This guide is for anyone who wants to compost indoors but feels overwhelmed by the options.
You're producing kitchen scraps every day. Tossing them in the trash feels wasteful. But you live in an apartment, or your outdoor space is limited, or you simply want to keep your composting close to the kitchen where it's convenient.
Two popular methods stand out for indoor composting: worm composting (also called vermicomposting) and bokashi composting. Both work indoors. Both handle kitchen waste. But they work in completely different ways.
Worm composting uses living creatures to break down your food scraps into rich, earthy compost. Bokashi composting uses fermentation to pickle your waste before it goes into the garden or traditional compost.
Each method has distinct advantages and limitations. Your choice depends on what you're composting, how much space you have, and what you want the end result to be.
This guide will walk you through both methods step by step. You'll learn what each system can and cannot handle, how much maintenance they require, what the finished product looks like, and which method might fit your lifestyle best.
By the end, you'll have the clarity you need to start composting with confidence.
What is Worm Composting (Vermicomposting)?
Worm composting relies on special composting worms-usually red wigglers-to eat your kitchen scraps and turn them into nutrient-rich castings.
These worms live in a bin filled with bedding like shredded newspaper or coconut coir. You feed them vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and other organic matter. They consume it, digest it, and excrete it as worm castings, which are one of the best natural fertilizers available.
The process is aerobic, meaning it needs oxygen. The worms need air circulation and moisture, but not too much water. A healthy worm bin smells like fresh earth-not rotting food.
Worm composting works continuously. Once your bin is established, the worms reproduce and maintain their population. You harvest finished castings every few months and use them to enrich your garden soil or potted plants.
This method is quiet, compact, and surprisingly clean when managed properly. Many people keep worm bins under the kitchen sink, in a closet, or on a balcony.
The main requirement is maintaining proper moisture and temperature. Worms thrive between 55-77°F. Too hot or too cold, and they become stressed or die.
What is Bokashi Composting?
Bokashi composting is a fermentation process that pickles your food waste instead of decomposing it.
You collect kitchen scraps in an airtight bucket and sprinkle each layer with bokashi bran-a mixture of wheat bran or sawdust inoculated with beneficial microorganisms. These microbes ferment the food waste anaerobically (without oxygen).
The bucket stays sealed between additions. After about two weeks, the contents are fully fermented but not fully broken down. The material looks similar to how it went in, but it's softer and has a sweet-sour, pickle-like smell.
At this stage, you need to do something with the fermented waste. Most people bury it in the garden, where it finishes breaking down in the soil within a few weeks. Others add it to an outdoor compost pile or a separate composting system.
Bokashi also produces a liquid byproduct called bokashi tea. You drain this liquid from the bucket every few days. Diluted with water, it makes an excellent liquid fertilizer.
The major advantage of bokashi is that it accepts almost any food waste-including meat, dairy, and cooked foods that worm bins cannot handle.
The downside is that bokashi doesn't create finished compost on its own. It's a pre-processing step that still requires a final destination for the fermented material.
Head-to-Head Comparison: Worms vs. Bokashi
Now that you understand the basics of each method, let's compare them directly across the factors that matter most to beginners.
These comparisons will help you see which system aligns with your kitchen habits, living situation, and composting goals.
Factor 1: What Foods Can They Handle?
Worm bins are selective eaters. Composting worms thrive on vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, crushed eggshells, and shredded paper.
They cannot handle meat, dairy, oils, or anything too acidic in large quantities. Onions, garlic, and citrus should be limited because they can irritate the worms.
Cooked foods, grains, and bread can work in small amounts, but they may attract pests or create moisture problems if you add too much.
Bokashi bins, by contrast, accept almost everything. Meat, fish, cheese, cooked leftovers, citrus, onions-all of it can go in. The anaerobic fermentation process preserves the material rather than decomposing it, so odor and pests aren't the same concern.
If your household produces a lot of meat scraps or cooked food waste, bokashi offers greater flexibility. If you primarily generate vegetable trimmings and fruit peels, worm composting handles that beautifully.
