Jura E8 vs S8

Quick Answer: I’d recommend the Jura E8 over the Jura S8. The Jura S8 does not do enough to justify costing $500 more than the E8.

The key differences between the Jura E8 vs S8 are:

• User interface: The Jura S8 is operated by a touch screen whereas the Jura E8 is operated by a button-operated screen.

• Coffee customizations: The Jura S8 lets you add new items to its menu and program two different versions of each menu item. The Jura E8 lets you customize its existing menu, but it only saves one version of each menu item at a time. You cannot add new menu items to the E8.

• Milk options: The Jura S8 can dispense hot milk as well as foamed milk. The E8 only dispenses foamed milk.

• Price: The Jura S8 is typically around $500 more expensive than the Jura E8.

Let’s examine whether the Jura S8 can justify its additional price tag compared to the E8.

Which is Better, the Jura E8 or Jura S8 (Quick Verdict)?

I’d recommend the Jura E8 over the Jura S8 for the majority of people.

The Jura S8 is a slightly better coffee machine than the Jura E8. The Jura S8’s improvements over the E8 are not worth an extra $500, in my opinion.

The main advantage that the Jura S8 has over the Jura E8 is that the S8 lets you save and rename custom drinks. These then become permanent fixtures on the machine’s menu.

You’ll benefit the most from this if you intend your coffee machine to be used by large groups of people, such as in an office setting. 

I’d therefore only recommend the Jura S8 vs Jura E8 if you know the machine is going to be used by lots of people who might want a different drink.

The Jura S8 basically gives you more default drinks making navigating between people’s preferences and customizations easier than with the E8.

Overview of Jura E8 and Jura S8

The Jura E8 and Jura S8 are both super-automatic espresso machines, meaning they allow you to brew espresso and steam milk at the touch of a button. The only manual work you need to do is fill each machine with coffee beans and water.

They both use Jura’s patented Aroma G3 Grinder and “Pulse Extraction Process” to brew espresso.

Taken together these allow the Jura E8 and Jura S8 to make the best-tasting espresso of all super-automatic machines (this is true of all Jura coffee machines).

They also both use the same automatic milk system, meaning that the quality of their frothed milk is identical.

In short, the quality of the drinks these two coffee machines make is identical (and very high).

Their main difference lies in their user interface and workflow:

• The Jura S8 has a touch screen and allows you to customize drinks, rename them and then add them as a new item to its menu.

• The Jura E8 has a button-controlled screen and while it does allow you to customize its existing menu, it does not let you add two items to its menu.

The table below shows the key features and specifications of the Jura E8 and Jura S8:

What are the Differences Between the Jura E8 and Jura S8?

The two Jura machines have four major differences that are each significant enough to potentially make you want one machine over the other.

It also has a couple of minor differences which I don’t think to affect the machine’s usability enough to affect a purchasing decision.

I will start with the major differences between the Jura E8 vs S8 and then move on to the minor differences between the two machines.

Major Difference 1: Jura S8’s Touch Screen vs Jura E8’s Button-Controlled Screen

The Jura S8 is controlled by a touch screen and the Jura E8 is controlled by a button-operated screen.

As I spoke about in my Jura E8 review, the buttons that control the E8’s are made out of a very thin plastic that feels cheap under your finger. They have no give to them which makes them uncomfortable to press.

When I use the Jura E8 I often think that this button-controlled system could easily be upgraded…

However…

I’m not sure if Jura has really designed the S8’s touchscreen to be any easier, or more enjoyable, to use than the Jura E8’s button system.

The touchscreen sometimes requires you to tap an option (such as selecting a drink from the menu) and sometimes requires you to swipe an option (such as for customizing your drinks).

The touchscreen does not seem to be super responsive when you swipe it, with a Redditor on this thread likening it to “an old Android 2.3.x phone”.

I also think that any Jura espresso machine warrants a touch screen.

Touch screens are only useful when you have menus that require a lot of inputs and navigation. I think that for something like an espresso machine where you only have to make a few decisions, a button-operated control panel is sufficient.

