I see a lot of posts from people looking for the “best mattress” and, unfortunately, these questions are pretty difficult to answer. Mattresses vary widely in terms of comfort and quality, and what’s good for one person isn't necessarily good for someone else.

However! There are a lot of brands I would recommend that you avoid.

These are brands that make mattresses of unknown or low-quality materials, have a history of poor customer service, or are suspicious in other ways. This doesn't mean that their mattresses are always bad (or that you can't learn to sleep well on them); it just means that purchasing from these brands is generally a riskier proposition.

(I should also point out that the intent of this list isn’t to punish these companies, but instead to highlight problematic practices and work to drive the industry towards improvement. If you work for one of these companies - here are the things to improve on. Also if you think I've made a mistake here - please let me know!)

1. Nectar/DreamCloud. I'd avoid them. I’ve seen more complaints about Nectar and DreamCloud (and their parent company Resident Home) over the last years than any other mattress company. I've seen material substitutions, poor quality and fiberglass, and reports of customer service ghosting customers after purchase. They’ve also been in trouble with the FTC and appear to be involved with spammers all over Reddit.

2. Zinus/Lucid/Linenspa. These are typically the cheapest mattresses on the market and imported from overseas. These are made of unknown materials (and likely bottom of the barrel in terms of quality), and often have fiberglass fire barriers. Most reports of fiberglass contamination on Reddit are from these brands.

3. Ghostbed. Ghostbed has some interesting designs. There aren’t many companies on the market that are using a full sheet of gel in their constructions. That said, they’ve historically been not great with customer service and have some very weird language in their return policy. There have been a lot of posts about this.

4. Puffy. Haven’t heard much about Puffy lately, but they’ve historically been associated with poor quality, poor customer service, and Reddit spam. Still, they’ve recently updated their models, and it’s possible that they’ve improved their business practices as well. I'd put them at a very tentative maybe?

5. Molecule. I've been trying to be fair to Molecule after seeing some potential improvements in their recent lineup, but I've still not seen enough info to really take them off this list. They previously used a 1.5lb poly foam as a base layer in their foam models, which is a fair bit lower than what I usually recommend for support layers. Still, the details on this appear to have been removed from their website, so it's possible that they've fixed this? Not sure. I should also say that I think their hybrids generally look okay. I'd also put them at a maybe.

6. Sleep Number. I actually don’t hate airbeds (more here). These support differently than pocketed coils, but they can be a good option for some people. They also have a lot of potential for people with chronic pain or people that want an adjustable sleep surface. I think there's room for an airbed company to succeed in the market. I'm not sure if that's Sleep Number. Their higher-end models are probably okay, but their lower-end ones are pretty under-spec'd and over-priced. Still, I’d like to see them turn it around.

7. Cheap Major Brands. I would avoid the “value” options from Serta, Sealy, and Beautyrest. These tend to use low quality foams and low coil-count units and are likely to quickly lose loft and support. If you do purchase from one of these companies, I'd advise you to start in their mid-range and go up from there.

8. Brands associated w/ Online Spam. Finally, I’m going to make a broader point about being careful with brands associated with spam and covert advertising on Reddit. These are brands that use fake accounts and bots to artificially increase mentions and manipulate SEO to sell junk to consumers. I think this is wrong. I actually think these practices harm people. There’s a right way to do online advertising, and that’s to be forthright and honest about it. You should be suspicious of random accounts popping up out of nowhere to leave glowing reviews on products in threads all over Reddit. These are everywhere.

And finally, talking about these things invariably brings up the question: well what should I buy?

This is a bit difficult, but I can simplify it somewhat. You should look for brands that are upfront and honest with their material specifications (including foam densities, coil counts, and coil gauges) AND have a history of solid customer service. These are often smaller brands or local stores. That’s it. And again, you should generally be suspicious of online reviews and highly upvoted threads, which can be easily manipulated by dishonest people and/or outright bots.

I'm looking at Consumer Reports, and they've rated the Avocado Green mattress as the best mattress for side sleeping. Okay - but then I looked up the Original Purple mattress I'm currently on (and returning because it's too firm), and CR has rated it as a 3/10 in firmness. How does that make sense? Purple's own website rates their original mattress as quite firm - the most firm vs their newer options... Anyone have experience with both of these mattresses?

Hello! Does any one have the most recent consumer reports for the 2021 mattresses?

Also feel free to give me any pocket coil mattress side/back sleeper recommendations. ☺

Based on what I've read, they test it for durability, firmness, support for back and side sleeping, and take into consideration reviews from 74,000 buyers in the last 10 years.

Their top rated mattresses are:

1. Avocado Green

2. Casper Original Hybrid

3. SleepFresh Hybrid

4. Ethan Allan EA Signature Platinum Plush

Why can’t it be simple? It’s too fucking much.

I just spent 6 hours flustered trying to make a decision on a mattress. Every mattress is amazing. Every mattress ruined people's lives. All the reviews are fake. Hyper saturated. Good honest feedback is mixed in with fake influencer and affiliate fake comments about how good they are.