Factor 2: Smell, Speed, and Maintenance
A properly maintained worm bin should smell earthy and pleasant. If it starts to smell bad, it usually means you're overfeeding, adding the wrong foods, or the bin is too wet.
Worm composting is relatively slow. It can take three to six months to produce your first harvest of finished castings, depending on the size of your bin and worm population.
Maintenance involves feeding the worms once or twice a week, checking moisture levels, and occasionally fluffing the bedding to maintain airflow. It's a gentle, ongoing relationship with living creatures.
Bokashi bins are faster in one sense-the fermentation process completes in about two weeks. But the material isn't finished compost yet. You still need to bury it or compost it further, which adds another few weeks before it's usable.
Bokashi buckets have a mild pickle smell when you open them. It's not offensive, but it's noticeable. If you keep the lid sealed and drain the liquid regularly, there's minimal odor.
Maintenance is simpler with bokashi: add scraps, sprinkle bran, close the lid, drain liquid every few days. No living creatures to monitor. No moisture balancing. Just layer and seal.
Factor 3: The Final Product and How to Use It
Worm castings are finished compost. They look like dark, crumbly soil and can be used immediately in your garden or houseplants. You can mix them into potting soil, top-dress your plants, or brew them into compost tea.
Castings are rich in beneficial microbes, nutrients, and humus. They improve soil structure, water retention, and plant health. They're a true end product-nothing more needs to happen.
Bokashi ferment is not finished compost. It's acidic, and the food pieces are still recognizable. You cannot apply it directly to plant roots without harming them.
Instead, you bury the fermented material in the garden, where soil organisms finish breaking it down. If you have garden beds or access to outdoor space, this works perfectly. The material converts to rich soil in two to four weeks.
If you don't have a garden, bokashi becomes more complicated. You'll need to find another place to process the ferment-an outdoor compost pile, a community garden, or a large container of soil.
Bokashi tea is a bonus. This nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer is useful for watering plants, but it must be diluted first-typically one tablespoon per gallon of water.
Factor 4: Initial Cost and Ongoing Effort
Worm composting requires a bin and worms. Bins range from simple DIY setups to commercial stackable systems. Worms cost around $30-$40 for a starter population of red wigglers.
Ongoing costs are minimal. You might replenish bedding materials occasionally, but kitchen scraps and newspaper are usually free. Once established, the worms reproduce, so you don't need to buy more.
Bokashi requires a bucket with a spigot and bokashi bran. Buckets are typically $40-$80 for a starter kit. The bran costs around $15-$25 per bag, and you'll need to replenish it every few months depending on how much you compost.
Some people make their own bokashi bran to reduce costs, but that adds another step.
In terms of ongoing effort, bokashi is less hands-on. No living creatures to worry about. No moisture or temperature concerns. Just add, sprinkle, seal.
Worm composting requires more attentiveness. You're caring for a living ecosystem. But many people find this rewarding rather than burdensome.
The Verdict: Which Composting Method is Best for Your Lifestyle?
Choose worm composting if you primarily generate vegetable scraps and want finished compost you can use immediately. It's ideal if you enjoy tending living systems and have a stable indoor temperature. Worm bins work beautifully for apartment dwellers with houseplants or small balcony gardens.
Choose bokashi if you produce meat, dairy, or cooked food waste and have access to outdoor space for burying the ferment. It's simpler to maintain, accepts more food types, and works faster-but it requires a second step to finish the compost.
Some homesteaders use both methods together. They put vegetable scraps in the worm bin and everything else in the bokashi bucket. This maximizes waste diversion and gives you both castings and fermented material for the garden.
There's no wrong choice here. Both methods keep kitchen waste out of landfills and create valuable nutrients for your plants.
Start with the system that matches your current situation. You can always add the other method later as your composting confidence grows.
The important thing is to start somewhere. Your first batch of homemade compost-whether from worms or bokashi-will feel like pure magic.