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When you think of the best memory foam mattresses, you're probably remembering a ‘90s infomercial with someone jumping up and down on one side of the bed while their partner and a full glass of wine sit undisturbed on the other. Memory foam took the mattress game by storm three decades ago, and while that quicksand-like squishiness might feel a bit dated in the era of online mattresses-in-a-box, the truth is that memory foam never really left us at all. These mattresses just evolved—and they got a lot better.
The problem with the early generations of traditional memory foam mattresses, with their vague promise of space-ready technology (for some reason, the ads always mentioned NASA), was that they were filled with a lot of soft and totally unsupportive cushion. Your first night of sleep may be excellent: The top layer of the mattress cradles you in gooey comfort. But when you wake up, the impression of your sleeping body remains. After a couple of months, that impression starts to become a permanent trench. It’s a recipe for back pain and bad spinal alignment. Before long, early memory foam converts may start longing for their old innerspring mattresses.
It took a while, but the memory foam beds of 2023 developed into something far superior, offering you that oh-so-subtle sink and pressure relief which makes them so lovely to sleep on, without any of the longevity or support issues that plagued their predecessors. Memory foam has gotten so good, in fact, that it’s increasingly being deployed in smaller strategic doses in “hybrid” mattresses. It helps make sure these mattress both have superlative motion isolation—so that your partner won’t be bothered by the way you fight the bear in your sleep—and comfort, without sacrificing support.
The Best Memory Foam Mattresses
Hop straight to the freshest of the foamy guys with some of our top picks, tried and tested by our editors:
- The All-Around Best Memory Foam Mattress: Thuma Mattress, $1,195
- The Best Memory Foam Mattress for Stomach Sleepers: The Leesa Original,
$1,299$1,099 - The Best Soft-to-Medium Memory Foam Mattress: The Casper Original,
$1,295$1,036 - The Best Hybrid Memory Foam Mattress: The Helix Midnight Luxe,
$2,100$1,800 - The Best Affordable Memory Foam Mattress: Tuft & Needle Original,
$995$796 - Another Solid Budget Memory Foam Mattress: The Bear Original, $998 $649
- The Best Cooling Memory Foam Mattress: The Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Breeze,
$4,599$4,299 - The Best Techy Memory Foam Mattress: Eight Sleep Pod Pro,
$3,395$3,145 - The Best Adjustable Memory Foam Option: The Novosbed Mattress, $999
What to look for in a memory foam mattress
If you’re set on an all-foam mattress, keep in mind that the amount of sinkage (and also perceived support) you experience on a mattress has a lot to do with your body type and what your sleep style is—side sleeper, stomach sleeper, or back sleeper. The medium-soft ones that make up the majority of these foamy styles are probably best for someone who falls under 230 pounds and doesn’t need too much additional support, side sleepers who prefer more pressure relief, or people who want more cushion, period.
But the best foam mattresses have adapted, too, to suit everyone on the firmness and support spectrum. They're relatively thick and usually constructed from a few different layers of foam, and should be dense enough that you don't find yourself making contact with your bed frame.
How do you clean a memory foam mattress?
If you don't clean your mattress regularly, you're just asking for a stinky block of foam that's basically a breeding ground for dust mites, bacteria, and other little nasties. One of the easiest things to do is to vacuum the mattress every time you wash your sheets. While your sheets are in the wash, run a vacuum all over your mattress to get rid of surface-level lint and dust and naked-to-the-eye dirt and debris. Then, grab an antibacterial fabric spray—like one from Tide or Clorox–and give that mattress a good spritzing. Spot cleaning is the ideal situation if there are any spills or messes, and for that, just mix a little laundry detergent with water and dab the stain with the mixture using a rag.
How we tested
Over the past few years, our reviewers have tried over 30 different mattresses from the internet, almost all of which included at least a layer or two of memory foam. Our overall favorites tend to employ the hybrid construction, which means they have an innerspring base and a super soft memory foam top. Chances are, if you think you're interested in a soft memory foam bed, this supportive medium-to-firm support combination is actually what you’ll prefer beyond a 100-night trial period, especially in the sub-$500 price range. Our top picks for the best memory foam mattresses, rest assured, will never bottom out.
