The Best Cherry Pitters

With a large hopper that holds lots of cherries at once and feeds them through the loading chamber one at a time, this cherry pitter was incredibly fast and effective, pitting a pound and a half of cherries in less time than any other pitter we’ve tested. Its small dowel creates relatively petite holes, too, leaving more cherry behind. This model has a large collection bin, so you can easily pit many pounds of cherries without having to stop and empty out the pits below. And we love that it has a convenient spout that allows the pitted cherries to drop directly into your bowl. It takes a little bit of work to figure out how to keep the hopper from feeding too many cherries into the loading chamber at a time, and it does spray a bit of juice, but overall, we think these are small flaws with an otherwise remarkably efficient machine.

Capable of handling six cherries at a time, this cherry pitter looked like several others we tested previously but was much more effective, successfully pitting almost every cherry we put through it. For the most part, it contained the cherry spray well, but unless you can fit it across a bowl that’s just the right size, cherries drop messily onto your counter as you slide them off the dowels. One other minor quibble: It has a very small pit collection bin that required frequent emptying. 

The best of the single pitters, this model resembled a plastic toy gun: Just pull the trigger to plunge the straight, moderately thick dowel into the cherry pit. It was easy to insert, stabilize, and remove the cherries, and while this pitter wasn’t quite as neat, quick, or accurate as our winner, many testers preferred its more compact profile and simpler operation.

Our former favorite, a relatively compact multipitter, still does a good job of pitting cherries. But the field of cherry pitters has grown since our last testing, and this model proved to be slower and slightly less accurate than our new winner. A few minor quibbles: It’s harder to tell when the cherries have been successfully pitted, and it’s easy to accidentally press the tab on the outside of the cherry-holding tray, shooting the pitted fruit into the air and making a mess. And though the tray itself can be removed, the other parts can’t, so there are more nooks and crannies to clean if you’re washing by hand.

With a large dowel that pierced the cherries at a slight angle, this stapler-like model missed a few pits here and there but generally got the job done. That said, it was a bit messy, spraying more cherry juice than other models, and a shunt meant to channel cherries into its loading chamber actually made it trickier, not easier, to insert and center the cherries for pitting, slowing the process.

Although capable of tackling six cherries at a time, this multipitter took longer to process 1.5 pounds of cherries than any of the higher-ranking single pitters, in part because it just wasn’t very accurate, forcing us to stop repeatedly to check that it had done its job. It was easy to load and contained messes pretty well, but it was on the larger side and had few removable parts, making cleaning fussier. This model also included a tabbed holding tray that was easy to accidentally press, catapulting cherries through the air.

Despite a narrow dowel that punctured cherries at an angle, this stapler-like single pitter did an acceptable job, missing just a few more pits than higher-ranked models. Though we easily loaded and removed cherries, this pitter was one of the messiest, sending a ton of cherry juice backsplash onto the walls and our aprons.

Handling like an old-fashioned librarian’s stamp, this model was pretty big for a tool that deals with only one cherry at a time. It was fairly easy to operate, but with one of the narrowest dowels in the testing, it wasn’t very accurate, missing the pit with four of 10 cherries. And it was messy: Because there was no space under the cherry holder to place a bowl, pits and juice landed wherever they liked.

Resembling a miniature carousel, this multipitter did a good job of containing messes—but did little else. Inserting and removing cherries was tricky. Plus, its narrow dowels made it quite inaccurate—it missed many pits and slowed our progress because we had to check each batch and often redo it.

This pitter has a small funnel that acts as a holding bay, theoretically allowing you to load up to 15 cherries as it automatically channels them one at a time past the dowel, which punched straight down. In practice, however, cherries got stuck at the juncture between the funnel and the cherry-punching area, arresting our progress. And because we couldn’t easily center the cherries under the dowel, this model often missed the pit; cherries also frequently got stuck on the dowel and had to be pulled off by hand.

Inaccurate, messy, and a pain to use, this compact single pitter was a disappointment from start to finish. It was hard to load and sprayed juice and pits everywhere—that is, when its curved dowel actually succeeded in making contact with the pit. A tiny bin under the cherry holder was meant to collect pits, but it was next to useless, filling up after just two cherries and often swinging open unexpectedly.

Simplicity rules? Not with this minimalist all-metal single pitter, which was hard to load and uncomfortable to operate. The narrowest dowel in the testing made it a true exploratory mission to find the pit each time, and with no way to summon adequate force behind that dowel, this model was quite inaccurate, missing four of 10 pits. It was also very messy, decorating the walls and our aprons with cherry juice.

This small cherry-shaped pitter had a good-size dowel that punched straight down, giving us hope that it would be as effective as it was cute. We were quickly disabused of this notion: Because there was no way to stabilize the cherry in its large holding chamber, the fruit slipped around too much, making it difficult to center and successfully pit. As a result, six of 10 cherries weren’t pitted on the first try. It also showered us with cherry juice and frequently launched pits across the counter.

Capable of processing seven cherries at a time, this large multipitter was the fastest and the only reliable performer in our testing. No pit could possibly escape its big, straight dowels, which punched slightly oversize holes in the cherries, a sacrifice that most users were willing to make. It was easy to load, neatly contained cherry juice spray, and collected pits in its base.