I have taught more than a thousand people to row on machines, first at a CrossFit box in Seattle and now at a dedicated rowing studio, and the question that comes at the end of almost every class is the same: which rower should I buy for my apartment? This home rowing machine comparison is the answer I give when I have more than thirty seconds to talk, because the honest version depends on what you will actually do on the machine at 6 a.m. in February.
Here is the part nobody tells you. You are not buying a rowing machine. You are buying the workouts you will actually do on it. A $2,000 rower you avoid is worth less than a $400 rower you use four times a week, and the reverse is also true. So the question is not which machine is best in the abstract. It is which machine matches the training you have in you.
For most people, the right first answer in 2026 is an air rower with a monitor that shows split, and the NordicTrack RW900 is the most tech-forward version of that idea. The JOROTO water rower is the pick if you want the feel and the look in your living room. The Sunny Health & Fitness hydraulic rower is a compact occasional-use machine, and I mean occasional. The Enhon chain oil kit is the cheap insurance that keeps a Concept2 running for a decade.
Sunny Health & Fitness Compact Hydraulic Rower with 12-Level Resistance
Smallest footprint in this lineup, 12 resistance levels for a beginner to climb, and the easiest machine to leave out in a corner
Hydraulic resistance does not feel like air or water, and the stroke is shorter than a full-rail machine
NordicTrack RW900 Rower
Air resistance with a big screen that keeps you in the seat, the closest thing here to having a coach call the intervals
The subscription is the real cost, and a screen-first machine makes you dependent on it
JOROTO Water Rowing Machine, Foldable with 400 lb Capacity, Dedicated Monitor and Bluetooth App
The most immersive feel of the group, folds for storage, 400 lb weight capacity, and a dedicated monitor with app support
A water tank is a maintenance project, and the tank needs attention you cannot skip
Enhon Rowing Machine Chain Oil Kit Compatible with Concept2 Rowing Machine
The cheapest way to protect the machine that outlives everything else in your house
It is a maintenance item, not a rower, and it is built for Concept2 style chains
Prices and availability were captured from Amazon Creators API and may change.
How I judge a rowing machine
Every machine I form an opinion about gets the same treatment. Twenty minutes of steady state at a conversational pace, a set of sprint intervals at rate 28 and up, and the tall person / short person fit test, because a machine that fits a 5 foot 4 beginner and a 6 foot 4 former college athlete is doing something right with its geometry.
Then I ask four questions, in this order. Does the resistance feel consistent through the whole stroke, or does it fall away at the finish? Does the monitor show split, the time per 500 meters, or does it only show calories and a stroke count? Does the seat roll smooth and quiet on the rail, or does it click and grind? And finally, would I put a beginner on it on day one without a long list of caveats?
That last question is the one that separates machines. A rower can be beautiful, quiet, and well built, and still be a bad teaching tool if the catch is vague or the monitor lies to you.
Air rowers: the NordicTrack RW900
Air resistance is the gold standard because the harder you pull, the more resistance you get, and the fan does not care what mood you are in. The NordicTrack RW900 is an air rower wrapped around a screen, and that combination is the reason I recommend it to people who need structure more than they need a machine.
If you are the kind of person who has ever stood in a gym wondering what to do next, the screen solves that problem. The RW900 brings guided workouts into your living room, and the difference between a machine with a screen and a machine with a bare monitor is the difference between a plan and a hope. I have watched people who never rowed before sit down on a screen rower and finish a 20-minute session without asking me a single question. That is worth something real.
Here is the caveat, and it is the one I always lead with. The subscription is the real cost. The hardware price is a one-time number, and the classes are a monthly one, and if you stop paying, the screen becomes a large and expensive dashboard. Air rowers also make noise. I will not tell you the RW900 is quiet, because I do not make quiet claims without a decibel reading, and any air rower moving a fan at a hard effort is going to be audible through a wall.
The other thing to know: an air rower rewards technique. If your stroke is a rushed tug with a bent back, the machine will punish you with a slow split and a tired lower back. Slow the stroke down. Feel the catch. The machine does its job if you do yours.
Water rowers: the JOROTO foldable
Water resistance is the closest thing to real rowing in a living room, and the JOROTO water rower is the version of that idea that also folds, holds up to 400 lb, and ships with a dedicated monitor and Bluetooth app support. That is a lot of the wishlist in one frame.
The feel is the selling point. A water tank gives you a resistance curve that loads up as you drive and settles as you recover, and that rhythm teaches good sequencing better than any lecture I can give. My own machine at home is a water rower, for exactly this reason. I recommend Concept2 to almost everyone, and I still keep water at home for the feel, and I am aware of how that sounds.
Now the trade-off. A water rower is a maintenance project. The tank is a living thing in your house. Water needs treatment, levels need watching, and a tank that is neglected gets cloudy or starts to smell, and then you own a very heavy piece of furniture with a view. If you are the person who changes the filter on your fridge and actually services your bike, this is fine. If you are the person who has never once cleaned a coffee grinder, budget for the maintenance or pick an air rower.
