Abstract China has intensified the extension of family-sized biogas digesters with the Chinese National Standard in the 1990s. However, such biogas digesters have not performed well. In order to improve the current National Standard biogas digesters, the authors have designed, tested, and demonstrated 200 improved biogas digesters in a semi-arid region of China over the past 7 years and conducted a comparative study between the improved biogas digesters and traditional ones. Conclusions were drawn from the research that the improved biogas digesters are significantly better than the traditional ones in several aspects, such as less water consumption and more gas productivity.