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After reviewing the information in this guide, we continue to stand by our picks. We also added an FAQ section below.

If Zen masters were to comment on the ideal position to take at your desk, they might say: “If you start to sit too long, stand. If you start to stand too long, sit.” Using an electric, height-adjustable standing desk is the easiest way to follow that sound ergonomic advice. But if you don’t want to buy and assemble a full-size desk, a manual or electric standing desk converter is the next best thing. After building, testing, and comparing 17 standing desk converters, we’ve found that the Ergo Desktop Kangaroo Pro Junior offers the most stable, ergonomic, and adjustable standing setup while taking up less room than most converters. It has been our pick for more than seven years.

This converter is the most adjustable, which makes it the most ergonomic choice for most people. It’s also stable, and it takes up less space than competing converters.

Of the converters we’ve tested, the Ergo Desktop Kangaroo Pro Junior makes the fewest ergonomic compromises without being too annoying to use. That’s no small feat for this category, believe us. The ability to control the height of your monitor and the keyboard platform separately makes the Kangaroo Pro Junior a better fit for more people. Thanks to the monitor mount, your display is more stable and takes up less room than it would in its own stand. And the work platform can accommodate a keyboard, a mouse, and other tools while still fitting on even the smallest of desks. Compared with some other converters, the Kangaroo Pro Junior makes you put in a little more effort—turning multiple knobs and gently lifting the platform and the monitor—but that pays off in ergonomically superior arm and neck angles.

This is the best converter for a stand-mounted monitor or a laptop with an external keyboard. It’s sturdy and spacious, with a unique angle-adjustable keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $370.

The VertDesk Converter V1CB/V1CW isn’t as adjustable as the Kangaroo Pro Junior, but it’s the best option if your monitor can’t mount to a VESA bracket, if you need room for two monitors (up to 24 inches wide each), or if you want to use your laptop screen with an external keyboard while standing. It’s more stable than many other two-tier converters—especially its keyboard tray, which you can tilt to a wrist-friendly negative angle. It’s smooth to raise and lower, it rises mostly straight up instead of lurching out like many converters do, and it has some built-in cable routing for a neater workspace setup.

The E7 is much heavier and space-filling than non-electric converters, but it gives you one-touch raising to memory positions, a lot of workspace, and an optional lower keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $470.

Uplift’s E7 Electric Standing Desk Converter gives you the most convenient standing setup short of a full standing desk. It weighs about 100 pounds and takes up nearly 40 inches of desk depth with its overhanging keyboard tray (in contrast to the Kangaroo Pro Junior’s 19.5 inches and the VertDesk’s 24 inches), but it’s quicker and quieter than other electric converters we tested, it looks great with a bamboo or rubberwood desktop option, and it lets you use either a lowered keyboard tray or a flat work surface.

If you need a standing workstation you can stow quickly, or if you use only a laptop, the Cora is the best simple laptop riser we tested.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $160.

The Fully Cora Standing Desk Converter represents a lower-cost, less-permanent way to raise your laptop than our other picks, which are bulkier and 10 to 80 pounds heavier. Using your laptop alone whether you’re sitting or standing isn’t a great ergonomic setup, and the Cora can’t comfortably fit a monitor, an external keyboard, and a laptop like our other picks can. But the Cora works great with a laptop on a stand, a small keyboard, and a small mouse, making your sitting and standing angles ergonomically better. It’s also the quietest, easiest-to-adjust, and best-looking laptop riser we tested.

This converter is the most adjustable, which makes it the most ergonomic choice for most people. It’s also stable, and it takes up less space than competing converters.

This is the best converter for a stand-mounted monitor or a laptop with an external keyboard. It’s sturdy and spacious, with a unique angle-adjustable keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $370.

The E7 is much heavier and space-filling than non-electric converters, but it gives you one-touch raising to memory positions, a lot of workspace, and an optional lower keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $470.

If you need a standing workstation you can stow quickly, or if you use only a laptop, the Cora is the best simple laptop riser we tested.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $160.

