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What mattress would you recommend?
Desperately need a new mattress and there are just so many options, and so many unspoken sponsored recommendations everywhere (reddit, especially).
Anyone purchased one recently (last five years or so)? The last thread we had on this was two years ago, and there were very few actual recommendations in there.
You must do research on the mattress underground. Hearing what other people liked is useless unless they happen to have the same body type and the same preferences as you. Latex (my preference), foam, and spring are all different with their own lists of pros and cons.
https://mattressunderground.com/
The only thing is to not get cheap foam . Foam isn't my preference, but it's fine - as long as it's quality stuff. Cheap foam overheats almost instantly and is terrible to have sex on (because it dampens all motion).
I appreciate your comment, but I ended up going with expensive latex based on this and I thoroughly regret it. I got it during COVID so physically going and trying it out was not an option, but I'd definitely suggest doing that first. We're looking at replacing it soon because it's been so unpleasant even though we spent a lot on the mattress. Not saying all latex is bad (we might have overpaid for bad latex or just not like it) but I definitely recommend trying it out first.
Honestly, mattress shopping seems like a total crap shoot. There are some threads on here about building your own which seems promising but time consuming. When I was searching I decided that the most important part of any mattress purchase is the return policy.
Anecdotally, my wife and I bought the purple mattress from Costco due to their really good return policy. Turns out we like the bed fairly well and have not needed to return it so far.
I was the one that asked for recommendations two years ago, and I ended up going with the Casper Original Hybrid.
It's great. I prefer a softer mattress but not one that's unsupportive, and this hits both of those aspects nicely. Probably the best thing I can say about the mattress is that it's "invisible" to my body. I don't "notice" anything about the mattress on a nightly basis, but, every time I sleep on a different bed, that mattress is very "visible" and makes me wish I was on mine instead.
My husband also has a firmer Casper mattress (yes, we sleep in separate rooms; no, it's not because we're fighting -- we're just very different sleepers and it's better this way) and he also loves it. So, at the very least (n=2), my good mattress from them wasn't just a fluke.
A lot of people will tell you to try out mattresses in stores, but that has never worked for me because the feeling of lying on it in the store doesn't match the experience of actually sleeping on it. Ever lie down on a comfortable couch? Feels good to relax on, but it would be terrible to sleep on. Trying out beds in person is like that for me.
Also, getting a "bed in a box" where they ship you a vacuum sealed mattress is the new convenient option, and many of those you can't try out as they aren't sold in physical storefronts. As such, when I was looking for mattresses, I looked up reviews for companies that discussed their experiences with actual mattress returns.
Most companies will offer some sort of "100 Night Guarantee" or whatnot, but they know that swapping out mattresses is a huge pain and most people are unlikely to do it. Also, based on reviews, it seems like some companies make that process intentionally difficult (they can't resell used mattresses after all). So, it seems like they set the returns up in an unfavorable way that tries to push any customer wanting to do it to fold rather than follow it through. This means you'll either have to spend a lot of time and effort fighting opaque bureaucratic nonsense to get your return accepted, or you'll be stuck with a bunk mattress even if it's uncomfortable for you. Both of these options suck.
Part of the reason I chose Casper was that, at the time, I found reviews of people online who were able to return theirs pretty painlessly. I didn't end up having to do that because I liked mine, but if I didn't, I wouldn't want to have to just put up with it for years. Now, this was two years ago, so I have no idea what the process is like now, and if there's one thing I feel when it comes to brands, it's that, invariably, they will get worse over time.
So, while my endorsement is Casper, I recommend looking for current reviews, and I recommend prioritizing information about mattress returns specifically. It's only after a week or two of sleeping on a given mattress that you can really know whether or not it works for you, so having a valid "out" if it doesn't is, in my mind, the best thing you can look for in a mattress.
I’ve had good luck out of my Tuft and Needle mattresses. I bought my first when they were still relatively small back in 2015 and a second in 2020, at which point I think they’d been bought up by a bigger company. They’re made with foams and are not traditional mattresses which doesn’t work for everybody though, so YMMV. A big part of the purchase decision came down to how they ship the matteresses vacuum-packed in a small box, which makes getting them in a lot less of a pain than is possible with a traditional mattress.