Screw it, I'm sleeping on the ground.

I spent weeks reading reviews online, watching videos, and scrounging this sub. I learned all about materials, construction, the effects of various material combinations, what I should get for my size and sleep style...it was extremely overwhelming and full of contradictions. The one absolute truth I discovered is that internet reviews for mattresses are completely worthless.

Every day, I came here to look up a mattress I had just read about only to find 50% of the posters saying 'this helix' or 'that saatva,' etc. was the worst thing to ever happen to them. I cant tell if this sub is full of fake reviews (both positive and negative) or if everyone here is prone to a ridiculous amount of hyperbole. Either way, I hate to say it, but this sub proved to be the opposite of helpful.

I decided to just drive to 3 stores and lay on every mattress they had, get a good understanding of their compositional differences vs actual feel, and compare and contrast them repeatedly and in all kinds of positions -- I'm sure I annoyed the hell out of the staff, but I appreciate that they all just let me do my thing haha. What I discovered is that the vast majority of hybrid mattresses were all perfectly fine and comfortable so long as you got the appropriate firmness right (understand that many of these mattresses were between $1500 and $3000). There was no great revelation beyond how high the average/baseline level of comfort was for all of these mattresses. This sub made it sound like I'd be jumping from hot to cold water, and that certain brands/models would be like laying on a bed of nails! People in here dumping on helix or nectar or beautyrest or purple as 'the worst thing in existence' (mattress-wise, not service-wise), are either completely f.o.s., grossly misunderstood what they bought, or would seriously give the princess and her pea a run for their money. The point is, its no where near as dire as many online reviews would lead you to believe. Ok, that's the end of the rant portion.

The only mattresses I found that were noticeably subpar were the latex hybrid Avacado mattresses (these are shockingly cheap feeling for the price, including their flagship), the all-latex Sleepys, and to some extent the Saatva classic (which ironically is what I now have). The Avacado, the Sleepys, and somewhat the Saatva, all felt like giant, stuctureless, springboards. What stood out the most to me was when a mattress (across the price range) had a more substantial top layer of foam or latex (like multiple inches/layers/compositions) that really helped to isolate you from the springs and make you feel more soundly held/supported by the mattress while the springs did the invisible dirty work. Im a side and stomach sleeper (nightmare scenario), so hybrid mattresses with a combination of firm and plush top materials, paired with a lumbar support coil network, were hitting all the right spots. the Avacado, Sleepys, and Saatva all have noticeably smaller or lesser quality comfort/top layers than most things I looked at, which I think is a very easy thing to look out for/avoid if you are buying online.

The moral of my story is to get off this sub. Understand that all the positive and negative "professional" reviews are so subjective or 'influenced' that they're almost pointless, and just go to a store and see for yourself. It costs nothing, they're prepared for you to lay on everything, and you'll learn more in that short visit than weeks of scrolling. Also, after a certain price point, with a certain level of attention to the comfort layer, you're not risking nearly as much as you may be led to believe.

Adding my "overwhelmed with choice" post to the mix here, hoping for some added insight to sort through these. Every time I think I've narrowed it down, I find something new that sounds intriguing. We're looking for a king bed, both sleepers in the 170-200 range, side/stomach primarily, sleep slightly warm. It's time to replace our 12-year-old mattress that was a "firm with pillowtop" innerspring Mattress Firm mid-tier option at the time. With Presidents' Day sales going on now, it's time to make a decision! We know we like hybrid mattresses best from what we've tried, and seem to be pretty solidly in the medium firm (our younger selves liked soft but now we've hated all the 'soft' ones we've tried in store. True firms are still too hard though). One of us doesn't like pillowtops anymore, the other is indifferent. Luckily we both have mostly liked the same things. Things we have tried in store and ruled out include Casper Wave Hybrid (really liked this, but been swayed away by negative feedback on Caspers plus a relatively higher price); Purple 3 (one of us would buy this in a heartbeat, but the other was very skeptical about the comfort of the grid layer and the premium price wasn't worth it for anything less than a really guarantee); iComfort 2000 series at Mattress Firm (again, being pulled away from S-brands, but this was the one we liked best at the MF store). We also strongly disliked the Nectar Hybrid we tried and find Tempurpedics a little too enveloping.

I had sort of settled on a top three, in no particular order, of Winkbed in luxury firm, Leesa Sapira Hybrid (can you tell I read Wirecutter?), and Nest Signature Hybrid. But in trying to narrow these down, I instead added Amerisleep AS3 (hybrid) and Nolah Evolution 15 as possibilities! We're looking right around that $2K-or-a-bit-less price, we prefer a mattress that will last for a while with an easy exchange policy (i.e., friendly and painless, not NECESSARILY concerned with it being a long trial), and we don't necessarily need to AVOID fiberglass but we'd certainly prefer something with at least a very low chance of the fiberglass escaping!

