There’s no such thing as the best mattress for everyone. Not when there are so many different sleeping positions. However, most people are side sleepers. The numbers vary by study and how rigidly you define a side sleeper, but between half and three-quarters of people sleep on their side for at least part of the night.
I am one of those side sleepers, and I’ve tested and reviewed more than three dozen beds from various mattress brands over the past 18 months to find one that suits my needs. Firm mattresses are nice for back sleepers, but side and stomach sleepers may typically prefer a softer bed with some give for hips and knees. Before I started testing mattresses for WIRED, I would’ve told you the softer the bed the better. But, as I’ve sampled more styles and religiously tracked my sleep on my Apple Watch, I’ve found that the best mattresses for side sleepers offer both cushion and support. The top recommendations below have enough give to let your hips sink in for a natural spinal alignment without making you feel like rolling over is an uphill battle. Everything I recommend was put through at least a week of real-life testing in my home. I have provided my own ratings for the firmness of each mattress I tested based on how soft they felt after a week of testing—since I only tested one of variant of each mattress you can approximate what a different firmness lever will be like when ordering. All of the prices shown are for queen-size models.
Be sure to check out our other sleep guides, including the Best Mattresses, Best Organic Mattresses, Best Cooling Mattresses, and our new guide to the Best Body Pillows for Side Sleepers.
Updated October 2024: We’ve added the updated version of the all-foam Nectar Premier as our pick for people looking for a soft mattress and the Helix Midnight Luxe with GlacioTex and ErgoAlign as the best pick for spinal alignment.
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Is sleeping on your side good for you?
If you’ve ever tried to consciously change your sleeping position (maybe because of a medical procedure or odd bed) you probably know it’s tough to fight your natural inclinations. The good news for side sleepers is the broad consensus among experts is that it’s at least as good as any other option.
Sleep experts at Houston Methodist say side sleeping has “the least negative impact on health.” Which is great! The only things worse for you than sleeping on your side are not sleeping enough or sleeping in any other position!
I have always envied back sleepers but sleeping on your back is the “worst position” according to the Mayo Clinic, which calls side sleeping “a good way to sleep.”
What type of mattress is best for side sleepers, hybrid or memory foam?
We prefer hybrids for side sleepers. Given that you’re putting more weight on a smaller surface area you might think that memory foam is nicer than a hybrid mattress that has a layer of springs (often called coils). On memory foam, you sink into a fluffy little cloud and get support on the sides.
The problem is that when you’re sleeping well and not moving much, over the course of a night, that foam will slowly but surely compress under you. If it’s just one layer of foam, after a while it will feel like you’re sleeping on a yoga mat. That’s why mattresses with multiple comfort layers of foam of various weights are better, and why we like hybrids better yet. That layer of springs means the foam doesn’t compact nearly as much in my experience.
A good hybrid gives you a chance to sleep for a solid six hours without needing to change position, which isn’t necessarily the case for me on an all-foam mattress. Hybrids also tend to sleep cooler because there’s less mass of solid foam absorbing heat.
What’s the ideal firmness levels for side sleepers?
Most side sleepers gravitate toward a soft mattresses, which usually means medium-soft memory foam. Over the course of a night, though, you want to be sure you have a mattress with enough support. All types of mattresses can offer that, but be sure to pay close attention to the firmness level the company advertises and the firmness options within it. Also take your body type into account, as the more body weight you have, the firmer the mattress you’ll want. I’ve offered my own subjective scale of how firm the mattresses I tested are below, noting which variant I tried in each case.
One other thing worth considering is that it’s easier to make a mattress softer later. If you’re spending a lot of money on a high-quality mattress made with good materials and you feel it’s too firm it’s relatively cheap and easy to add a mattress topper, since almost every mattress topper has the effect of softening your sleeping surface. However, you can’t practically make a mattress firmer—if you found a firm mattress topper and put it on a soft foam bed it would still have a squishy base which would lead to sinkage and likely pull your back out of alignment. So my advice as a mattress tester who has slept on many, many bed-in-a-box mattresses shipped to my home is to always error toward too firm, knowing that if just after the trial period you realize you didn’t pick the perfect mattress you have lots of options for changing your trajectory.
What’s the best type of mattress for heavy people who are side-sleepers?
I am a bigger guy—smaller now than when I started testing mattresses, thanks to semaglutide, but still a bigger guy. I’ve found that the bigger you are the firmer you want your mattress, as otherwise your body weight will compress the foam and springs below you too much. If you’re heavier, look for extra support.
How I test side sleeper mattresses
I have reviewed three dozen mattresses and I personally tested every pick in this guide. I slept on each pick mattress here in my own home for at least one week and long-term tested the top pick, the Bear Elite Hybrid, for nearly a year when I was not actively working on a different mattress review. When there are multiple models available, I usually ask for the firmest option available and grade the firmness based on my impressions after a full week of sleep. In addition to my subjective assessment I closely track my sleep stats using an Apple Watch Ultra.