Wirecutter has been covering standing desk converters and adjustable-height standing desks since 2013. Among three authors, we’ve reviewed and tested more than 15 standing desk converters.

Over our years of testing standing desks, we’ve consulted sources and experts in ergonomics and productivity, including the work of James Levine of the Mayo Clinic (an early advocate for varying work positions during the day), Shane Harris (a journalist who started writing about standing desks in 2011), and April Chambers (assistant professor in the Department of Health and Physical Activity at the University of Pittsburgh, whose research work has included a scoping analysis of studies of sit-stand desks).

Standing desk converters, also known as desk risers or toppers, are for people who don’t want to buy a full-size standing desk but still want to alternate between sitting and standing while working at a computer. This could be for many reasons, all of which we considered in making our picks for this guide:

Our picks are generally aimed at people who are working with a computer for their job, whether it's a laptop or a desktop with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Some converters have enough room and stability to allow for the addition of a notebook and pen, but most are not spaced or sized for spreading out a ton of documents or a large-scale drawing. If that’s something you need, consider a full-size standing desk or a drawing board (drafting table). Except for the Fully Cora, our picks are also considerably large and heavy—nearly 3 feet wide and between 30 and 92 pounds—so they’re not suitable for regularly moving from your desk or table. If you need a more compact and lightweight way to easily raise your laptop to standing height and back to sitting, you can find a few adjustable laptop stands that can accommodate standing heights (we’re in the process of reviewing these types of stands). Or you can create a makeshift standing desk using stacks of large books or reams of paper.

Why would you want to alternate sitting and standing during your workday? As you’ve probably heard, sitting for prolonged periods of time could be dangerous for your health: Research has associated too much sitting (aka “Sitting Disease”) with a higher risk of a host of problems, including heart disease and diabetes, certain cancers, and premature death. If you’re concerned about being too sedentary or if you feel pain after sitting for long periods, you should consider switching to a standing desk.

But that doesn’t mean you should stand all day, either. “Repeated, long-term exposure to standing also has been implicated in the development of serious health problems,” researcher April Chambers told us over email. She said that standing for the majority of your workday—as people in retail, manufacturing, and health care do—could lead to degenerative joint damage, muscle injury, and circulatory diseases such as venous disorders, increased stroke risk, and carotid atherosclerosis. So fixed-height standing desk setups—like many DIY kinds—aren’t ideal either if you’re spending long hours working at them.

A standing desk converter transforms any table or desk into a height-adjustable desk, letting you quickly raise or lower the desktop to alternate between sitting and standing throughout your workday, as our experts recommend. Researchers from the University of Waterloo who studied lower-back pain in people who both sat and stood at their desks recommend a sit-to-stand ratio between 1:1 and 1:3. In other words, you should sit and stand for equal periods of time each day, or, at the highest ratio, sit for 15 minutes and stand for 45 minutes every hour.

After testing more than 25 standing desks over 8 years, we recommend the Uplift V2 due to its customizability, wide height range, and reliable stability.

Using a sit-stand desk can significantly reduce lower-back pain, according to Chambers’s analysis of 53 studies of sit-stand desks. However, the jury is still out on many potential benefits, and as with all science, researchers say more investigation is needed. If you’re looking to add more physical activity to your day, to lose weight, or to improve your brain power—supposed advantages that some desk manufacturers might try to sell you on—there’s no proof that a standing desk can do any of that for you. As a professor of pediatrics writes in an article for The New York Times, standing at a desk is not a substitute for exercise.

Note that a standing desk converter raises the keyboard height from ½ inch to 1½ inches above the desktop. That, coupled with the height of the average desk (28 to 30 inches), might mean that people who are under 5-feet-11 will need to use a footrest for proper ergonomics when they’re sitting.

On the other end of the spectrum, standing desk converters typically raise the keyboard platform between 14 and 15 inches for standing work; coupled with the height of an average desk, this means they best accommodate people who are about 6-foot-2 or shorter. If you’re taller than that, you would be better off with a fully adjustable desk—our picks can accommodate people up to 7 feet tall.