We will also need a new bed to go with it; our current one has broken slats and they're spaced pretty far apart anyway. Not necessarily married to buying a platform from the same place, and presume they're pretty much all the same anyway (and we're debating doing the basic Sam's club adjustable anyway). But if there are two on my list that are pretty close to #1 choice AND they have a reasonably-priced platform or adjustable to buy, that might serve as a tiebreaker. Bonus points if there's an option for mattress removal and mega bonus points if they'll take the old bed, too, but I'm pretty sure that's not an option unless I go with a local dealer place that would have a white glove option, and we're tired of going to the stores at this point and don't want to risk adding MORE options anyway!

5/24/25 - Thank you for an amazing AMA and thank you to everyone who asked a question. I hope this thread was able to help! I will continue to answer any questions that come in until the thread archives. If you need a personalized mattress recommendation be sure to use my mattress quiz here - https://naplab.com/mattress-quiz/ (I manually respond to all of these requests, it's not an automated form). For all other questions please feel free to DM, chat, or email me here - https://naplab.com/contact/ - And for all else, check out my site at https://naplab.com/ - there you can find all of my reviews, comparisons, best of lists, shopping / research guides, and a whole lot more.

Hi Reddit!

My name is Derek Hales. I am a professional mattress tester and I’ve been testing mattresses since 2014. Over the years, I’ve tested 453 mattresses (and counting) from 99 different brands. 

4 years ago I launched NapLab.com and developed a new way to test mattresses. Instead of merely sleeping on a mattress and then writing a subjective assessment, I use a battery of 10 objective and data-driven tests (with 43 individual data points) to help quantify the performance criteria that are important for most sleepers.

My testing process includes:

• Thermal photographs to assess cooling performance / heat retention

• Accelerometer data to measure the intensity and duration of motion transfer across the mattress

• Sex performance testing using a weighted equation including 5 factors (bounce, edge support, noise, pressure relief, and cooling)

• High FPS video / high resolution photo analysis to take precise & objective measurements for sinkage, material responsiveness, edge support, and bounce

• In addition to other data-driven tests. You can see the full testing process here - https://naplab.com/how-we-test-mattresses/

I’ve spent the majority of my adult life working to create videos, photographs, data, comparisons, guides, and reviews that can help people find a mattress that is perfectly suited to their needs.

Happy to answer any questions about mattresses, sleep, NapLab, the sleep / mattress industry, or anything else on your mind 🙂

Proof - https://imgur.com/a/lxfJMSR

PS - if you need help choosing a mattress check out my mattress quiz - https://naplab.com/mattress-quiz/ - I provide personalized mattress recommendations based on your needs, preferences, and budget. FYI, the quiz isn’t automated, I manually review all submissions so it does take me a little time to answer, but I can usually respond within 24 hours.

I am looking into buying a new mattress and I saw that Consumer Reports has a pretty recent review on the best mattresses of 2019. I am not a member and was wondering if anyone had that review and could share it with me.

Does anyone subscribe to them? I subscribed mostly for car reviews, but am now checking out mattresses too.

They are behind a pay wall so no way to share links really but any kind of feedback would be cool. Thanks!

I recently moved to a new place with my partner and we’re doing some Mattress browsing before deciding on which brand and stile to buy. Were looking to buy during veterans day (me being a veteran) i hope there are good deals available and it gives us enough time to test out mattresses in store (sit n sleep, mattress firm, ortho mattress, temper-pedic store)

The run down about me and my partner

We are both side sleepers but I move around lot at night, I sweat, I face down , I lay sideways, I lay facing up, I remove my pillow and lay flat on the bed, ill use my pillow and fold it at times to get more layering and try and get more comfort, I sleep crazy and in some rare instances I turn the opposite way and the back over and I’ll have trouble falling asleep. I currently have a casper hybrid but I bought that one on a whim years ago. I don’t like it very much .

I read through many threads on this subreddit about different brands And all were within my budget of 1800-3200$ for a queen.

Below are ones I tried

-Avocado -serta I series hybrid 1000 -tempur pedic adapt 11” hybrid and 12” adapt pro -lansdowne II ortho -continental II ortho hybrid collection

I want a tempure pedic But After reading many reviews on here

There was distrust and issues from their customer service being god awful, them trying to get out of exchange policies, and delivery damage claims, and even how they started cheating out on material to maximize profits and it isnt the same tempur pedic they were 7-15 years ago Some people said they still have theirs from that year range and works amazing -like new. But now they are terrible, sink in quick, foam deteriorates fast, and too stiff.

I want to stay away from purple and nectar as they are both owned by the same company and the reviews were also terrible.

Below are what other people in other threads recommended

-costco tempur pedic hybrid supreme 11.5” medium -costco sleep science -T&M mint hybrid -birch by helix -Bear Elite hybrid -nolah mattress -DLX premier hybrid mattress

Now all these listed in this post are what people recommended that they use and have tried

Many also said they sagged pretty quick and others said it was terrible that they returned it.

What do people here recommend? What do you use? And what issues (if any) came up? How was warranty claims and trial periods like for the mattress you bought?