One way that Jura has definitely upgraded the S8’s user interface compared to the E8’s is that the Jura S8’s menu has each drink’s name whereas the E8 does not.

While adding names to its menu does make the Jura S8 easier to navigate the E8, I don’t think that this alone justifies you paying more for the Jura S8.

I think that overall the Jura S8’s touch screen fails to deliver in making the machine significantly easier or more enjoyable to use than the Jura E8.

Major Difference 2: Jura S8’s Customizable Menu vs Jura E8’s Static Menu

While both machines let you customize the drinks on their menu, only the Jura S8 allows you to save these customizations and add them as new default options on their menu.

You can see a video of how this works on the Jura S8 below (watch from 12:05 – 15:05):

As you can see from the above video, any new drink you make will have to replace an existing drink on the machine’s menu. You can also only have two versions of each drink (like the two latte macchiatos in the video).

You cannot just add new drinks to the S8’s menu ad infinitum.

The Jura E8 allows you to customize drinks in much the same way as the Jura S8 except these will just become the new default drink on the machine’s menu rather than be added as a separate drink.

Both machines allow you to customize your drinks on the fly as you brew them.

I can only see you getting a lot of value from the Jura S8’s menu customizations if there are going to be a lot of you using the coffee machine.

It can be a bit annoying having to customize your coffee every time you make it, however, if there is only going to be one or two of you using the machine then the Jura E8’s default setting per coffee should be enough.

Major Difference 3: The Jura S8 Can Dispense Hot and Frothed Milk, The Jura E8 Can Only Dispense Frothed Milk

The Jura S8’s built-in milk frother has a dial on it that lets you toggle between its steaming and frothing milk.

You can see a video of this in action below (watch from 5:07 – 5:17)

This means that the Jura S8 can dispense plain hot milk as well as frothed milk, whereas the Jura E8 can only froth milk.

The E8 can froth milk to different textures, but this is determined solely by the type of drink that you select.

The Jura S8 allows you to control this milk texture manually by switching its toggle as it dispenses milk.

You can probably get better texture milk-based coffee drinks from the Jura S8 than the Jura E8 if you are happy to play around with this setting.

Bear in mind that the Jura E8 can still make drinks that combine hot and foamed milk (such as its latte macchiato). It will just do this automatically rather than allowing you to control these proportions of hot and foamed milk manually.

Major Difference 4: The Jura S8 is Typically $500 More Expensive than the Jura E8

I have noticed that the price difference between the Jura E8 vs S8 seems to be decreasing.

When I first wrote this article back in mid-2022, the Jura S8 was close to $1,000 more expensive than the Jura E8, now the price difference between the two coffee machines is typically between $400-$500.

I still think that there is very little difference between these two machines as far as quality goes and the price gap between them will need to drop much further before I would start recommending the Jura S8 over the Jura E8.

Now onto the minor differences…

Minor Difference 1: Slight Difference Between the Machines’ Menus

The Jura E8 has 17 menu items to the Jura S8’s 14.

The specialty coffee drinks that the Jura E8 has but that the Jura S8 does not have are:

• Doppio (I’m not sure what the difference between this and a 2 x espresso is)
• Cappuccino with an extra shot
• Latte macchiato with an extra shot
• Flat white with an extra shot

The specialty coffee drinks that the Jura S8 has but the Jura E8 does not have are:

• Ristretto (I’m not convinced a super-automatic espresso machine can make a good Ristretto)
• Latte
• Portion of milk foam
• Water for green tea (the real game changer)

The table below shows the two machines’ menus:

Personally, I slightly prefer the Jura E8’s menu because of its “extra shot” items.

I always have milk-based coffee drinks with two shots of espresso, and the Jura E8 makes it much easier to make these with the Jura S8.

The most notable addition to the Jura S8’s menu is a latte. 

While I’ve always found it strange that the Jura E8 does not have a latte on its menu, its latte macchiato is so similar to the latte that this has never bothered me too much.

Minor Difference 2: Jura E8 has an “Intelligent Pre-Heating System”, Jura S8 Does Not

The Jura E8’s “Intelligent Pre-Heating System” means that as long as the machine is on it will be able to brew your espresso at the ideal brewing temperature of 194-205 Fahrenheit.