The All-Around Best Memory Foam Mattress: Thuma Mattress
For blissful sleep on repeat, look no further than Thuma, the makers of our favorite bed frame. The brand that made a name for itself with its easy-to-assemble, jigsaw-like, GQ Home Award-winning bed frame makes an equally excellent memory foam mattress that our tester likened to sleeping on a cloud. It's comprised of a block of foam, which itself is made up of two layers of polyurethane and a latex top layer for comfort. The entire thing is enveloped in a cooling Tencel cover that's perfect for people who tend to kick off the covers at night. Despite being foam, it offers some of the firmest support out there that isn't due to an innerspring skeleton. It's why we'd recommend it for practically any kind of sleeper, whether you sleep on your side, back, stomach, or some combination of all of the above. And being a Thuma product, our tester adds that the whole thing is just as satisfying to set up as a Lego set, taking all of 10 minutes to unpack (the bed arrives in a trio of boxes) and expand.
The Best Memory Foam Mattress for Combination Sleepers: The Leesa Original
Like a lot of its most notable competitors, the Leesa is made with multiple layers of foam. The bottom support layer is relatively thick and dense, which ensures that even after years of use, the mattress won’t bottom out when you lay down. (No one likes their butt hitting their box spring.) The middle recovery layer is the most memory-foamy, and that’s the one that you’ll actually kind of sink into. The top comfort layer is the thinnest, created with more breathable soft foam to make sure you sleep cool. The result is a contouring mattress that’ll gently accommodate your sleeping body without making you feel like you’ve fallen into quicksand. Our testers found it especially cushy (but still supportive!) for conking out on, but it skews toward the medium end of the support spectrum, which means it's probably best suited for people that need a little extra cushion for side and stomach sleeping.
The Best Soft-to-Medium Memory Foam Mattress: The Casper Original
Casper started the bed-in-a-box revolution. Its first mattress The Original has undergone some changes since its first iteration: It's still a quintessentially cloud-like foam bed, but offers three cushy layers of support: The bottom base layer forms a dense solid base, the medium layer adds zoned support for your pressure points, while the uppermost foam layer comes perforated for breathability and airflow. It's designed to be soft and bouncy but without too much sinkage, which is a boon since the first iteration was very cushy but not ideal for back support. We'd recommend dialing it up to a hybrid model (with coil springs in the mix), though, if you want more support overall.
The Best Hybrid Memory Foam Mattress: The Helix Midnight Luxe
If you’ve come to this piece thinking you need a memory foam mattress, but aren’t actually sure, chances are, you might be happier with a hybrid mattress. Hybrid mattresses combine the soft comfy sink of memory foam with the extra support that more traditional innersprings offer. The top-performing mattress in our ongoing testing and reviewing has been Helix’s Midnight Luxe mattress.
Every single one of our testers over the past several years has enjoyed laying down on the mattress, largely thanks to its super plush pillow top. You sink in a little bit, but it feels a little more cloud-like than conventional memory foam. Below the sink are several more supportive layers, including a high-density layer of gel memory foam and a lower layer of innersprings. It’s about twice the price of the Leesa Original, but if you’re looking for the best possible sleep experience you can get, this is probably it.
The Best Affordable Memory Foam Mattress: Tuft & Needle Original
We’ve recommended Tuft & Needle’s Original mattress since we started testing mattresses in earnest years ago. It features a double-layered construction that ensures your body stays supported as you sleep. This one adds in open-cell cooling technology, though, so hot sleepers don’t sweat through the mattress protector on humid summer nights. The Original also does a good job of accommodating motion transfer—your movement isn’t going to wake your sleeping partner.
On the squish spectrum, the Tuft and Needle Original falls squarely on the firm side of things. Most people are combination sleepers that alternate between their side and back, so one might reason that most people will prefer a medium to medium-firm mattress. But if you’re a back sleeper, buying with durability in mind, or just hunting for something high-quality and under $1000, this alternative is for you.
