines which brew better coffee. They have two lines of machines, OriginalLine and VertuoLine, which are similar to Keurig’s 1.0 and 2.0 products.
There are more differences than just those. You can read our full Nespresso OriginalLine vs VertuoLine Comparison for the complete breakdown.
Nespresso offers over 20 different models, each of which have slight differences:
Everyone’s situation is different, but this one is a no-brainer for me:
Go with a Nespresso machine.
Even if you think Keurig is the better company with the superior product, there’s one indisputable fact here:
Keurig doesn’t make or support the Rivo line anymore!
Rivo users complain that the pods are too hard to find and Keurig customer support isn’t very helpful with a discontinued machine and product line.
Maybe if this was 2013 and there was buzz around the Rivo — then I could see someone wanting to buy into the machine.
But we’re well beyond 2013.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate you pass on the Rivo because the Rivo itself has been discontinued. Nespresso has discontinued many models that I still recommend, such as the Nespresso Pixie. The problem is Keurig has discontinued its entire espresso and specialty beverage product line.
At least with the Nespresso Pixie you can still use the same capsules as other OriginalLine machines. Nespresso still makes those. Keurig doesn’t make Rivo-line stuff anymore!
If that has you convinced to check out a Nespresso machine, I can’t recommend our complete comparison guide enough.
But if you want some recommendations, I have those too!
There are 20+ different Nespresso machines between the two product lines (OriginalLine and VertuoLine). Here are our favorites in different scenarios.
Go with the Essenza Mini.
Go with the Lattissima Pro.
Go with the Evoluo.
Go with the Creatista Plus. (It’s one of Oprah’s Favorite Things of 2017!)