The tough thing about mattresses is that they’re not the sort of thing that’s easily shopped for. Even if the companies offer 90-night guarantees and such, changing them out is such a chore that I think most people just find one that works well enough and stop there instead of continuing their search to find the one that fits them perfectly or is the highest quality or whatever.
This one I find a bit baffling, I'm not sure anyone can recommend anyone else a mattress.
One person is going to love a mattress and the next guy is going to hate it.
The only way, and I mean the only way, you can find a mattress you like is trying it. And that means either you have a good idea what you like, so you can probably buy one online and be reasonably sure it'll be OK. That way if you don't like it, there's a good chance you can return that one and the next one you get will be OK.
But really nothing beats just going around a dozen mattress stores and trying them all, taking note of the ones you like. You'll very quickly narrow down a subset (hopefully) and you can choose from there.
This is perhaps extreme, but I think the best way to find the perfect mattress for you is to build your own. You can buy foam slabs from a number of websites and stack them on top of each other. If you want something more soft, you can return your top comfort layer for something more plush. If you need more support, and a couple inches of more firm latex in the middle. I would look into DIY mattress on Reddit and mattress underground to get an idea of where to start. Typically people begin with 3 in base layer, 3 in transition layer, and a top 2-3 inch comfort layer.
Places I've bought foam from (sorry, US centric):
https://www.foambymail.com (this place has a guide for building your first DIY mattress)
https://latexmattressfactory.com
https://www.mattresses.net
My wife calls me the princess and the pea. I’m typing this uncomfortably on my parents’ Sleep Number guest bed, after two night of my in-laws super cheap generic guest bed. I’m ready to be home.
We bought the Novaform ComfortGrande from Costco twice. Not sure if you have that option or not. It was $100 cheaper in store, so we got a membership for $60 and tried Costco for a year, even though it was like 45 minutes away. But then they built one closer to us, and we kept our membership another 2 years.
We moved before the last year was up (over 2 hours to nearest Costco now), and decided we’d switch to a King from a Queen, so I got the King version when it was on even cheaper sale (April 21, 2024 for $480) and kept it boxed in the garage til summer when we moved. After the move, we got this topper and these deep pocket sheets off Amazon.
I have the same mattress and I am not happy with it. It was incredibly comfortable for the first week or two, and ever since the foam has been more squishy than supportive. It was only like $400 so that's the only positive in my eyes.
This mattress is our guest bed now that we went diy
My wife liked it as is, but I slapped a topper on immediately. I’ve never been happy with any mattress without a topper - probably my parents’ fault for putting an old style egg crate on my first twin bed, lol.
We’ve been using a Brooklyn Bedding Aurora for the last few years, I’d gotten the Queen version out of college and then got the King sized version after it was clear the Queen was too small for the both of us living together long term.
The Queen was a medium firmness and the King is a firm. I don’t love super firm mattresses but the firm on this mattress is really more like a medium so it’s been great for me. Whatever “cooling” tech is in it seems to work well enough since I’ve never woken up overheated like I have on a cheap memory foam mattresses from Costco.
Ultimately mattress shopping is kind of terrible because everyone has different preferences and everything online has been astroturfed to hell. I eventually gave up and just went with what sounded the best from Brooklyn Bedding because I read they actually do their own manufacturing instead of just reselling like other bed in a box sellers. But who knows if that’s true or just more astroturfed marketing. Wirecutter seems to have added this mattress to their recommendations so that might be a decent place to look at.
If you’re not in a place to go around trying mattresses at a physical store I’d just order what sounds best and has a good return/trial policy and actually use it if you’re not happy.
My SO and I recently went shopping for a mattress because we moved into our first apartment together during the holidays. It took us a while to find a mattress we both really liked because a lot of the mattresses I found comfortable were uncomfortable for him and visa versa. Probably the best example of this was that I really liked mattresses from Avocado, whereas he really liked mattresses from Purple. We didn't end up getting a mattress from either because he couldn't stand Avocado and I couldn't stand Purple. The moral of the story being: what is comfortable for me might feel horrible for you.
