The 9 Best Mattresses, Tested and Reviewed by Esquire Editors

Finding a mattress that isn’t too firm, but not too soft is a true goldilocks situation. I prefer soft and my partner prefers firm, so we have spent many years trying to find something in the middle. This year, we feel in love with the new Beautyrest Black Hybrid XCS. In fact, it’s so good, I think it’s one of the best launches of the year. Mostly because it’s an extremely versatile option that is great for a variety of sleepers, especially if you’re looking for a little bit of cushiness to something with built-in support. The hybrid model offers firm support underneath with a medium layer of a soft pillow top, so you still get a nice cozy sink in feeling but without feeling like you’re in an overly fluffy cloud. A true win-win for many couples.—Krista Jones, Senior Commerce & Partnerships DirectorThe more I test mattresses, the more I realize what I actually want is simplicity. The mattress needs to be great (hardest part), needs to look great (part companies fuck up the most), and the buying process needs to be simple (everyone is good at this these days). I think Ostermoor understands that more than any other brand on the market. And to top it off, it's got a 170-year history other DTC brands could only dream of.The lineup is simple, which allows the brand to really perfect the mattresses it makes. They all feature a soft top that can be rotated more often than the actual mattress is rotated. If you’ve ever wondered what the “secret” to hotel mattress comfort is, that’s it. You have a solid coil-built base, but the topper, the thing that makes it soft and cozy, functions independently. If you add the brand’s down topper, which won an Esquire Sleep Award, you get double the comfort there.I've tried everything from Ostermoor, and every model is divine. Generally, I judge a company on its entry-level mattress. It's the hardest to get right under that $2,000 budget (in a queen size) that makes it competitive. I've spent a year sleeping on The Elizabeth, and it's pure bliss. But, for this list, I would recommend the top-of-the-line Bedford. Like my mattress, it has that solid base and comfy rotatable top, but everything is turned up to the max: more coils, more comfort foam, and hand-tufting on the top. As far as looks go—and yes, I think looks matter even if it’s underneath sheets—it’s the best on this list. — Luke Guillory, commerce editorAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowFinding a perfectly firm mattress has been my cross to bear for longer than I can remember. For many years, I had been sleeping with a way too-soft mattress and, for many of those many years, I’ve known I’ve need to make the swap to something with more support. When I saw this new Serta mattress comes in a firm option, I knew that was the one I needed. It was instant relief, from day one. Every night sleeping on this mattress I feel more head-to-toe support than I ever have before.A firmer base is great for people who sleep on their backs, but admittedly I wind up on my side most mornings. This mattress is perfect, because it has just a soft enough top that I start on my back and flip to get a comfortable nights sleep on my side. One other thing I love is that the mattress has a nice thick (but not too thick) depth, making my whole bed setup feel more luxurious. - Gaby Keiderling, Freelance Contributor I have always purchased my family’s mattresses from big brand name retailers so working with Bear, a direct-to-consumer mattress specialist, was a new experience for me. I have to say that the Bear “experience” from beginning to end exceeded my expectations, including efficient delivery, excellent customer service, and easy setup instructions. The completely elevated Bear sleep experience was apparent the first night. My Bear Elite Hybrid model contours perfectly to the body, head to toe, eliminating morning lower back pains, shoulder tightness, and general “creakiness.” There is a choice of three firmness levels—medium is providing me amazing support—all with mattress spring coils engineered to different resistance strengths. There is a luxurious feeling to this whole sleep experience, including a body cooling feature that caters to different sleep temperatures. Bear’s reinforced mattress edges also mean my husband and I aren’t waking each other when we get in and out of bed.Frankly, I am not sure how I ever got a good night’s sleep before this Bear mattress. And although Bear has a 120-day trial period whereby I could easily exchange models if I wasn’t getting optimum results, I don’t think I’ll be needing that.— Abigail Greene, Executive Managing EditorAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowYou’ve probably heard my story before. Light sleeper here, with lower back issues, allergies, and a pooch that loves to bounce around on the bed at night. I finally went for my first hybrid mattress, Nest Bedding’s Owl Natural Latex Hybrid, hoping this might be the one to make all of my dreams of a peaceful sleep come true. And come true, they did. There is plenty of coil support in just the right places to alleviate the annoying back twinges and enough motion transfer to keep the pup from waking me. This one also gets extra points for being allergen resistant and keeping those nasty little dust mites away. —James Morris, Photo DirectorThe Stearns & Foster pitch is that this mattress neither looks nor feels like any other mattress on the market. I am here to tell you that you that is true and it’s a good thing. This thing is huge and plush and deep blue and I absolutely love it.There is a lot packed in here. There are proprietary coils and Tempur-Pedic technology, as well as a pillow top and cooling fibers. