We organize the water treatment industry — with receipts.
WaterFilterIndex exists so you can get from “something’s wrong with my water” to the right fix without trusting a single unverified claim along the way — including ours.
Why this site exists
WaterFilterIndex started with an ordinary search that went badly: which water filter actually does what it says? Ten review sites gave the same five products in the same order. Health claims came with no sources. “NSF-tested” badges turned out to be legally meaningless. And not one page began by asking the only question that matters — what’s actually in your water?
Digging deeper revealed the industry’s open secret: the certification databases run by NSF, WQA, and IAPMO are public. Anyone can look up exactly which claims a filter is certified for. Almost nobody does — including most of the sites reviewing them. Meanwhile, heavily marketed capabilities go uncertified, and important limitations go unmentioned. The information was never hidden. It was just unassembled.
This site is the reference we couldn’t find that day: organized by symptom, contaminant, and test result — not by product list — with every claim written so a stranger can check it, and every limitation printed in the same size type as the praise.
What we’re building
Three commitments define every page we publish — and each one is checkable, not decorative.
Diagnosis before recommendation
No commercial page before a diagnostic step. We’d rather you take a free test than buy the wrong system — and when the honest answer is “you don’t need a filter,” we publish that, with nothing to sell attached.
A verifiable index of the whole market
Contaminants A–Z, certifications receipted to official databases, true 10-year ownership costs, and 23 tools that turn your numbers into defensible answers.
Trust you can audit
Public methodology, labeled evidence types, disclosed earnings, and a public corrections log. We don’t ask for your trust — we leave a paper trail for it.
Meet the team
Real people, real profiles, defined beats. Every byline on this site belongs to someone on this page.
Tista Sarker
Founder & Lead Researcher · Builder of the certification-receipt method
Tista started WaterFilterIndex after discovering that the industry’s certification databases were public — and that almost nobody, including the sites reviewing filters, ever checked them. She built the site around one idea: every claim carries a receipt, every limit gets equal billing, and diagnosis always comes before recommendation.
Mike Lim
Systems & Reviews Writer · Certification Verification
Mike runs the product side of the Index — reviews, head-to-heads, and the certification checks behind every claim they make. If a review says “certified,” Mike is why that word links to an official database listing.
Bernmina Tarnate
Contaminants & Water Quality Writer · Testing & Diagnosis
Bernmina writes the diagnosis side of the Index — the contaminant A–Z, testing walkthroughs, and symptom pages that come before any product does. Her pages are the ones with nothing to sell.
Don’t trust us — audit us
Review sites ask you to believe them. We built this one so you don’t have to.
Every claim has a receipt
Certification statements link to the official NSF, WQA, or IAPMO listing. Health thresholds cite EPA, CDC, or WHO documents. If we can’t source it, we don’t say it.
Limits get equal billing
Every product page includes “what it does not remove” and “who should not buy this.” A recommendation you can’t falsify isn’t a recommendation — it’s an ad.
Corrections are public
Errors get fixed, logged, and credited in a public corrections register. Finding one is a favor, and we treat it that way.
Some reviews on this site are based on hands-on use, and some are research-based — built from certification records, manufacturer engineering data, and verified owner reports. Every review states which it is, at the top. We will never publish a staged “lab test” or imply testing that didn’t happen.
Memberships & standards we work within
We participate in the industry’s professional bodies — and in the spirit of this site, you shouldn’t take our word for it: both organizations keep public member directories.
Water Quality Association
We’re proudly an active member of the Water Quality Association — the trade body behind the WQA Gold Seal certification program and the industry’s professional code of ethics, which we’ve committed to as a condition of membership. Membership keeps our research aligned with current treatment standards (NSF/ANSI) and gives us direct access to the technical resources behind them.
Verify in the WQA member directory →
American Water Works Association
AWWA is the standards body of the drinking-water sector — the people who literally write the book on water quality that utilities operate by. Our city-water guides, CCR walkthroughs, and distribution-system explainers are researched against AWWA standards and publications.
About AWWA standards →How this site makes money
WaterFilterIndex earns commissions when you buy through some links on this site — including Amazon Associates and direct manufacturer programs. That’s the honest economics of a free reference site, so we handle it in the open.
What the money never touches: rankings are set by our public methodology, never by payout. Diagnosis pages and troubleshooting fixes carry no product links at all. And every commercial page discloses its affiliate relationships above the first link — not in the footer’s fine print. The full breakdown lives on the How We Make Money page.
Talk to us
Questions about your water, corrections, or press — everything sent here gets read.
[email protected]
5000 Atlantic Dr, Cheyenne, WY 82001