Jura ENA 8 vs Gaggia Babila

If you’re battling between the Jura ENA 8 vs Gaggia Babila, this guide is for you. As one of Gaggia’s top espresso machines, the Babila offers superb customization to get your perfect cup of coffee. Whilst in the middle of the Jura range, the ENA 8 retails at around the same price, offering simplicity and ease. So which machine is best?

‘Best’ all comes down to what you’re looking for. As long as you’re happy to fiddle with the settings, the Gaggia Babila is the better espresso machine. It has more flexibility to nail your coffee to your exact preferences. But those looking for great coffee and pure simplicity will prefer the Jura ENA 8.

These are very different machines in terms of style so they’ll suit different types of coffee lovers. Having tested and loved both machines, we put them head-to-head for this in-depth comparison.

Let’s see how they stack up:

The Babila has plus points for being made mostly of stainless steel, having a smaller footprint than the ENA 8 (9.7″x16.5″), and being built in Gaggia’s Treviso factory, where all Gaggia machines are still made.

While the ENA 8 is wider and deeper, it is also 1.8″ shorter than the Babila at 12.7″. This is important if you’ve got cabinets above your countertop as you need access to the bean hopper.

While the ENA 8 is mostly plastic, it is a much more beautiful espresso machine than the Babila. A real feature appliance to have in your kitchen.

The color screen on the ENA 8 is significantly better and easier to use than the basic LCD screen of the Babila. The new ENA 8 models have a full touchscreen which looks fantastic, the older ones have buttons to the side which are easier to use.

Jura also offers a 2-year warranty on the ENA 8 while Gaggia only offers 1 year for the Babila.

Winner

The only drawback to the Jura is the plastic exterior. The ENA 8 is better-looking, offers the same build-quality pedigree, and has a longer warranty than the Babila. An easy win for the Jura.

The Babila has “one touch” buttons for espresso, cappuccino, and latte macchiato whereas you can only make 2 coffees with “one touch” on the ENA 8 (the horror of having to push 2 buttons for coffee.)

All other drinks on both machines require navigating the menu to select. This is easier on the ENA 8 as you have the pictures of each easily displayed. It also takes less “interactions” with the menu to get all the coffees you want.

Nothing is “difficult” on the Babila. It is a standard click-and-scroll menu that you’ll intuitively know how to use. It just feels a little more awkward.

The Jura has the added bonus of being able to connect to your phone with the J.O.E. app, though you have to pay extra for the Smart Connect (Bluetooth) dongle. This allows you to customize and save coffee to your phone.

My little annoyance with the Babila is that the indicator bars for changing the volume don’t have units, so a little guesswork is required.

There are no user profiles on either machine, but the app on the Jura means everyone can save their own drinks to their phone.

Winner

The ENA 8 is easier to use if only because we’re all so used to big colorful screens nowadays, though the app compatibility also helps.. The Babila is also very easy to use so it’s only a narrow win for the Jura.

The updated model of the ENA 8, the touchscreen version, offers 11 specialty coffee options to the Bablia’s 8. The 3 extra are actually extra shot versions of cappuccino, flat white, and latte macchiato. There are also 2 more options to make 2x espresso and 2x coffee on the ENA 8 but we don’t count these as they’re not unique coffees. Even if they are useful for some.

Due to the manual steam wand on the Babila, you can make any coffee you want, but it requires you to learn to foam milk. If you have a favorite espresso drink then you want to make sure your automatic espresso machine makes it.

Drink	Jura ENA 8	Gaggia Babila
Ristretto		✓
Espresso	✓	✓
Doppio	✓
Lungo		✓
Coffee	✓	✓
Cafe Barista	✓
Cortado	✓
Cappuccino	✓ (plus extra shot version)	✓
Flat White	✓ (plus extra shot version)	✓
Latte Macchiato	✓ (plus extra shot version)	✓
Macchiato		✓

With quite a difference in the coffees offered, the machine that makes your favorites will be the right choice.

Both allow you to do the obvious and adjust the volume of both the coffee and the milk being dispensed. They also both offer 3 temperature settings for brewing your coffee.

