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The best hybrid mattresses for a luxurious night’s sleep
Shopping for a new mattress can be exhausting. Whether you know exactly what you want in a mattress — perhaps you’re a hot sleeper looking for something both cooling and comfortable — or you can’t tell the difference between an isolated pocket coil and a continuous coil, we have your back.
Hybrid mattresses may be the key for choosy sleepers and undecided shoppers alike. Their multilayered design tends to combine the fluffy embrace of softer mattress materials with the durability of a supportive base.
“A hybrid mattress combines two or more types of mattresses, usually blending innerspring coils with materials like memory foam or latex for comfort,” says mattress expert and senior editor at Sleepopolis Bridget Chapman.
This combination results in a mattress that can provide an all-around better sleep than traditional memory foam or innerspring mattresses. Cut through the clutter of so many mattresses to choose from (whether you’re shopping for mattresses online or in-store) and find the best hybrid mattress for you below.
What is the best hybrid mattress to buy?
From hybrid mattresses that keep you cool to ones you can sink deeply into (but not too deep), here are the best hybrid mattresses on sale today.
Shop comfortably balanced hybrid mattresses from brands you know and love like Saatva, DreamCloud, and Casper below. We highlight top-quality mattresses that are available in a variety of sizes (twin, twin XL, full, queen, king, and California king), but prices are listed for queen size mattresses.
Best overall: Saatva classic
Saatva
The Saatva classic mattress comes with a plush, luxurious pillow top perfect for soft, cloudlike pressure relief. Shoppers can switch between three comfort levels (plush soft, luxury firm, or firm) to match their individual preferences.
Saatva’s patented Lumbar Zone Technology will prop you up with just the right amount of support. This can also help to improve spine alignment, regardless of your sleep position.
Shoppers can currently save $300 off the original price ($1,995 for queen size) by checking our top mattress today.
Best for:
- Sleepers looking for a good amount of motion isolation.
- Targeted pressure relief in the hips, shoulders, or spine.
- Back pain relief.
Best for side sleepers: Helix midnight luxe
Helix Sleep
Another popular hybrid mattress worth your attention is the midnight luxe mattress by Helix Sleep. This mattress is specially designed with side sleepers in mind: a memory foam support layer held up by a durable layer of more than 1,000 individually wrapped coils means you get a soft, cradling sleep that still provides plenty of lumbar and edge support.
Those coils also mean sleepers can enjoy an above-average level of motion isolation from this hybrid mattress. They also greatly reduce the risk of “sinkage” (a common problem with traditional memory foam mattresses).
This hybrid mattress normally sells for $2,374 (queen), but shoppers can save 20% with code BF20.
Best for:
- Side sleepers tired of playing trial and error with other mattresses.
- Sleepers interested in a medium-firm mattress with decent motion isolating properties.
Most comfortable: DreamCloud hybrid
DreamCloud
If you want something plush to sink into, this mattress by DreamCloud is for you. True to its name, this hybrid mattress is all about supreme comfort: multiple foam layers and a breathable cashmere top will have you feeling like you’re sleeping on air.
Standing 14 inches tall, this hybrid mattress reinforces its plush foam layers with 8.5-inch individually wrapped coils. These round out this mattress’s soft, comfy feel with an added layer of support.
The DreamCloud hybrid mattress typically sells for a total value of $1,332 (queen). Thanks to the company’s current sitewide 40% markdown, you can get this hybrid mattress in a queen size for just $799.
Best for:
- Sleepers looking for more plush, cushioning softness than firmness.
- High-quality pressure relief due to multiple body-cradling memory foam layers.
- Side sleepers.
Best mattress in a box: Brooklyn Bedding Signature hybrid
Brooklyn Bedding
Tired of scrolling past great hybrid mattresses online? The signature hybrid mattress by Brooklyn Bedding is a top-tier hybrid mattress that boasts “superior sleep at a factory direct price” according to Brooklyn Bedding.
“This affordable hybrid has three firmness options to accommodate different preferences,” says founder of Essential Home and Garden Aaron Green. “It offers good pressure relief, support, bounce and stays cool through the night.”
Typically available for $1,332 (queen), this hybrid mattress is 30% off when you use code VETERANS30.
Best for:
- Side sleepers.
- Indecisive sleepers: Brooklyn Bedding offers a 120-night sleep trial for customers to give the mattress a test run. You can return your mattress once during this time period for a full refund.