The fold is genuinely useful if space is tight. Just understand the difference between folding and moving. Folding saves floor space. It does not make a machine light. If your plan is to fold it and stand it in a closet twice a day, you will do that for three weeks and then leave it out.
Compact hydraulic: the Sunny Health & Fitness hydraulic rower
Hydraulic rowers are their own category, and the Sunny Health & Fitness compact hydraulic rower with 12-level resistance is the entry point in this comparison. The resistance comes from hydraulic cylinders rather than a fan or a tank, which means the machine is small, light, and does not need a power outlet or a tank additive.
That compactness is the entire case for it. In a studio apartment, a dorm, or a bedroom shared with someone who does not want a rower in the middle of it, a machine that tucks into a corner is a machine that gets used. The 12 levels give a beginner somewhere to go as fitness improves, and the resistance adjustment is immediate, which is nice for intervals.
The honest limitation is the feel. Hydraulic resistance does not load the way air or water loads, and the stroke is shorter than what you get on a full rail. If you have rowed on a Concept2 or a water rower, a hydraulic machine will feel like a different exercise with the same name. That does not make it useless. It makes it a starting machine for someone who wants to try rowing before committing real money and real floor space.
I will also say this plainly. The biggest risk with a compact hydraulic rower is not the machine. It is that people outgrow it and keep using it anyway, because they already paid for it. If you suspect you will love rowing, spend the money once.
The maintenance item nobody budgets for: the Enhon chain oil kit
This one looks out of place in a rower comparison, and it is here on purpose. The Enhon rowing machine chain oil kit is compatible with Concept2 rowing machines, which means it covers the drive chain on the machine that has been the standard in boathouses and gyms for decades.
The Concept2 is the only recommendation I give without caveats, and a large part of that is serviceability. Chains, seats, and monitors are all replaceable, and a machine that can be maintained is a machine that lasts. Chain oil is the cheapest part of that whole story. A dry or grimy chain grinds, and a grinding chain is the noise people describe as "the rower sounds cheap," when what they actually mean is that nobody oiled it.
The kit is not a rower, and it will not fix a machine that has a bent rail or a dead monitor. It is also built for Concept2 style chains, so do not buy it for a water rower or a hydraulic machine. Buy it for the Concept2 in your basement that has quietly done a few million meters and deserves ten minutes of care.
How these four stack up
Ranked by how much I would trust them with a real training block, the air rower and the water rower are in a different conversation than the compact hydraulic machine, and the maintenance kit is in a category of its own because it makes an existing machine better rather than adding a new one.
Ranked by how likely a beginner is to actually stick with it, the RW900 wins on structure, the JOROTO wins on feel and looks, the Sunny wins on space and entry cost, and the Enhon kit wins on cost per year of machine life, which is the number nobody calculates and everybody should.
Ranked by total cost of ownership, the picture flips. The screen machine has a monthly bill attached. The water machine has a maintenance bill and a learning curve. The compact hydraulic machine has the lowest entry cost but the shortest useful life for a serious rower. The chain oil kit is the cheapest line item in this entire article and probably the one with the best return.
Who should buy which
Buy the NordicTrack RW900 if you want the machine to tell you what to do, if you will use the classes, and if the subscription is a cost you have already accepted in your head. This is the pick for the person who needs a coach in the room more than a perfect flywheel.
Buy the JOROTO water rower if you love the feel of water, want something that looks like furniture rather than gym equipment, need the fold for storage, and will actually maintain the tank. This is the pick for the person who rows for the sensory experience as much as the numbers.
Buy the Sunny Health & Fitness compact hydraulic rower if space is the binding constraint, the budget is tight, and you are honest with yourself that this is a starter machine for a first season of rowing.
Buy the Enhon chain oil kit if you own a Concept2, or if you are buying one, because the machine will outlast everything else in this article and it deserves the ten dollars of care.
And if none of these four fit, remember the rule I give every class: the best rowing machine is the one that gets used, and the second best is the one you can sell. That is why the Concept2 holds its value and the folding machines under $200 do not. Skip the ones that flex in the rail. The flex will drive you crazy within a month, and the machine will end up folded, in a closet, forever.
What I am testing next
I am midway through a maintenance log on a set of machines that have each done a full block of steady state and intervals, tracking chain wear, seat noise, and monitor accuracy against a known distance. The thing I keep coming back to is that the machine is about 20 percent of the workout. The other 80 percent is whether you sat down at all, and whether you slowed the stroke down enough to feel the catch instead of yanking your way through twenty minutes.
So pick the machine that matches the person you are at 6 a.m., not the person you are when you are reading a comparison article. Then oil the chain, watch the tank, and put in the meters.