9 Best Cleaners for Wood Floors, Tested by Cleaning Experts

Bona has a top-tier reputation when it comes to cleaning wood floors. It began as (and still is) a professional wood floor refinishing company, so they know how to safely clean wood. And in our testing, Bona's Hardwood Floor Cleaner cut through our sticky test soil and erased shoe scuffs faster than all the other products we tested.

All you have to do is lightly mist a 3-foot section of floor at a time and go over the area with a microfiber pad mop. Bona's formula evaporates quickly, so there's no need for extra dry buffing before you move on to clean the next section of the floor.

Murphy Oil Soap is a time-tested wood cleaner that's been around for generations, and because it’s concentrated, it will last a long time, making it a great value. (The cost per bottle is under $4.) In our tests, this wood cleaner did a nice job erasing scuff marks with just a few swipes.

It was also impressive at removing sticky soil, though it did take a little more scrubbing than Bona to completely banish the residue. Murphy needs to be diluted in water, so be sure you use it with a well-wrung cloth or mop to keep from over-wetting the wood. And it's not just for wood floors. It can also clean wood cabinets, furniture and more. Its signature cleaning scent has many fans among consumer reviewers, but a small percentage said they didn't like it.

Cleaning is a whole lot easier with Bona's all-in-one microfiber spray mop system. It has an oversized head to cover more ground quickly, and it cleans floors with a washable, reusable microfiber pad. Its onboard cleaner cartridge is refillable with Bona formulas for less waste. In our tests, we found the mop dispenses a wide, fine spray evenly onto the floor.

The long rectangular head maneuvers easily into narrow spaces, and the corners on each side are soft and flexible, so they flip up when you go along walls and baseboards to catch every speck. Bona offers deep-cleaning and even dusting pads that can also be used with this mop. While the pole has a second grip section to make scrubbing easier, it may be a little long for short users and might fall over in storage if not hung from a hook.

True to form, we're recommending another impressive product from the best-performing wood floor cleaner brand in our tests, Bona. This time it's the PowerPlus Deep Cleaner Spray designed for wood floors that haven't been wet cleaned in a while or are in need of deeper cleaning. This heavy-duty formula performed so well during testing that it earned a previous Good Housekeeping Best Cleaning and Organizing Award. One of our Cleaning Lab experts who used it raved afterward, "My wood floors were so clean and shiny after using it that they looked like they had been refinished!"

Certified by the EPA's Safer Choice program, its oxygenated, fast-drying formula penetrates grime and heavy build-up. Plus, when it's time to re-purchase, you can buy this formula in a 128-ounce size to refill the spray bottle and reduce your plastic waste.

This Roborock earned its place as the best vacuum mop for wood floors in the Good Housekeeping Institute's Home Care & Cleaning Lab test. We ran it alongside 10 other models on vinyl and hardwood flooring, and it cleaned up everything from dry oatmeal to wet spills like coffee with ease, although it did need multiple passes to pick up every trace of chocolate syrup.

An excellent choice for bigger homes, this model has one of the largest clean water tanks we tested, holding 900 milliliters of water. You'll get 43 minutes of runtime on a four-hour battery charge which should be plenty of time to get through the house. But the floor-drying mode is what really impressed us. It's a great way to remove small liquid spills from wood floors quickly, which is key to their longevity. The model is simple to set up, with an easy app and convenient features like voice notifications in three different languages. It was also surprisingly agile to maneuver.

We are big fans of this wet/dry mover and shaker. It's more expensive than some other vacuum mops, but its three brush rolls, clear LED display and effective self-cleaning cycle are worth it. One inconvenience: It cannot stand on its own without being propped up or placed in the dock.

If you already own or are in the market for a vacuum mop, you'll need a cleaning formula to use in it. Most machine brands offer their own multi-purpose formulas designed to clean a variety of floor surfaces. But when it comes to cleaning wood floors, we like the idea of using a product specifically made for wood, so we were pleased when Bona launched its Hardwood Floor Cleaner Machine Formulation. When we put it to the test in our machines, we found it cleaned well, dried quickly, removed marks and left our floors streak-free.

The consumers on our test panel agreed, so much so that it earned a spot in a past Good Housekeeping Best Cleaning & Organizing Awards. While Bona claims it's safe to use in most brands of vacuum mop, we recommend checking with your mop's manufacturer to ensure it void your appliance's warranty.

The trigger style of Black Diamond's Wood & Laminate Floor Cleaner made it easy to apply, and its clear directions made it one of our top-scoring products for ease of use. Plus, it can be used on finished hardwood and laminate floors. And because it’s in a spray bottle, spot cleaning is as easy as a spritz and a wipe, especially on scuff marks. It took only a few passes to remove them in our tests.

Though you can certainly use Black Diamond with a mop to clean an entire floor, zapping spots and stains when you see them helps extend the time between deep cleanings and exposes your wood and laminate floors to less moisture overall. While the product now claims that its polymer ingredient helps repel future spots and stains, we did not test that attribute.

Swiffer's Good Housekeeping Seal-holding battery-operated WetJet Wood Floor mop dispenses a wood-safe cleaning solution at the press of a button. It uses disposable, absorbent textured pads with a scrubby strip to attack dirt and grime and keep it trapped in the pad rather than redepositing it back on your floors. In our tests, it received a perfect score for how easy it was to dispense the liquid onto our hardwood floor test panels. And, because the pads are disposable, there's no dirty, germy mop to store or pads to wash.

Lights on the mop head make it easy to navigate under furniture too. We reviewed test data supporting that the liquid cleaner is safe on wood, and in our tests, the floor dried quickly after mopping and without streaks or residue. Like the pads, however, the cleaner bottle is not refillable and will eventually need replacing.

Whether you prefer cleaning your floors using a traditional mop and bucket or a newer spray mop, Libman's Freedom hardwood floor cleaning formula can do both. It's made to be mixed with water for use either in your own bucket or with Libman’s Freedom Dispensing Microfiber Mop. In our tests, it did a very good job of quickly dissolving sticky soil and scuff marks, and because it can be diluted, a little goes a long way.

The bottle top has a handle for easy carrying and a built-in cup for mess-free measuring. Simply squeeze the bottle to fill the measuring cap with the recommended dose of cleaner and pour it directly into a bucket or the Freedom Mop canister. One little bottle makes 4 gallons of cleaner, and this innovative package prevents spills and eliminates the need for a separate measuring cup.