Best motion isolation: Casper Nova hybrid
Casper
If you’re looking for a mattress that won’t alert your partner every time you need to get up, the Nova hybrid mattress by Casper would be a great fit. This mattress’s hybrid design combines two layers each of groove foam (great for body contouring and zoned support) and Casper’s patented AirScape Technology, which keeps sleepers cool.
Customers online generally agree that the Casper Nova hybrid mattress’s soft, contour-friendly top layers are well worth the cost of investment. If you have a hard time sleeping undisturbed, check this mattress out pronto.
This supportive hybrid mattress is currently 20% off (typical price for a queen size: $2,495).
Best for:
- Hot sleepers.
- Couples looking for the absolute best level of motion isolation.
Most supportive firm mattress: Titan Plus
Titan Mattress
Shoppers holding out for a firm hybrid mattress are in luck: this Titan hybrid mattress offers a sturdy, sag-free design and long-lasting comfort.
This hybrid mattress’s high-density foam layers set you up with a strong level of support with next to no sinkage. These layers, bolstered by an innerspring base, also contribute to max pressure relief.
This mattress’s steel coils are topped by a highly breathable cooling technology in the form of a quilted top layer of gel memory foam. No more waking up covered in sweat — add this mattress to your bedroom collection to really change the game during hot or humid nights.
Typically available for $1,399 (queen), this hybrid mattress is 30% off when you use code VETERANS30.
Best for:
- Sleepers who weigh more than 200 pounds and want a mattress that’s sturdy and supportive.
- Hot sleepers.
- Back pain relief.
Best for back pain: The WinkBed
WinkBeds
This luxury mattress by WinkBeds is the perfect choice to round our list of the best hybrid mattresses: nicely balanced in terms of pressure relief, plush cushioning, and overall support, this mattress is suitable for all body types — regardless of your sleeping position.
Available in four firmness levels (softer, luxury firm, firmer, and plus), there’s something for everyone with the signature WinkBed mattress. Decent pocketed coil support will keep you from sinking too deep into the mattress, while patented technology for motion isolation and targeted lumbar support can give pretty much anyone a well-rounded night’s sleep.
Thanks to WinkBeds’ sitewide sale, all mattresses are marked down by $300. That includes the signature WinkBed, which typically sells for $1,499 (queen).
Best for:
- Pressure relief and lumbar support.
- Back sleepers.
- Sleepers with allergies: The patented Tencel top cover is eco-friendly, super soft, and derived from eucalyptus tree wood.
What is a hybrid mattress?
Are super-soft mattresses the best mattress types out there? What about a sturdy, supportive mattress? If you want something smack dab in the middle of these two, are you out of luck? A hybrid mattress is all about bringing together the best of both worlds with a layered design that can keep you cool and comfortable while propping you up with a durable base layer.
“The best hybrid mattresses usually have a base layer made from coils, then comfort layers on top made from memory foam or latex,” says Tom Ryan, product expert at Sleep Foundation.
These mattresses typically offer the best of both worlds when it comes to soft comfort and durability “because the coils provide very good support while the comfort layers relieve pressure and may even give you a hug-like feel when you lay on top,” according to Ryan.
Those foam comfort layers typically offer several inches of foam, latex, or polyfoam. Memory foam provides unparalleled body contouring that can ramp up the pressure relief for more sensitive areas while you sleep. Polyfoam gives sleepers a firmer experience that still moderately contours to the body, while latex is a bit more responsive.
Going deeper, the support core of most hybrid mattresses is made up of pocketed coils: these individually wrapped coils respond to your weight in a way that supports motion transfer — if you don’t want to disturb your partner while getting up for a late night glass of water, this is the level of isolated support you want.
These separate pocketed coils are also known as Marshall coils. Other, less common coil types you might come across include:
- Bonnell coils: These interconnected coils move as a unit. Their shape resembles an hourglass.
- Offset coils: Think of these as a step up from Bonnell coils, as they are modified to increase the level of motion isolation sleepers can experience.
- Continuous coils: These are rows of coils joined together by a single wire. These firm coils offer good stability but not as much contouring as offset coils.
Hybrid mattresses tend to come with a higher price tag than memory foam mattresses or other types due to the additional materials needed to put together all those appealing layers.
“High-end hybrids cost over $1,500 while quality budget options run $800 to $1,200,” Green says. Most of the mattresses we reviewed fell into this price range, with some going as high as three or four thousand. Any new mattress is an investment, but you should absolutely save up between $1,000 and $2,000 before shopping for a top-quality hybrid mattress.
