Abstract Vibration measurement is essential for the study and testing of vibrating members, condition monitoring of industrial machines and control of vibration. Accelerometers are preferred for vibration measurement because it is compact size and the other two parameters velocity and displacement can be obtained by method of integration. Conventionally piezoelectric accelerometers are used for vibration measurements. Presently new generation of MEMS accelerometers are available in the market with numerous advantages like miniature in size, low cost, wireless transmission of signals. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the MEMS based accelerometers and to guide the user to select a proper MEMS accelerometer for vibration measurement. The performance and suitability for vibration measurement of three MEMS based accelerometers, two commercially available and one MEMS Accelerometer present in a smart phone are compared with a conventional piezoelectric accelerometer taken as reference.