Though the dose range is similar, 6-10g on the ENA 8 and 6.5-11.5g on the Babila, the Jura gives you 10 strength settings while the Babila only offers 5.

The Babila does offer 3 pre-infusion settings, though one is “no pre-infusion” which isn’t a setting we’d ever use. The ENA 8 doesn’t allow you to change pre-infusion at all and it doesn’t have their fancy “intelligent pre-infusion System” that the more expensive Jura machines such as the Jura E8. (Which we compared to the Gaggia Accademia.)

The Babila also has a very impressive “flow control dial” which allows you to adjust the speed with which the water moves through the coffee puck. Slower for rich and intense espresso and faster for perfectly balanced lungo. This is what allows you to get amazing coffee from the Babila.

The Winner

The Babila has a better set of customization options to fine-tune your coffee. The extra strength settings on the Jura aren’t making a big difference but the pre-infusion and flow control adjustment on the Babila can revolutionize your espresso and lungo quality.

When we used the factory default settings on both machines, the ENA 8 was the clear winner in espresso quality.

Neither of them produced great espresso. Both were too long, a little weak, and a little bitter. But the ENA 8 was noticeably fuller-bodied and punchier.

The Babila really comes into its own when you spend time dialing in your grind, dose, pre-infusion, and flow control settings. It took us maybe 7 or 8 tries to get this right, so be ready, but the result was really delicious coffee.

The ENA 8 also produces delicious coffee by reducing volume, increasing, dose, etc. But we couldn’t get it to the quality level of the Babila.

The Winner

The Babila can brew better-tasting coffee than the ENA 8, but it will take time to achieve this. If you’re really just looking to change a couple of settings and get going, the ENA 8 will be the better choice for you.

Psst… For incredible value for money, the DeLonghi Dinamica Plus is another strong competitor. See how it compares to the ENA 8, here.

We want enjoying coffee to be easy, and ideally we want cleaning up to be even easier.

Both the ENA 8 and the Babila have automated cleaning procedures to minimize the work you need to do. There are some basic tasks like emptying the drip tray and the puck container but other than that the machines mostly look after themselves day to day.

The big difference is in the milk cleaning. The Babila has a nice clip-on milk container that you’ll need to clean at the very least once a week, every few days would be better. This is slightly irritating but not world-ending.

The ENA 8 simply has a rubber hose that you can place into any container for the milk. We find this much easier as we can clean the hose daily and use a dishwasher-safe container for the milk.

Both machines require descaling a couple of times a year using expensive branded descaling products. It annoys us but we accept its probably for the best to just take the hit to keep your expensive machine running at its best.

We liked that the brew unit on the Babila is removable for weekly cleaning. Jura doesn’t have removable brew units, another coffee nerd opened up an old Jura and the unit was perfectly clean to be fair to them. But we like being able to make sure for ourselves. Or maybe you feel its just another thing to clean.

You should also vacuum out the grinder every week, but that’s the same for both machines too.

The Winner

There is slightly less cleaning to be done for the ENA 8 so it takes the win. But some people will prefer the clip on milk container and knowing for sure that the brew unit is clean which would give the edge to the Babila.

This is a tightly run race, but ultimately the Gaggia Babila is the better coffee machine.

While the Jura ENA 8 is easier to use and clean, the Babila can produce better coffee drinks. So it excels where it matters most. Yes, it may take a little more effort with the settings and clean-up, but it’s worth it.

Now if you think more effort absolutely isn’t worth it, then the Jura ENA 8 is the simpler machine. And it will still give you amazing quality coffee.

The ‘best’ machine out of Jura ENA 8 vs Gaggia Babila ultimately comes down to how much effort you want to put in. So which one will take pride of place in your home?

Matt Woodburn-Simmonds

Matt's coffee obsession started in 2006 when working as a Barista. A tendency to turn up to work hungover kickstarted his coffee journey which quickly turned into a love affair. As he moved on to work as a Restaurant Manager and Sommelier, the obsession continued to grow. Now, his passion is helping others to enjoy better coffee at home.