Years of using standing desk converters, full-size standing desks, and even some cardboard standing adapters have taught us a lot about what to look for in a sit-stand setup. Among the attributes we value:

With the above priorities in mind, in 2021 we researched nine standing desk converters we hadn’t previously tested, and we decided to test four:

Wirecutter's Melanie Pinola assembled and tested the converters for each category side by side on two nearly identical 45-by-30-by-29-inch (width by depth by height) desks. She outfitted each with a 24-inch monitor, a laptop, an external keyboard, a mouse, and various tools such as a notebook, a smartphone, and a glass of water. For each converter, she spent at least a full workday alternating between sitting and standing—and she used an aerobic step platform to magically transform her height from 5 feet 2 inches to 6 feet to test the higher height ranges of each standing desk converter. Then she alternated between the two converters in each category over another two days.

Previously, in late 2018 and early 2019, writer Kevin Purdy, Kevin’s wife, and Wirecutter senior staff writer Kimber Streams tested 15 standing desk converters. The tested models included single-tier converters (laptop risers) and electric converters, as well as single-column and two-tier converters.

We test each standing desk converter the same way we test full-size standing desks: We use them to do our work. That means typing on a laptop or keyboard, using a mouse, drinking beverages, and occasionally scribbling in a notebook, if space allows. Some of these converters are more stable front-to-back and side-to-side than full-size standing desks are, but we note if a given model seems to wobble or to transfer more vibrations to a monitor on its stand than competitors do. We test how annoying it becomes to raise and lower each desk and whether cords tend to get caught in the machinery. We consider how a desk looks while lowered onto a table, and for single-tier laptop risers, we evaluate how easy the setup is to take down and stash away.

This converter is the most adjustable, which makes it the most ergonomic choice for most people. It’s also stable, and it takes up less space than competing converters.

The Ergo Desktop Kangaroo Pro Junior, a single-column converter we’ve recommended for more than seven years, does the best job of turning a fixed surface into an ergonomic standing workstation for a mouse, keyboard, and monitor while keeping a compact footprint. Of all the standing desk converters we’ve tested, it remains the easiest to precisely adjust for positioning your work surface and monitor where you need them—making it a better fit for most people. Along with the FlexiSpot EdgeRiser M8MB, it sat the flattest on our desk at sitting height, reducing the need for people to adjust their chair heights when they’re seated. In addition, the monitor mount makes the Kangaroo Pro Junior more stable than two-tier converters, even though it weighs less and takes up less space on a desk. And the flat, open work surface accommodates a wider range of keyboards and mice than the shallow keyboard trays of other converters, and it doesn’t box in your hands while you’re using it.

The Kangaroo Pro Junior rises and lowers differently (and, we think, better) than any other standing desk converter we’ve tested. You turn a knob to loosen the work platform and another to release the monitor mount, raise or lower them to where you need to stand or sit, and then retighten the knobs. It takes a few more seconds to move the Kangaroo Pro Junior to a different height than some other, lever-squeezing converters, or, of course, a push-button electric converter or full-size desk. But there are three benefits to this system:

Most standing desk converters take up a lot of space on your work surface, weigh a lot, and force your keyboard and mouse onto a smaller, confined tray, even when you’re sitting. The Kangaroo Pro Junior is just under 20 inches from the front of its work surface to the back of its monitor column. That’s 1 to 3 inches less than the depth of every other converter we’ve tested in its category and nearly 10 inches less than that of the Fully Cooper or VariDesk Pro Plus 30. It weighs about 33 pounds, which is not a small amount but is less than the weight of every other single-column or two-tier converter we’ve tested. If you had to remove the Kangaroo Pro Junior from your desk to make room, doing so (after unplugging the cords, of course) would be easier than with any other tested converter that can mount a monitor.

