The 8 Best Indoor Smart Gardens for 2025

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CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.

I like to bring greens into my living space for a touch of liveliness. For this, I turn to indoor garden systems. They have low-maintenance requirements and don’t take up too much living or counter space. Plus, if you’ve ever had to tend to larger outdoor gardens you know that, while they’re worth it, they’re a lot of work. Rambling on, an indoor garden even offers an affordable way to grow your own produce. From built-in LED lights to a soil-free hydroponic system, the best indoor garden can grow herbs, fresh lettuce, and even your own seeds for garden-to-table cooking.

Many indoor garden systems, including Aerogarden Bounty Elite and the Click & Grow Smart Garden 3 are extremely user-friendly. Plus, most models are small and light enough to be moved around the house. Bigger indoor garden units — Lettuce Grow Farmstand and RiseGarden — take up more space but can hold as many as 36 plants at once. You’ll also find options for special indoor gardens for growing microgreens and others that emphasize style and simplicity over complex mechanisms and mobile app integrations. Many of these garden system options will even come with seeds.

To find the best smart gardens for 2025, we put several indoor grow systems to the test.

Best indoor smart gardens for 2025

I’ve tried this very unit and it’s a perfectly sized smart garden for growing essential herbs like basil, mint and chives and salad greens. It couldn’t be simpler to operate, with self-contained seed pods, LED grow lights and a water tank that needs filling only every two or three weeks. A perfect starter herb garden for someone with a not-so-green thumb.

This Click & Grow Smart Garden 3 comes with three basil pods, but you can buy any number of salad greens, fruit and vegetable seed pods from the website for about $3 each. With room for just three plants, this particular garden is a little small to grow much in the way of vegetables, so best to stick to herbs and lettuce. There are loads of flower pods, however, if your gardening goals are more aesthetic.

There are several larger Click & Grow models, all of which function in the same manner. These include the Smart Garden 9, which can hold nine seed pods, and the multilevel Smart Garden 27 which holds, you guessed it, 27 seed pods.

The AeroGarden Bounty Elite Artisan is a relatively compact indoor gardening system that, out of the box, manages to make room for nine plants of your choosing — the options range widely from herb mixes to tomatoes, peppers and flowers. 

As the plants grow, the adjustable LED light stand can grow with them, up to 24 inches in height. Plant food is included, as well as an optional trellis system, which is designed to accommodate tomatoes and other plants that need support as they grow.

I’m in the early stages of growing nine lavender plants right now, but AeroGarden has made the process incredibly simple so far. The instructions walk you through the initial setup clearly, and the display alerts you when you need to add more plant food.

While the Click & Grow system has a reservoir and wicks water up into the soil pods, the AeroGarden uses a pump to circulate moisture. Fortunately, the pump sounds like gentle dripping rather than anything distracting.

A nutritionist might tell you microgreens are a vastly underused source of nutrition. As a bonus: They’re rather easy to grow at home. Ingarden is a new sleek smart garden designed to do just that and it’s compact enough to fit on your windowsill or bookshelf.

The Ingarden is completely soil-free but wicks water up into three seed pads that sit above a reservoir. LED grow lights under the handle run on a timer and keep the microgreens growing — and they grow fast. You’ll have sprouts in a few days and full-grown microgreens like mustard, radish and broccoli in about a week to sprinkle on salads and sandwiches, and into sauces and soups. 

My favorite thing about the Ingarden is the simple sleek design made with only ceramic and metal and no plastic. Compact, clean and easy to use, it’s the perfect smart garden for someone dipping their toe into the indoor garden game.