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is, but all of it has combined to fundamentally changed the way my husband and I think about our sleep preferences. When comparing mattresses, I’ve always been hyper focused on how soft or firm an option is—which I thought was the end-all be-all. What’s this mattress has taught me is more important, though, is how the piece makes our bodies feel while it’s in use. With its focus on relieving pressure, this is the first mattress to ever make me feel truly weightless when I sleep. What a sensation. - Madison Vain, Executive EditorAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowIf you want to gain followers on Instagram, post a meme that says, “When you’re over 40 and fall asleep in a weird position,” with a screenshot of Johnny Cash and the lyrics, “I hurt myself today.” You’ve seen some version of this on social media. You’ve reacted to this meme, maybe liked or shared it, because it is accurate. A few months ago, I couldn’t turn my head to the left for days because I slept on my neck funny.But the meme became irrelevant to me when I learned about the Saatva Rx mattress, which, yes, I had the same initial reaction: a prescription mattress? Am I really that old? The mattress promises to help ease discomfort from chronic conditions like sciatica, arthritis, herniated discs, and scoliosis. I have none of these ailments (yet), but I am in my mid-40s and have two young kids—a condition all its own. Can a mattress treat that? Yes, this one certainly does.It is a mattress with the seemingly contradictory combination of soft and firm. It supports you while enveloping you. This is unholy, because I never want to get out of bed. I fantasize about this mattress. It has become a fun fact I share at corporate gatherings: I’m Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief of Esquire, and one thing you don’t know about me is that I adore my mattress.Even better: my wife shares this opinion. One downside: so do my kids. It is a king-size, so, in theory, the four of us could all fit, but that would be foolish—especially when the bed is this comfortable. Why do that to ourselves? Beat it, kids. No more sleep injuries for me. —Michael Sebastian, Editor-in-ChiefYou don’t necessarily expect to be dealt a savage personal burn while staring down at the serene face of your sleeping three-year-old son, but that’s exactly when it happened. My wife reached down to brush the hair away from his forehead so we could get a better look at him but paused mid-motion. “Oh, man. His head’s all sweaty. He really is exactly like you, huh?” It’s true. Looking at baby photos, we’re the spitting image of one another. (Bad news when you grow up, kid.) But apparently my son also inherited something else from me: He’s a hot sleeper. A very hot sleeper. A perched-on-the-edge-of-an-active-volcano-with-a-heat-lamp-hanging-over-you-level hot sleeper. That—plus a right shoulder that just loves to tweak itself into a painful knot during the wee hours—has plagued me over the course of 15 years and two mattresses. The first was a slab of memory foam that dulled motion transfer but felt like climbing out of a vat of oatmeal in the morning. The second was a hybrid mattress that I’m almost certain we irrevocably damaged on day one by trying to fold it in half lengthwise to move it (long story). I’d wake up in the middle of the night sweating, my shoulder aching, on both. Then I got a Casper cooling mattress. And I went for it with the cooling features, adding Casper’s Snow Technology—with its hilariously named HeatDelete Bands—to keep me extra frosty at night. The cooling is a game-changer. But what really sold me on the mattress was something I wasn’t expected: The extremely pleasant mixture of support, softness, and bounce it delivers. You know that feeling of springiness you get from a bed in a really nice hotel? The kind that makes climbing into bed on your hands and knees way more fun than just…sitting on the damn thing? That’s what you get with this mattress. And yet, you don’t feel your partner’s every minute twitch. And there’s still enough of that foamy, sink-on-into-it feeling that it wasn’t a shock to the system and remains entirely comfortable for my side-sleeping self. That’s pretty impressive. Maybe when my son grows out of his toddler bed, we’ll get him one, too. —Jonathan Evans, Style DirectorAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowAlthough, I am a side and stomach sleeper, my back tends to react better to firm mattresses, which is why I've always gone with all-foam models in the past. I always thought that those thick all-foam mattresses were great and offered the right support and I never had any complaints—until recently, that is. After a few nights with the Purple Plus Mattress, I realized what I had been missing out on.Purple's signature and patented grid system that looks like a giant well, grid—hence the name—combined with the transition of soft foam provides a super fluffy soft feel on top, while still being firm and offering enough support deep down, which is great for side sleepers like me. My view on how comfortable a mattress can be has completely transformed and now I cannot believe how much better I am sleeping.I also want to note that this mattress system feels so unique that, when I was visiting friends in Chicago, I laid in their guest room bed and immediately knew I was atop a Purple mattress without even looking. Its signature design is that recognizable. This isn't a budget buy, I admit, but don't cheap out on something you will spend 33 percent of your life on. To me there’s no price too high for a good night's sleep. —Mike Kim, Digital Design DirectorWhy Trust Esquire?Like I said, we don’t claim to be sleep doctors here at Esquire, but we love to determine what’s the best of the best.. We don’t just believe in Internet research, we believe in human research. We’re fighting the good fight against AI and robots, testing the things you can’t. We know the best spirits and the best sneakers, and so we, of course, have to know the best way to sleep. We actually drink the alcohol, use the sheets, stay in the hotels, and of course, we sleep on these mattresses for real.