When you have the Kangaroo Pro Junior in sitting mode, the work surface is about as flat and level with the top of your desk or table as it can be. The surface is roughly ½ inch thick and floats less than ¼ inch off the desk, so it raises your typing surface by ¾ inch. Most converters add at least an inch—or even 2 inches—to your desktop height, which means many people would have to adjust their chair height and possibly get a footrest to support their body while they’re sitting. Unlike with other converters, you can improve the slight bounce of the keyboard/work area (which is better than that of other converters, including our other picks) by putting something like a towel or blanket under it.

Typing on the Kangaroo Pro Junior at standing height is fine, functional, and mostly unremarkable. Included in the box is a small adjustable stability bar, which you can set to your preferred height and then prop underneath the work surface. That small prop prevents wobbling at the edge closest to you, and the unit’s heavy base halts most vibrations that come through the desk. The keyboard tray of the most similar competitor, the Ergotron WorkFit-S, bounces at standing height, and the 30-inch-deep platform of the Humanscale QuickStand Eco flexes too much for comfort. The keyboard trays of the two-tier models we tested either bounce and vibrate inside their frames or are stable but smaller (like that of the VertDesk Converter). The Kangaroo Pro Junior comes closest to providing sufficient work room while staying in place.

The Kangaroo Pro Junior consists of a metal column that holds a monitor and a black matte-plastic work surface, and that’s all it looks like—no visible logos, glowing LED buttons, or attempts at sleek rounded corners here. These are points in its favor, as it doesn’t stand out too much in a neutral-tone office setting like the Uplift E7 electric desk’s bamboo surfaces might. And in contrast to the VariDesk, the VertDesk, the Vivo models, or the vast majority of the dozens of other standing converters available, the Kangaroo Pro Junior is not entirely black plastic and black-painted metal, either. Next to the competition, the mix of the two materials on the Kangaroo Pro Junior is just a bit more interesting yet not ostentatious. As we were testing, one bystander asked “What is this elevator desk you’re using?” and was sufficiently impressed by our demonstration.

Assembling the Kangaroo Pro Junior holds no surprises. The base is a flat piece of rounded metal, so it’s very unlikely to scratch a table or desk. Manufacturer Ergo Desktop offers a full refund within 30 days of purchase (if you buy it directly from the company). The gas springs and moving parts have a five-year warranty, and the steel structural frame is covered for 10. Our test unit has shown no notable wear or tear in the months since we last tested it.

Although we find the Kangaroo Pro Junior to be the best value for those with a single VESA-compatible monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse, there are other Kangaroo models at different prices that fit monitors with stands, dual monitors, laptops, monitor-and-laptop combos, and even all-in-one desktops. The Kangaroo Pro Junior’s monitor mount does not allow rotation, for example, while that of the Kangaroo Pro does. You can also buy a keyboard extension for the Junior model if you want to extend your work surface by 9 inches of depth (the regular Kangaroo Pro is 6 inches deeper).

The work surface of the Kangaroo Pro Junior moves straight up and down, the base is smaller than the work surface, and there’s no frame around the edges. As such, unlike with other kinds of converters, objects can end up underneath the work surface and then be hit by the surface when it’s on the way down. Be sure to check underneath when you lower the work surface.

If you like to have your cables neatly bundled and out of the way, that’s something you’ll have to figure out yourself, as the Kangaroo Pro Junior doesn’t come with any cable-wrangling clips or stick-on routing tools. You can get the supplies yourself (we recommend some in another guide), but you will have to make sure your cables don’t get in the way of moving parts or come unplugged at standing height. Every standing setup involves a bit of this work, but other desks, such as the VariDesk, the VertDesk, and Ergotron’s WorkFit models, offer at least some standard routing holes and included clips.

The experience of keeping an optional, adjustable leg on your desk to brace the keyboard platform is a mixed bag. The piece takes up space and is one more thing to knock over. But it adds stability, and locking the brace into your most commonly used standing height also makes it easier for you to move your work surface to a consistent height by raising the surface and then gently lowering it onto the leg.

This is the best converter for a stand-mounted monitor or a laptop with an external keyboard. It’s sturdy and spacious, with a unique angle-adjustable keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $370.

