The Best Mattresses Will Have You Floating on Cloud Nine

Hot sleepers, this one’s for you: The Aurora Luxe mattress has specific features such as cooling fibers and heat-dissipating top fabric to help you sleep cooler, and more soundly.

Our Tester’s Take

It’s a fact: You sleep better when your body is cooler. Brooklyn Bedding’s Aurora Luxe mattress is the one our testers found to be the best choice for folks who overheat in their sleep. The GlacioTex cooling cover removes excess heat from your body, which helps you stay cool throughout the night. It has hybrid materials with open-cell technology (sort of like a sponge), providing more airflow and breathability compared to other mattresses we tried.

The top comfort layer is threaded with cooling fibers that are proven to absorb excess body heat. While you can pick what firmness level you want, our testers say that the medium firmness is ideal for 130- to 230-pound side sleepers (consider the “firm” if you’re at the top end of that range).

One of the more supportive mattresses we’ve tried, the Aurora Luxe provides solid edge support and motion isolation, keeping even the most aggressive tossers and turners stable. The brand also makes all of its mattresses in its Arizona facility, so you’ll notice that despite the high-quality materials, the price is easy to stomach because there’s no middleman markup.

Just a note, this bed comes compressed in a box, so you may notice a slight smell after unboxing (mattress pros like us call that “off-gassing”). Have no fear, this odor is totally normal, and leaving the mattress out in a ventilated area for a day will remove any lingering scents.

The Leesa Legend Hybrid Mattress takes quiet luxury to the extreme, thanks to a plush feel and optimal pressure relief.

Our Tester’s Take

The softest option on our best mattresses list, the Leesa Legend Hybrid is tailor-made for nights of restful sleep and hours of lounging. Its soft, plush feel left us refreshed, and we especially appreciated the details that amped up the luxury feel of this mattress even further—including the organic cotton and merino wool cover, which is both sustainable and breathable.

While this hybrid mattress is softer than what most people prefer (generally, a medium-firm level is MVP), we were pleasantly surprised at the Leesa Legend’s bounce and edge support. Extra-soft mattresses can make you feel like you’re sinking in a little too much, but the Leesa Legend had just enough bounce-back to let you move comfortably, thanks to its layer of individually wrapped springs. We wouldn’t recommend this for stomach sleepers or anyone dealing with chronic back pain (you’ll want a firmer mattress for that), but if you love the feeling of floating on top of your bed, the Leesa Legend is for you.

Let’s Compare the Best Mattresses of 2024

So, what’s the damage? Here’s how each of the best mattresses stack up before any discounts or sales. (All prices listed are for queen mattresses, FYI.)

The Mattress Testing Process

No matter what features, benefits, and material jargon that mattress brands use in their marketing (and trust us, we’ve waded through a lot of it), the only thing that really matters is how pleasant the best mattresses are to sleep on. For different people, this means different things, so how do we know what separates the best from the rest? By actually sleeping on them. Our mattress testers put all of the top mattresses through extensive analysis and hands-on experimentation to measure everything from cooling tech and edge support to firmness, softness, and more.

We step into your shoes to figure out which mattresses deserve your hard-earned money and which ones you should pass on. We factor in things like shipping, unboxing, and more to determine the best mattresses that earn the GQ badge of approval.

For more on our rigorous testing standards, click here.

What to Consider When Buying a Mattress

The main traits to keep in mind when shopping for a new mattress are its materials, how plush or firm it is, your unique sleeping position, your budget, and whether you need any extra cooling features.

“When it comes to a mattress, personal comfort is the most important factor, and that does not always correlate with price… It is worthwhile to invest in a high-quality mattress as it is arguably the most important and most-used piece of furniture in the household,” says Dr. Troxel.

Mattress Materials

Mattresses are primarily made of three types of materials: memory foam, latex, or innerspring. All-foam mattresses have the slowest response, so they mold to your body, while latex mattresses have a faster response, giving them more “bounce”. Innerspring is also bouncy and provides a lot of support. Hybrid mattresses tend to have a combination of innerspring and foam, natural latex or latex, so they retain spring, but also provide a good amount of cushioning. What’s more, while you used to need to plan to invest in a box spring to lay atop your bed frame and accompany any mattress purchase, today’s options are actually fine without them.

Firmness

Firmness is how soft or hard the mattress feels. Different body types and sleeping positions require different levels of firmness, but there are ideal ranges for each. Side sleepers will do best on a softer mattress, although they don’t offer as much support, and back and stomach sleepers will find more benefits with a firmer bed. If you’re unsure how you sleep or simply want a middle-of-the-road option, go with a medium-firmness mattress. The common thread for all sleepers? Invest in a mattress protector to prolong the life of your mattress.

Sleeping Position

Depending on how much pressure your sleep position puts on your joints, having the wrong mattress could cause damage to your posture in the long term, so finding the best mattress for your individual needs is crucial. Side sleepers should go with a soft mattress so that their hips and shoulders have pressure relief while stomach and back sleepers should opt for a medium-to-firm bed that keeps their hips in line with their shoulders.

Price

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a luxury bed, but you shouldn’t snag a low-quality mattress just because it’s cheap. Look for mattresses in the $1,000 to $3,000 range and don’t sleep on seasonal sales to find the best value.