The Absolute Best Diet Soda You'll Find On The Shelves

For those days when you want a sweet, caffeinated kick without all the calories, a diet or zero sugar soda is a reliable choice. There are hundreds of options on the shelves, so there's no shortage of choice to suit your craving. Whether you want something of the lemon-lime variety or a deeper, more caramel-y flavor, the extensive diet soda aisle of a grocery store will likely suffice. 

While this wide variety of choices is welcome, it can also be overwhelming at other times too. To help us all get an idea of which diet sodas are actually worth a purchase, Chowhound's own Robyn Blocker ranked 15 popular diet sodas to narrow down the pool. 

While Blocker admired the crisp, lemon flavors of Diet Coke and the refreshing zing of a Sprite Zero, ultimately, both of these sodas lost out to her winning choice of Diet Dr. Pepper. Accordding to Blocker, this beverage stood out, thanks to its especially balanced flavor. Whether you're in the mood for a diet soda with a bold kick or more subtle profile, this drink surprisingly packs both. The smell of the drink is of an effervescent cherry, but the taste is a much lighter take on the classic flavors of a regular Dr. Pepper. While Blocker was a fan of plenty of other options, too, Diet Dr. Pepper lent the most pleasant flavor overall, and it was the most well-rounded pick for any occasion. 

To further understand this ranking, let's dig deeper into Robyn Blocker's analysis to see how Diet Dr. Pepper stood apart. Blocker's mission with taste-testing these drinks was mainly to compare the flavors of each one — all of which hovered around the same price point — to help her discover which option was truly the best. For Blocker, options like Diet Mountain Dew, A&W Root Beer Zero, and Canada Dry Zero Ginger Ale did not have lasting flavor, all lending more of an essence of taste than actual sweetness. Opposite issues arose with choices like the Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar, which was too much of a flavor bomb and overwhelmed her tastebuds. The noticeable artificial taste of drinks like Cherry Coke Zero Sugar and Sunkist Zero Sugar made both of these options also appear lower on Blocker's list, as did the prominence of apple cider vinegar in the Poppi Strawberry Lemon Prebiotic Soda. 

Other diet options like Coke Zero and Pepsi Zero were good, with Blocker pointing out the latter's distinct "lemon toffee caramel" flavor, but they were not as alluring to her as other flavors. Other options like the Olipop Strawberry Vanilla soda were just too pricey comparatively, with a can typically priced at around $2.38. The widely-beloved Diet Coke was in second place for this ranking, and in third Fresca, both of which Blocker admitted to really liking. Still, to her, Diet Dr. Pepper still reigns as the king of all diet soda.