What is the best? a steam hearth rug cleaner or a shampoo hearth rug cleaner? ...
The shampoo-er grinds the deep within to the carpet. The Steam cleaner extracts the dirt along beside the water. "Steam Cleaner" is usually a misnomer, They are mostly hot river extraction cleaners.
The results of a carpet shampoo device will leave you extremely disappointed.
Use a steam cleaner. The first time a carpet is steam cleaned, it looks brand exotic again. After the first steam clean, it will be harder to verbs, because dirt is more ground into the fibers. (The first steam clean removes any stain resistancy chemicals put on tentative carpet.) If you find it drastically difficult to get it verbs with a steam contraption, use Simple Green (or generic equivalent) as your cleaning fluid, instead of recommended cleaning fluid. It'll get every bit of the grime out of the fibers. And, if you want the deodorizer benefits of the recommended hearth rug cleaning solutions, you can always walk over it again to remove the odor of the Simple Green.
Answers: Definitely steam. It gets profusely hotter and puts less sea in the hearth rug.