Is a hybrid mattress the best mattress type?
“Hybrid mattresses are great for couples who have different sleeping positions or firmness preferences,” says Ryan. “They [are also] good for hot sleepers, since there is usually less heat build-up in the materials.”
Remember to always “take into account your body weight and your sleeping position to make sure you receive proper support,” as Ryan points out.
Hybrid mattresses may be the best choice for you if your priorities include cooling comfort (perfect for hot sleepers), medium-firm support, or motion isolation. Look for hybrid mattresses with one or more layers of memory foam if you want a decent level of body contouring as well.
A hybrid mattress that has pocketed coils at its core will provide the best motion isolation, making that the best hybrid mattress option for couples.
How to shop for hybrid mattresses
“Figure out your budget as good mattress prices typically range from $1,500 to $2,000 for most queen-size options,” says Chapman. “It’s also important to evaluate your preferred firmness level on a scale from one to 10. Medium-firm mattresses are usually suitable for the majority of sleepers, but choose this based on your sleep position.”
While it’s not a perfect system, most bedding retailers rate their firmness with a relative scale between one and 10. This scale can help you understand the firmness level you’re looking for, especially when shopping for hybrid mattresses online:
- One to four: Soft. If you’re a side sleeper looking for maximum comfort — or just love to sink deep into a cloud-like mattress — this is your ideal firmness range.
- Five to six: Medium or medium firm. Your average hotel mattress typically fits this description. This middle ground is typically ideal for back sleepers.
- Seven to 10: Firm. If you crave ample support or maximum durability from your mattress, aim for these higher numbers.
“Consider other factors like your weight and whether you share the bed with a partner,” adds Chapman. “Heavier sleepers and couples should prioritize mattresses with good edge support, while hot sleepers should look for mattresses with temperature-regulating technology.”
How we chose these mattresses
In order to separate the best hybrid mattresses from the rest, we considered a number of important factors while making comparisons. For a closer look at how we review mattresses, here is what we prioritized:
- Customer reviews: We combed through verified customer reviews — in other words, real buyers — to ensure they were consistently pleased with these brands and models.
- Expert recommendations: We spoke with several sleep experts to gain a better understanding of what really makes a good night’s sleep.
- Star rating: All of these products have a four-star rating or higher.
- Your needs: We picked mattresses for a variety of budgets and needs, such as affordability, durability and more.
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Renad Atallah is an unlikely internet sensation: a 10-year-old chef, with a repertoire of simple recipes, cooking in war-torn Gaza. She has nearly a million followers on Instagram, who’ve witnessed her delight as she unpacks parcels of food aid.
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We interviewed Renad via satellite, though we were just 50 miles away, in Tel Aviv. [Israel doesn’t allow outside journalists into Gaza, except on brief trips with the country’s military.]
“There are a lot of dishes I’d like to cook, but the ingredients aren’t available in the market,” Renad told us. “Milk used to be easy to buy, but now it’s become very expensive.”
I asked, “How does it feel when so many people like your internet videos?”
“All the comments were positive,” she said. “When I’m feeling tired or sad and I want something to cheer me up, I read the comments.”
We sent a local camera crew to Renad’s home as she made Ful, a traditional Middle Eastern bean stew. Her older sister Noorhan says they never expected the videos to go viral. “Amazing food,” Noorhan said, who added that her sibling made her “very surprised!”
After more than a year of war, the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. Nearly everyone has been displaced from their homes. The United Nations says close to two million people are experiencing critical levels of hunger.
Hamada Shaqoura is another chef showing the outside world how Gazans are getting by, relying on food from aid packages, and cooking with a single gas burner in a tent.
Shaqoura also volunteers with the charity Watermelon Relief, which makes sweet treats for Gaza’s children.
In his videos online, Shaqoura always appears very serious. Asked why, he replied, “The situation does not call for smiling. What you see on screen will never show you how hard life is here.”
Before dawn one recent morning in Israel, we watched the UN’s World Food Program load nearly two dozen trucks with flour, headed across the border. The problem is not a lack of food; the problem is getting the food into the Gaza Strip, and into the hands of those who desperately need it.
The UN has repeatedly accused Israel of obstructing aid deliveries to Gaza. Israel’s government denies that, and claims that Hamas is hijacking aid.
“For all the actors that are on the ground, let the humanitarians do their work,” said Antoine Renard, the World Food Program’s director in the Palestinian territories.