The VertDesk Converter V1CB/V1CW covers most of the situations the Kangaroo Pro Junior does not. Because it's a two-level converter, it can work with monitors (up to two 24-inch models) on a stand or with an all-in-one computer, rather than requiring a VESA-compatible bracket. It works well if you want to use your laptop itself as your main screen. And it’s simpler and a little faster to raise and lower, with levers on each side instead of locking knobs. If you need those things, or if you prefer how the VertDesk looks or rises in comparison with the Kangaroo Pro Junior, this desk, too, earns the space it takes up on a desk.

The VertDesk doesn’t lift straight up like the Kangaroo Pro Junior does, nor does it move a long distance in your direction when you raise it. The converter rises and moves slightly toward you in a smooth motion, and it holds up your gear without being as difficult to push back down as most other models, which have some imbalance between stability and ease of moving. Making small adjustments to the height of the VertDesk wasn’t difficult for our 6-foot-1 male tester but required pushing with body weight for our 5-foot-2 female tester. If you have a physical disability or strength issues, you may need assistance with both lifting the converter for placement on a table and lowering or raising this and similar converters.

At its tallest height, the VertDesk comes forward about 10 inches, and typing forcefully on the keyboard tray can make the whole thing feel wobbly. Still, at various standing heights in our tests, the VertDesk was more stable all around, front-to-back and side-to-side, than the Fully Cooper and the Vivo models.

You can use the VertDesk with a variety of screen setups: your laptop on the top shelf with or without a laptop stand, a monitor on a stand, two monitors on two stands, or one or two monitors on a monitor arm. A replaceable grommet in the back-middle of the upper platform lets you neatly run cables to your screen, and the design also includes a few clips and suggested cable-routing spots. The VertDesk’s keyboard tray offers the most full-length depth, at 13 inches, of any laptop-friendly model we’ve tested; the VariDesk has a longer notch in the middle but is narrower at its left and right ends. That deeper space allows for more mouse room, a larger keyboard, or a small notepad. You can adjust the keyboard tray’s tilt to a negative angle, as ergonomic experts recommend, and unlike with the Vivo converters we tested, the VertDesk tray stays firmly at the angle you set. The tray is also more stable than that of the similar FlexiSpot EdgeRiser M8MB.

The drawbacks of the VertDesk Converter are mostly the same as those of any desktop converter. The keyboard tray raises your typing surface about 1½ inches off your table or desk when you’re sitting, so you may need to adjust your chair or make other adjustments to your workspace. It’s good that the VertDesk is available in white instead of the standard all-matte-black look, but it’s big and boxy. Although the working surfaces are contained inside a frame and the top desktop sits higher than a coffee mug when lowered, the handles on either side of the top surface could catch something underneath if you move it while you’re standing. And, again like most of its peers, the VertDesk requires that you at least manage your cords so that they can’t be caught in the pinching parts of the frame.

The VertDesk Converter has a five-year warranty with “no exclusions.” If you have two stand-mounted monitors (up to 27 inches each), you can buy a 42-inch-wide version for about $70 more.

The Rain Design iLevel 2 is our favorite laptop stand because it’s easy to adjust and can raise your screen to proper ergonomic height.

We tested 10 monitor arms ranging in price from $50 to $335, and we recommend the Fully Jarvis for its great adjustability, smooth movements, and long warranty.

The E7 is much heavier and space-filling than non-electric converters, but it gives you one-touch raising to memory positions, a lot of workspace, and an optional lower keyboard tray.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $470.

If you have a desk or space that you want to dedicate to a sit-stand rotation with the convenience of electric movement and preset heights, Uplift’s E7 Electric Standing Desk Converter is the closest you can get to the experience of using a full standing desk. That’s because it is, essentially, half a standing desk, consisting of a motorized column that raises a bamboo work surface and a VESA-mounted monitor with the press of a button. It demands at least 26 inches of desk depth (and another 13 inches with the keyboard tray), and it weighs 92 pounds, but it provides the quietest electric movement, a sleeker-looking wood or laminate surface, and more cord-routing options and suggestions than other electric converters we’ve tested.