The Jura S8 does not have this, meaning that it might be more prone to temperature fluctuations than the Jura E8.

This might make the Jura S8’s black coffee drinks (espresso and Americano) taste slightly worse than the Jura E8’s, but no one seems to have tested this.

I’m certain that if this affects espresso quality at all then the differences between the Jura E8 vs S8 will be slight.

Jura machines generally have a high build quality and are well insulated so I can’t see them succumbing to temperature fluctuations too regularly.

What are the Similarities Between the Jura E8 and Jura S8

The Jura E8 and Jura S8 have the following features in common:

Grinding and Brewing System

Jura has their own patented Aroma G3 Grinder and “Pulse Extraction Process” for brewing espresso. 

The only difference between the two grinders is that the Jura S8 uses “active bean monitoring” meaning that it will warn you when you need to fill up your grinder with coffee beans.

The Jura E8 does not have “active bean monitoring”, which I don’t think is too much of a miss as you can visually see when the grinder needs more beans.

This same grinding and brewing system means that each coffee machine brews espresso to the same standard. This is the best espresso that you can currently get from any super-automatic espresso machine.

Although one could argue that the Jura E8’s Intelligent Pre-Heating means it can make better espresso than the S8, I really think the difference here is so slim that you can take both machines to produce the same quality of the espresso.

Available Drink Customizations

Both machines allow you to customize your drinks in the following ways

• Three settings for brewing temperature

• Ten settings for coffee strengths (5 grams – 16 grams of ground coffee per shot)

• You can adjust the volume of coffee by the nearest 5 milliliters.

• You can change the volume of milk in your drink by the second dispensed

• You can change the proportions of milk and milk foam in your drink (only the Jura S8 allows you to do this manually but you can select the time for the machine to dispense each texture on the E8)

Only the S8 lets you add customized items to its menu. Any customizations made on the Jura E8 will overwrite current menu items.

Milk System

Both machines use the same milk-steaming system, meaning that the quality of their frothed milk will be the same.

They both require you to attach their milk frother to a separate milk container via a rubber tube, which is a bit of an unwieldy system.

The Jura S8 gives you a bit more control over the proportions of hot and frothed milk in your drink, but the actual milk textures produced by each espresso machine are the same.

Cleaning and Maintenance Process

Both machines have self-cleaning modes that can be accessed in their settings menu.

They also have dedicated descale modes that will walk you through the descaling process.

Neither machine can have its brew group removed and manually cleaned. I think that this is a poor design choice, as many super-automatic espresso machines’ technical faults can be fixed by lubricating the brew group.

This is a problem that both machines share, however.

I have seen people say in some Jura S8 reviews that the S8 cannot self-clean its milk frother whereas the Jura E8 can.

This simply is not true, I’ll embed a video of the Jura S8 running a milk cleaning cycle below:

This is the exact same process that the Jura E8 uses.

In short, both machines take the same amount of work to keep clean and well-maintained.

Size, Design and Build Quality

Both machines are the same shape, and size (within half an inch) and have the same internal and external build quality, save for the S8’s touchscreen.

Jura’s products are really well built (hence the price tag) and rarely succumb to technical faults within the first five years of ownership (this assumes regular cleaning and descaling).

Jura also offers a two-year warranty on all its domestic espresso machines, including the Jura E8 and Jura S8.

Jura E8 vs S8: Final Verdict

I’d recommend the Jura E8 over the Jura S8 for the vast majority of people.

The Jura S8’s touchscreen is not amazingly built and doesn’t actually make the machine much easier to use than the E8.

Save yourself $500 and stick to the Jura E8’s reliable buttons.

The only situation in that I’d recommend spending extra on the Jura S8 is if a lot of you are going to be using the machine and shifting its default settings might cause tension between you.

The Jura S8 allows you to save more custom preset coffee types (as well as letting you give them personalized names) which will ensure that you’re not having to constantly fiddle with the machine’s settings just to get the coffee you want in the morning.

If you’d like to find out more about these machines please see my Jura S8 review and my roundup of the best Jura coffee machines.