If for some reason, you can't go to a mattress store, or it would be really inconvenient for you, Mattressfirm has an online mattress matcher that recommended me the mattress I ended up getting after weeks of deliberation. I tried it before I really started, screenshot the result, and forgot about it. Then realized after I bought my mattress that I bought one of the recommendations and laughed. So if a physical store isn't an option, I'd recommend you give that a try. Otherwise, I would echo the suggestion to just try out different mattresses in stores. If you do that, I have three pieces of advice:
Whatever you do, don't just hop on the bed for 2 minutes and make a decision, because I did that with my last bed and ended up hating it. One salesman told me early on in my search that people would come in and take 30-60 minute naps to figure out if they liked the mattress or not. It kind of blew my mind because my brain still thinks of a mattress store as a store, not somewhere you take a nap. My point being, don't be afraid to do what you need to do in order to find the best mattress for yourself.
Don't put much stock in those "find your match" type devices that scan your back in the store. They aren't in every mattress store, but the ones that have them really try to sell you on how "scientific" and amazing they are. Tried it twice and it recommended me extremely firm mattresses I already knew I would hate. Perhaps if you already knew you wanted a firm mattress they could be useful, so YMMV. But otherwise, just ignore it.
Don't get cheap foam. There are a few places that have really compelling prices with reasonable comfort. We almost pulled the plug on a Bob-O-Pedic mattress because it was super cheap but also reasonably comfortable. Didn't end up buying it because after doing some research we realized that cheap foam tends to slump and sag and become uncomfortable over only a couple years. Cheap foam will also get very warm in the summer and do a bad job of dissipating heat. Honestly, in general I would caution you against any mattress that seems way cheaper than the competition (looking at you Bob and Costco) unless that's all you can afford.
This is completely unsolicited advice, so feel free to ignore it, but I highly and wholeheartedly recommend sleeping in separate beds! (Provided your situation allows for it, of course.)
My husband and I shared a bed for years, but it became clear to us that we had very different sleep preferences on a lot of different axes. My husband likes a firm mattress. I like a soft one. My husband likes absolute silence. I like white noise. My husband runs hot and doesn’t like a lot of covers. I’m an icicle and like to pile them on.
Also we both snore, and nobody finds snoring comforting.
For those years where we shared a bed, neither of us were happy about our sleep arrangements. Why did we do it for so long? Well, because that’s the social expectation for couples. We didn’t know that there was another option because, well, that's just what you do when you're a couple, right?
We didn’t suddenly decide to sleep separately. Instead, it was a more gradual thing. The couch, and then later our guest bed, were sort of “relief” beds initially. One of us would move there during the night more often than not when we were having trouble sleeping. After hundreds of nights where we'd go to bed together but wake up separately, we were finally like “why not start sleeping separately in the first place?”
It is so much more comfortable for us. We sleep in separate beds in separate rooms (rather than Bert and Ernie-style in the same room, but that's also an option). The only uncomfortable part of it is the assumptions that other people make about it if we share that information. Unfortunately, sleeping separately is cultural code for “fighting” or “relationship on the rocks” (think of the idiom “he’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight”). Whenever someone finds out about our arrangement, I have to do a lot of reassuring that, yes, my husband and I still love each other, and no, we're not having problems. Even then I can tell that people are still skeptical.
Even with some social judgment, however, it's still totally worth it. I also don't feel any less connected fro my husband. Every night before we go to sleep we climb into the same bed and snuggle together with our dog for some quality pack time (my favorite part of the day). Then, depending on which bed we’re in, the other partner will retire to their bed for the night to actually go to sleep.
For those who balk at separate beds, there's also always the option of doing a "split king" by putting two twins together. It doesn't solve every issue but it allows for separate mattresses (and my impression is that it's more common to have this sort of split setup in some countries). Regardless of whether you share a mattress, I highly recommend separate quilts/comforters -- doing so cut down on the conflict over one of us (me) hogging the covers!
I got a cheap Amazon Basics mattress a couple years ago to replace an even older but similarly cheap foam mattress. I started getting back pain some months ago and I suspected that mattress was contributing so I got rid it and ordered my current mattress, which is a Titan Plus Luxe.
When I was looking I found the only way to filter things down to an at all reasonable quantity was to focus on specific specifics of how you sleep. Things like side vs back sleeping or care about temperature or want to avoid disturbing a sleeping partner when you get up. Then look up a bunch of reviews and comparisons for each aspect (ideally a mix of personal reviews, small blogs, and bigger names), then cross correlate between sources and features to see what has good consensus and is affordable. A lot of the "hipper' mattress brands tend to have more specific niches they focus in, including stiffness range which is an easier thing to filter by.