Having your sitting and standing heights set into memory on the E7 is convenient, and the E7, unlike the other electric models we’ve tested, has buttons that are conveniently placed and easy to operate. After you press a button, the E7 is far quieter than other electric desks when moving.

When you’re sitting, the main work surface rests about an inch above your fixed-height desk or table. This arrangement is more awkward than that of the Kangaroo Pro Junior, but if you add on the optional (but included) adjustable keyboard tray, that piece sits lower than your work surface. That might work for some people, especially those 5-foot-5 and shorter, who might otherwise struggle to sit tall enough with the E7 on their desk (since they may already struggle with standard-height desks). The main work surface and the monitor mount, at both sitting and standing heights, are stable when you’re typing. The keyboard tray has some wobble and bounce, especially if you’re using a mouse near the left and right edges. Generally, however, given its nearly 100-pound weight, it’s a stable platform.

The biggest flaw of the E7 is that you have to mount your VESA-compatible monitor at one of five spots on the column. Moving the monitor to a different height involves inserting a screwdriver behind the monitor, and it’s annoying. This design limitation requires you to choose a monitor height that is just okay for both your sitting and standing heights. (The Kangaroo Pro Junior, in contrast, lets you adjust your monitor on a sliding column, separately from the work surface.) At 6-foot-2, our tester had to settle on having his monitor a little low in standing mode so that it wasn’t neck-tilting tall when he was sitting.

If you need a standing workstation you can stow quickly, or if you use only a laptop, the Cora is the best simple laptop riser we tested.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $160.

If you value being able to put away your workstation at the end of the day, the Fully Cora Standing Desk Converter represents the best low-commitment way to add a standing setup to an existing surface. It’s the easiest to adjust and to fit a simple laptop setup onto. It’s also the only single-platform riser we’ve tested that wouldn’t look notably out of place resting against a wall when not in use.

The Cora rises and lowers at a steady pace on quiet springs that require the least pressure to move and adjust, and you don’t have to bear down on it from directly above to lower it, as we did with the Stand Steady X-Elite Pro and the Vivo V000HB. The Cora is fully adjustable, rather than being limited to set height intervals like the X-Elite Pro or VariDesk’s Laptop 30. It stays stable at the top of its height, like most risers we’ve tested except the X-Elite Pro, which jiggles and flexes under applied pressure. As with any rise-in-place laptop adapter, however, you have to watch that your laptop power cord doesn’t get pinched in the legs while you’re lowering it.

The Cora gets as flat as it can be on a table or desk, raising the work surface 1.3 inches, while the X-Elite Pro and V000HB bounce slightly on their lifting mechanisms at sitting height. The bottom of the surface frame has nonskid pads to prevent movement or scratches. In our tests, the handles on the Cora were the easiest for us to activate and hold onto while we were raising or lowering the surface, although that also means they can be triggered accidentally—when the Cora is lowered all the way, pressing one handle allows the frame to pop out slightly. That effect is annoying when you’re carrying the thing or storing the Cora against a wall, but it's not likely to cause any real problems.

We think the white version of the Cora with gray aluminum legs looks much nicer than the mostly drab black competitors we’ve tested. The Cora has a two-year warranty.

Wirecutter senior editor Erica Ogg has been using the Cora for multiple years and reports that it has been holding up fine.

The FlexiSpot EdgeRiser M8MB is a two-tier converter similar in width and height range to the VertDesk, and it typically costs about half the price. It rises straight up and down—rather than up and slightly toward you—when you move a single lever. This design makes the EdgeRiser simpler to adjust than competing converters that require turning knobs (like the Kangaroo Pro Junior) or pushing two levers at once (like the VertDesk), but we found that raising the EdgeRiser took slightly more effort than doing so with the others. The EdgeRiser requires 32 inches of desk depth space—8 inches more than the VertDesk does—with the removable keyboard tray, which you can’t angle. And it’s not as sturdy or as solidly built as the VertDesk, which has thicker legs and platforms. For the money, though, the EdgeRiser is a fine desktop converter if you can bear a bit of wobble, especially on the keyboard tray.

