The Best Mobile Hotspots for 2025

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Mobile hotspots create a small Wi-Fi network that allows you to connect multiple devices to the internet anywhere you have a cell signal, but figuring out which to get can be confusing. PCMag has been reviewing mobile hotspots for more than 15 years, so you can trust that our coverage is accurate and informed. Our current Editors' Choice winners are the Franklin Wireless JEXtream RG2100 5G for T-Mobile and the Orbic Speed 5G UW for Verizon, thanks to their consistent performance and easy-to-use interfaces, but the other models on this list are also worth considering. Make sure to click through to our full reviews and read to the end for a detailed guide that explains everything you need to know about choosing a hotspot and deciding whether phone tethering is a viable option for your needs.

The Best Mobile Hotspot Plans

Hotspots are available from all three nationwide carriers and several virtual operators that use the larger carriers' networks. For instance, you can get hotspot plans from Boost (Dish), Cricket (AT&T), H2O (AT&T), Karma (T-Mobile), Metro (T-Mobile), Net10 (Verizon), and Simple Mobile (T-Mobile), among others.

Hotspot plans change all the time. On AT&T and Verizon, your best bet is to add a hotspot to your existing phone plan as a separate line. That gets you the most data for your dollar. If you add a hotspot onto an "unlimited" phone plan, you get up to 60GB of high-speed data with Verizon, 60GB with AT&T, and 50GB with T-Mobile. After that, the carriers deprioritize your data or throttle it unpredictably, depending on local network traffic.

Can Hotspots Replace Home Internet?

Hotspot plans aren't designed for primary home use. They cost much more per byte than a home DSL, cable, or fiber setup.

The median US home broadband subscriber uses more than 427GB of data per month, likely because of video streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. All of those Zoom calls are also likely to eat up a data cap quickly. If your needs don't involve video or music streaming, a wireless hotspot might be a viable alternative for your home.

However, there is such a thing as wireless home internet, and it's different from hotspots. It relies on exterior antennas and larger, less portable routers that stay in one location. Recent wireless internet plans are more likely to have unlimited data than hotspot plans. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all sell wireless home internet plans in various parts of the country, as do a wide range of smaller, local wireless internet service providers (WISPs). Starlink is worth considering as well.

So, who's using hotspots? Traditionally, it was just road warriors—business people who needed reliable connections for multiple devices without draining their phones' batteries. Now, food trucks and other outdoor-dwelling small businesses use hotspots to light up their point-of-sale systems and get Seamless orders. Vacation home and RV owners might also use hotspots for part-time homesteads. And folks who can't get the carriers' dedicated wireless internet plans might still find they can fall back on hotspots.

What's the Best Hotspot Hardware?

The three big carriers have mostly completed the first major phase of their 5G rollouts, and in many cases, their network capabilities have outstripped the quality of older hotspots running on them. That means recent phones will get better speeds than older hotspots.

Many high-quality hotspots have TS9 external antenna ports, which can be used to improve your signal using inexpensive antennas you can purchase online. TS9 is standard, and these antennas cost much less than cellular signal boosters. Unfortunately, 5G hotspots that support mmWave generally don't have external antenna ports.

Ensure your hotspot supports 5GHz Wi-Fi, which is typically faster and less congested than 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. Our picks typically support both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Some hotspots support guest networks and access controls, such as MAC filtering and time-based limits. Those features are on pretty much all dedicated routers nowadays, but you can't necessarily take them for granted on mobile hotspots.

You can use hotspots with big batteries as power banks to charge your phone. Some hotspots with microSD card slots can function as tiny servers for sharing media over Wi-Fi. That said, we've never found a real use for that media server functionality.

We really like the displays on the front of many current hotspots. They conveniently report the strength of your signal, your hotspot's name, data usage statistics, and the network password.

Should You Tether Your Phone Instead of Using a Hotspot?

Keep in mind that a dedicated hotspot isn't the only option. Smartphones have a Wi-Fi hotspot mode, and if you have a 5G phone, you might get better performance in that mode than you would with a 4G hotspot. That said, phones support fewer devices at once, don't have as many network management features, and can run out of battery more quickly.

To help narrow your decision, head to our explainer on the tethering vs. dedicated hotspot debate. And check out our tips on how to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Beware: Overseas Surfing Will Cost You

US hotspots generally allow you to roam in Canada and Mexico, although rates might be high. Be sure to check with your carrier in advance to find out.

One of the only good unlocked hotspots with international bands available in the US is the Netgear Nighthawk M6, but it's quite expensive. If you plan to buy a local SIM to take advantage of lower local data rates, you may want to buy a cheap phone abroad and tether from it.