I asked, “Some people might see these two chefs and think, well, they’re cooking, they have food.”
“They have food, but they don’t have the right food; they’re trying to accommodate with anything that they can find,” Renard said.
Even in our darkest hour, food can bring comfort. But for many in Gaza, there’s only the anxiety of not knowing where they’ll find their next meal.
For more info:
Story produced by Mikaela Bufano. Editor: Carol Ross.
See also:
“Sunday Morning” 2024 “Food Issue” recipe index
Delicious menu suggestions from top chefs, cookbook authors, food writers, restaurateurs, and the editors of Food & Wine magazine.
It’s been said the best meals come from the heart, not from a recipe book. But at this USDA kitchen, there’s no pinch of this, dash of that, no dollops or smidgens of anything. Here, nutritionists in white coats painstakingly measure every single ingredient, down to the tenth of a gram.
Sheryn Stover is expected to eat every crumb of her pizza; any tiny morsels she does miss go back to the kitchen, where they’re scrutinized like evidence of some dietary crime.
Stover (or participant #8180, as she’s known) is one of some 10,000 volunteers enrolled in a $170 million nutrition study run by the National Institutes of Health. “At 78, not many people get to do studies that are going to affect a great amount of people, and I thought this was a great opportunity to do that,” she said.
CBS News
It’s called the Nutrition for Precision Health Study. “When I tell people about the study, the reaction usually is, ‘Oh, that’s so cool, can I do it?'” said coordinator Holly Nicastro.
She explained just what “precise” precisely means: “Precision nutrition means tailoring nutrition or dietary guidance to the individual.”
The government has long offered guidelines to help us eat better. In the 1940s we had the “Basic 7.” In the ’50s, the “Basic 4.” We’ve had the “Food Wheel,” the “Food Pyramid,” and currently, “My Plate.”
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They’re all well-intentioned, except they’re all based on averages – what works best for most people, most of the time. But according to Nicastro, there is no one best way to eat. “We know from virtually every nutrition study ever conducted, we have inner individual variability,” she said. “That means we have some people that are going to respond, and some people that aren’t. There’s no one-size-fits-all.”
The study’s participants, like Stover, are all being drawn from another NIH study program called All Of Us, a massive undertaking to create a database of at least a million people who are volunteering everything from their electronic health records to their DNA. It was from that All of Us research that Stover discovered she has the gene that makes some foods taste bitter, which could explain why she ate more of one kind of food than another.
Professor Sai Das, who oversees the study at Tufts University, says the goal of precision nutrition is to drill down even deeper into those individual differences. “We’re moving away from just saying everybody go do this, to being able to say, ‘Okay, if you have X, Y and Z characteristics, then you’re more likely to respond to a diet, and somebody else that has A, B and C characteristics will be responding to the diet differently,'” Das said.
It’s a big commitment for Stover, who is one of 150 people being paid to live at a handful of test sites around the country for six weeks – two weeks at a time. It’s so precise she can’t even go for a walk without a dietary chaperone. “Well, you could stop and buy candy … God forbid, you can’t do that!” she laughed.
While she’s here, everything from her resting metabolic rate, her body fat percentage, her bone mineral content, even the microbes in her gut (digested by a machine that essentially is a smart toilet paper reading device) are being analyzed for how hers may differ from someone else’s.
Nicastro said, “We really think that what’s going on in your poop is going to tell us a lot of information about your health and how you respond to food.”
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Stover says she doesn’t mind, except for the odd sounds the machine makes. While she is a live-in participant, thousands of others are participating from their homes, where electronic wearables track all kinds of health data, including special glasses that record everything they eat, activated when someone starts chewing. Artificial intelligence can then be used to determine not only which foods the person is eating, but how many calories are consumed.
This study is expected to be wrapped up by 2027, and because of it, we may indeed know not only to eat more fruits and vegetables, but what combination of foods is really best for us. The question that even Holly Nicastro can’t answer is, will we listen? “You can lead a horse to water; you can’t make them drink,” she said. “We can tailor the interventions all day. But one hypothesis I have is that if the guidance is tailored to the individual, it’s going to make that individual more likely to follow it, because this is for me, this was designed for me.”
For more info:
Story produced by Mark Hudspeth. Editor: Ed Givnish.
“Sunday Morning” 2024 “Food Issue” recipe index
Delicious menu suggestions from top chefs, cookbook authors, food writers, restaurateurs, and the editors of Food & Wine magazine.