The Humanscale QuickStand Eco is a sleek, single-column converter available in white or black and with a laptop or dual-monitor configuration. You can easily adjust its spacious, 30-by-30-inch square platform simply by pulling it up or pushing down on it—no knobs or levers to fiddle with. Although the platform remarkably stays in place, the monitor height is mostly fixed; to change the height of the monitor for better ergonomics when you switch between sitting and standing, you have to unscrew and remount the monitor. Due to the platform’s depth and thinness, it’s also distractingly wobbly—unfortunately, unlike the Kangaroo Pro Junior, it doesn’t come with an extra leg to stabilize the work surface. Also, two of the rubber feet on the bottom of our test unit fell off within days of our setting up the converter.

The Ergotron WorkFit-S is a single-column, mounted-monitor converter like the Kangaroo Pro Junior, but it clamps to the front of your desk surface instead of resting on it. Using it side by side with the Kangaroo, we found that its keyboard tray wobbled while we were typing, that we could lower the unit gradually if we applied any kind of leaning pressure to it, and that lowering it required angling our downward pressure just so. The monitor mount also didn’t rise high enough for our 6-foot-2 tester, and when we pushed the monitor to the top of its adjustment, it lowered again a few inches.

Fully’s Cooper is a close competitor to the VertDesk as a two-tier converter. It’s 36 inches wide but deeper than the VertDesk, with a keyboard tray that comes out to a total of 28 inches deep, versus 22½ inches. It looks a bit more interesting, with a bamboo option and an interesting X-fold design. The nearly 29-inch-wide keyboard tray is useful, but in our testing it jiggled more at sitting height than the VertDesk’s tray. You can adjust the Cooper’s lifting strength and resistance to find the right balance, where it holds your stuff up but isn’t too hard to push down. As shipped, our Cooper review unit required too much force to push down from the top. A long series of incremental adjustments later, we were still not sure if we should try to keep lowering the resistance or make the converter more stable in standing position. That kind of adjustment might appeal to some people, but we preferred not having to think about it.

The VariDesk Pro Plus 30 (also available in 36-inch and 48-inch versions) takes up just under 30 inches of depth to use, the most of any converter we’ve tested. In our tests it was stable while we typed and moused at standing height, and we found its keyboard tray about as bounce resistant at sitting height as that of the VertDesk. But the Pro Plus has 11 locked height positions and its upward momentum is very strong, so at times we had to fight it to prevent it from skipping the spot we wanted. When lowering it, we also had to put in the effort to hold open the movement levers, push down on the top, and make sure it was locked into its bottommost position, or else it would jerk back up to its first position.

Vivo’s V000B converter puts your keyboard farther above your fixed-height table while you’re sitting than any other standing converter we’ve tested. You can remove the slightly bouncy keyboard tray and type in the empty space inside the converter, but then you don’t really have anywhere to put your keyboard when the unit is raised. The gas springs are strongly tuned, so raising it is easy, but making small adjustments downward takes some effort. In our tests, the unit moved back and forth at its top height when we made wider mouse movements, and our 24-inch monitor wobbled quite a bit with the converter at standing height.

The Ergotron WorkFit-TX is different from most two-tier converters, with a keyboard tray that extends below your table and can toggle between tilted and flat, as well as dedicated cable-routing grommets near the back. It’s also very big—35 inches wide and 28 inches deep, not including the tray. The WorkFit-TX is a stable converter with a lot of room for your gear, and it can handle big monitors. But in our tests, pressing it down from standing height felt like doing a triceps exercise at the gym. That also meant that making a small adjustment from one standing height to another was tricky, as we had to hold the moving lever open and press hard but then stop just where we needed it.

In our tests, Vivo’s V000HB riser required a bit more pressure and angling to push back down than the Fully Cora. It feels looser and slightly bouncy when flattened on a table, and it moves into fixed notches instead of being infinitely adjustable like the Cora. Its handles, though immune to accidental pressing, also take up space on the desktop.

