The present work studies the performance of linear and nonlinear dynamic vibration absorbers mounted on Euler–Bernoulli beams subjected to moving loads. Absorbers used in this work consist of one mass, two springs and one linear damper.The springs may be considered either linear or non-linear. The objective is to compare the performance of these absorbers with classical dynamic and nonlinear absorbers. The partial differential equations governing the problem are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations by means of Galerkin–Bubnov method. The performance of the dynamic absorbers in reduction of the beams’ vibration is estimated through the maximum amplitude of vibration and the portion of energy dissipated by the dynamic damper. Finally, after optimizations, the effectiveness of the dynamic absorbers is determined for different conditions and applications.