Another Solid Budget Memory Foam Mattress: The Bear Original
The Bear Original mattress is the one that kicked off a 25-year stint making beds for the brand, and accordingly, it's a middle-of-the-road choice that falls under $1,000 and is comprised of three layers of foam (topped off with some cooling gel to sweeten the deal). Our tester has actually tried this head-to-head against the Tuft & Needle above and ended up favoring the former when it comes to comfort and overall breathability, but he noted that the Bear was still supportive (if not a hair too firm for his liking). Still, if you've got a spare bedroom you need to source something slightly firmer for, and want to spend less money overall, the Bear is still a very reasonable choice.
The Best Cooling Memory Foam Mattress: The Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Breeze
Tempur-Pedic was the first company to really mainstream the idea of a memory foam mattress. Without its convincing ad campaigns, the mattress in a box revolution might have happened a few years later than it did. To keep up with the rest of its competition, Tempur Pedic has spent a lot of energy re-engineering everything and expanding its entire line with more sophisticated offerings. The most luxe of these, the Tempur-Breeze mattress, features several foam layers wrapped up in a cooling SmartClimate cover. That includes an airier comfort layer which is meant to disperse body heat, so you don’t sweat through your sheets as you sleep (a common problem with cheaper memory foam mattresses). There’s also a denser support layer at the base to ensure that you still have a solid surface to prop your body up without much sinkage.
The company offers this mattress in several firmness levels, from soft to firm, but each one should be plenty supportive for anyone regardless of your preferred sleep position. It’s another cooling mattress (but at a significantly steeper price point than the Allswell) for the kind of people who need to use linen sheets, even in the winter. If you’re having trouble getting over the sticker shock, rest assured that the mattress comes with a 90-day sleep trial and 10-year warranty if you’re not satisfied for any reason.
The Best Tech-y Memory Foam Mattress: Eight Sleep Pod Pro
It’s not often that you see us testing bedding for the annual Fitness Awards, but this new mattress from Eight Sleep made a rare appearance among our winners in 2021 because of its techy sleep coaching and tracking metrics that combine the qualities of a fitness tracker, bed, and white noise machine. The five-layer Pod Pro foam mattress includes medical-grade sensors that chart data like your heart rate, respiratory rate, and how much you toss and turn at night—all viewable through Eight Sleep's app. It’s also fully customizable so you can fine-tune your sleep preferences down to the last degree (thanks to the the mattress’ dual-zone heating and cooling capabilities that allow you to warm up either side of the bed, or cool them down to a chilly 55 degrees Fahrenheit). To optimize your REM cycle stats, the mattress also comes equipped with meditation and sleep sounds that lull you into slumber, plus a gentle alarm system that uses chest-level vibrations and a gradual temperature change to jostle you awake.
The Best Super-Firm Memory Foam Mattress: The Brooklyn Bedding Plank
If you’re a back sleeper, you’ve likely struggled to find a mattress that offers enough support. Soft mattresses offer plenty of cushion to sit on, but when you’re laying down on their pillow-y tops, they might not offer the right amount of support to prevent sinkage and ensuing back pain. Many back sleepers find that when they opt for firmer mattresses, their problems (and lower back pain) start to melt away, and they find the comfortable sleep they’ve been missing out on after years of sleeping on wonky innersprings. If this resonates at all, you should consider the Plank mattress from Brooklyn Bedding.
The mattress features a unique flippable design that unlocks two possible firmness options, but to be clear, neither could be described as “soft.” In fact, sleeping on The Plank is just about as close as one can get to sleeping on concrete. Thanks to its extremely high foam density, the mattress has basically no sink and no bounce, but that’s exactly what makes it good. Or at least, good for people who like their mattresses with an extra firm feel.
The Best Adjustable Memory Foam Option: The Novosbed Mattress
Online shoppers who aren’t exactly sure how much density and firmness they want or need (and don’t want to hassle with returning a bulky mattress after the designated trial window), will likely appreciate a modular, adjustable option like the Novosbed. With these foam mattresses, you can choose exactly how rigid or cushy you want them to be—soft, medium, or firm. If your bed’s a little undercooked in the firmness department, the company will send you an adjustment kit that allows you to change the density of the top layers. Our tester, who prefers a mattress with some give, found that the firm mattress helped dissipate body heat, but wasn’t quite supportive enough for her liking. It’s likelier a better fit for someone who wants a medium to medium-firm bed for stomach- and side-sleeping.