I went with the Titan as it was claimed to be one of the best choices for heavier people in general as well as good for back pain and side sleepers. I'm happy with it. Lack of side support (as in side of the mattress) is my only real complaint and that's an easy adjustment after a couple slips. Back has improved due to a variety of reasons (so hard to know how much if any of that is due to mattress) and I've gotten used to the firmness after sleeping on pure foam for many years.
How much are you willing to spend?
I’m the type of guy to read reviews till I’m certain I’ll be purchasing the best product for my use case.
I’ve tried to do this when we needed a new matras but it’s so personal that I found it impossible to trust reviews or other people.
I ended up using one of the generic post order matras services (Emma) because I could ship it back. First few weeks the bed was way to firm for my tastes but it grew on me and I love it now.
We switched to Futons about 7-8 years ago, combined with a memory foam mattress topper from Ikea.
Haven’t slept that well ever before. My back was “wtf” for a week, but now I highly prefer the firmness of a futon to any squishy springy beds.
I buy 3 inch mattress toppers from www.sleeponlatex.com Buy a 3 inch medium and a 3 inch firm. Wrap the whole thing in a 6 inch mattress cover. Both beds in my house are like this. Its the most comfortable bed I ever slept on. I'm a stickler for chemicals, plastics and fire retardants. Modern plastics seem to offgass a tremendous amount of fumes. The latex mattress has some odor but it doesnt make me sick or trigger my asthma while breathing it. Ultimately building a simple bed gets me exactly what I need for a cheaper price.
I also went with the sleep on latex mattress and it's the best one I've had so far. I loved it as is but my wife found it slightly too firm so I got a thick wool mattress topper and it feels like a 5 star hotel. It's so much cooler and more comfortable than the old memory foam mattress it replaced, and it's been great for my back (and hers, though she wouldn't admit that). I would also support building your own as you suggested, to really dial in what you want. The one downside of the mattress was good god was it heavy, trying to push 200lbs of mattress in the cardboard up the stairs by myself was a chore. Worth it though.
We had a Leesa Sapira which was pleasantly soft without being squishy, but about 5 years in I experienced back problems, (which I discovered later were not due to the mattress.) But I thought it might be, so we went shopping for firmer mattresses. Checked out expensive ones, middle range ones, and finally found a good one at IKEA for a very reasonable price. We've had it a little over a year now and it's been a winner.
I got a Leesa mattress a few years ago and it's great. I don't remember which model, but whatever it is, it's super comfortable. And it came with a pillow that has become my favorite too.
I have to move around a lot for a few years at a time, and rather than buy a new mattress (the ones in the apartments are almost always incredibly hard) every time I simply bought a 10 cm memory foam topper and take that with me instead. It's incredible, sits on the hard mattress and essentially replaces it. I looked up the brand, it's called MLILY and they sell whole mattresses too.
https://mlilyusa.com/collections/mattresses
(I swear this isn't an ad)
As far as I know, mattresses can be a very local buying experience. It doesn't look like you're in Canada, but if you are, I can offer some suggestions having just bought one.
Depending on your budget, look into Tempur Pedic. I'm pretty sure I commented about it in another thread, but a split king (really two Twin XLs) with adjustable bed frames on both sides has made sleep fantastic for both me and my partner. Zero back pain for either of us since, and we both have acid reflux which being elevated helps with.
I view it as both a "buy it for life" item and a "don't cheap out on anything between you and the ground" item.
We have had the same Aireloom for the past 9 years and it's the best thing I've ever slept on. I never found a foam mattress that had enough edge support for me.
Perhaps it's time for a visit to Sleep Like the Dead, an unbiased mattress review aggregator. There is also a quick "mattress selector" quiz for prospective mattress buyers.
I’m 5’8” and 230lbs. Every foam mattress I have ever had (Amazon, Purple, Ghost, etc.) have all developed and indentation after a few years.
I recently went with a more traditional Saatva and have been pleased thus far but it’s only been 6 months.
My wife and I just went through this and ended up with a mattress we both love. The best advice I saw on the internet was to find a local mattress store that sells mattresses made near you. I had no idea that there were such things as locally-made mattresses but I found that there is in fact a company that makes mattresses like 4 miles from our house. So if you are in the Portland, OR area, I can recommend The Mattress Lot in NE. We tried everything they had in the store and got a great mattress for a great price. They also have tons of pillows you can try and we did that as well. We both ended up with different pillows and trying them out beforehand is the best.