At this writing, Stand Steady’s X-Elite Pro costs more than any other laptop riser we’ve tested, but it’s hard to figure out why. Its one wire handle sticks out and is too easy to trigger accidentally. It has only eight points of height it can rise to, and when we raised it, pressure on the surface or from front to back caused the desktop to flex between those notches. It is loud when moving, making a screech not unlike the legs of an ironing board. The desktop picks up speed quickly as you lower it, too, and when lowered it never sits completely flat on a fixed-height surface.

The VariDesk Laptop 30 is 30 inches wide and only 10¾ inches deep, about half the depth of the Fully Cora. Because of that limited space, it can hold only a laptop, really, and you can raise the laptop screen only with a stack of same-size books (although books are technically one of our laptop stand picks). This limits the ergonomic usefulness of the unit. Though it offers nine positions instead of fluid movement, it is stable at full height. Its recessed handles are a good idea, too. The Laptop 30’s sloped edges are useful when you’re subtly leaning on your typing surface while either sitting or standing, but you really shouldn’t do that.

VariDesk’s Electric Pro Plus 32 is mostly similar to the manual Pro Plus model we discussed above. You raise and lower it with a button that you hold down in a console located between the top surface and the keyboard tray. This feels awkward in part because the desk moves slowly while you’re holding that button. It’s a stable desk, it can hold dual monitors, it has a lot of room for a keyboard and mouse, and VariDesk’s included accessories, such as a clamp-on mini power strip, are quite useful. But the Electric Pro Plus is a big investment in desk space and money, and we like the Uplift E7 more for its automatic lifting, better looks, and good price.

Vivo’s V000EB raises your keyboard and monitors an inch above a fixed-height table, though the result feels like more. The keyboard tray bounced when we were typing, and although this model was more stable than its manual-lift Vivo sibling at standing height, the whole unit remained susceptible to side-to-side movement. This electric riser is slower than the E7, as well as notably louder, and the button for raising it is off to the side, so you have to look or feel for it every time. It also glows blue all the time, which is handy for working at night but a weird hue to have always on in your home. The cutout on the front of the top desk is awkwardly placed for cable routing and probably not a good way to hold a 60-pound desk.

The Movi Standing Desk workspace is an interesting idea that needs a lot of work. The desktop looks sleek, and the idea of a programmable electric desktop that rises in place without a heavy column or bulky frame is appealing. But in our tests, the rod-turning single motor in the Movi was very, very loud and slow, and the controls were awkward to use, understand, and program. Making a small adjustment to the height involves holding a large but unresponsive button and waiting to see if the display catches up with the motor. We’d be interested to see a future version of this, but for now, it’s more a proof of concept.

Standing desks are complete office desks with either a manual crank or built-in motors that raise and lower the entire desktop. Standing desk converters are like smaller furniture pieces that sit on a desktop. They have a countertop that can raise and lower. 

You should sit and stand for equal periods of time each day, or, at the highest ratio, sit for 15 minutes and stand for 45 minutes every hour. That’s according to researchers from the University of Waterloo who studied lower-back pain in people who both sat and stood at their desks.

If you have a fixed-height desk that you really like and don’t want to part with, or if you work in an office that doesn’t offer standing desks, then yes, standing desk converters are a great way to add some much needed variety to your desk time.

Kevin Purdy is a writer, editor, and repair advocate at iFixit. He previously reviewed products at Wirecutter, including mattresses, standing desks, and bike-commuting gear. He has also written for Lifehacker, Popular Science, Fast Company, and other publications.

Melanie Pinola previously covered all things home office as a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. She has contributed to print and online publications such as The New York Times, Lifehacker, and PCWorld, specializing in tech, productivity, and lifestyle/family topics. She’s thrilled when those topics intersect—and when she gets to write about them in her PJs.

We’ve spent over a thousand hours testing more than 100 pieces of gear that encourage ergonomically healthy posture.

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