Best pillows 2024

To my pleasant surprise, the Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow consistently aced my testing, and it was the most inexpensive option I tried. I’ve been burned by very cheap pillows before—they start out fine, and end up flattening out, or they provide an uncomfortably sweaty sleep experience. But the Amazon Basics is one of the pillows I keep gravitating to even almost a year after my initial tests. It’s also one of the pillows that both my parents liked the best in their testing, so much so that they ordered some for their house. I’ve kept these in our guest room—along with several other pillows as options—and found that most guests really like them. They haven’t flattened out or developed weird lumps even after many rounds of washing and many guests sleeping on them, and they’re a nice mixture of supportive and soft. The only complaints were from people who preferred a much firmer pillow.

The Best Pillows For A Great Night’s Sleep, Based On Rigorous Testing

In a sense, we’re all sleep experts. After all, we’ve spent hours of our lives slumbering since we were born. But all that sleeping doesn’t make it easier to choose a pillow from the vast array of options out there. I spent four weeks of sleeping on 15 different pillows (and ten months testing them over time) in order to determine which one is, truly, the best of the best. The Coop Home Goods Original Pillow stood out as best pillow overall after months of sleeping on it nightly, and it’s just as comfortable after almost a year of use. It’s adjustable, relatively affordable, fairly easy to wash and doesn’t hold on to heat or humidity at night (a major bonus for folks who sleep hot). These are the three best pillows based on months of testing:

These are the three best pillows for a great night’s sleep.

ILLUSTRATION: FORBES / PHOTO: RETAILER

Best Pillow Overall:Coop Home Goods Original Pillow
Best Value Pillow:Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow
Best Down Pillow:Parachute Down Pillow

After ten months months of additional testing, the Coop Home Goods Original Pillow is still the pillow that I use most frequently, often combined with another one to get the most comfortable sleeping angle. The best value pillow I found was the Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow, which was not only surprisingly supportive and a terrific value, but also the easiest to clean option of my entire pillow lineup. For the best down option, I recommend the Parachute Down Pillow. (You can read more about my top picks in my Coop Pillow review and Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow review).

Of course, the “best pillow” will vary from person to person, and depends on a bevy of factors like your firmness preferences and your sleep position. Pillows come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and materials, and I included a selection of pillows with different fills, varying levels of firmness and a variety of constructions so that you can find one that will work for you. Read on for my full review.

Best Pillow Overall

A Supportive, Adjustable Pillow

Coop Home Goods Original Pillow

Fill: Shredded memory foam | Firmness: Adjustable | Warranty/trial period: 100 days

Best for:

People who want to try out shredded memory foam and want a good trial period
Sleepers who want to customize the firmness of their pillow
People who tend to sleep hot and would like a pillow that doesn’t get heat

Skip if:

You’re not a fan of shredded memory foam
You want a more affordable option

Works For Side And Back Sleepers

Of all the pillows in all the different materials I tested, the Coop Home Goods Original Pillow stood out as a clear winner. This pillow uses shredded memory foam rather than a solid piece of foam, which means the materials can shift and mold to your body. It compresses when you put your head (or a bowling ball) on it, but still provides enough support to cradle your head and neck. It cooled off quickly and didn’t retain humidity, and it stood up well to washing without developing lumps, off-putting odors or frayed seams. It’s comfy without the added expense or upkeep of down.

After almost a year of sleeping on it, I found that it more or less retained the original shape that it had when I took it out of the box—I’ve had to fluff it a couple times, but upkeep hasn’t been onerous. I’ve also washed the pillow several times, and found that it stood up well to the wear and tear of going through my washer and dryer without distorting or taking on a weird smell.

The Coop Home Goods Pillow was one of the more comfortable memory foam pillows I tested. Last year, I had to shift from sleeping on my stomach to sleeping on my side to help with back and neck pain. The Coop Home Goods Original Loft Pillow eased that transition. It’s comfortable in both positions, and even worked for a spell when, thanks to a knee injury, sleeping on my back was the only way I could get any rest. My mom called it “the marshmallow pillow,” and requested that I hang on to it for her future visits to my house.

An Actually Adjustable Pillow

The best part about this pillow, however, is that it’s adjustable. It comes with an additional bag of the shredded memory foam it’s stuffed with, meaning that you can add or take out fill in order to adjust the firmness to your liking (and the brand has recommended heights for side, back and stomach sleepers). In my experience, it took a couple weeks of sleeping on the pillow to figure out the correct level of filling for me. Once I got it right, I’ve only adjusted the foam filling once, when I realized that I needed a slightly loftier pillow to support my neck. The process was really easy—you just unzip the inner lining, grab a handful of the foam stuffing and pack it into the pillow.

The Coop Home Goods Original won best pillow overall because it’s adjustable—it comes with extra . [+] foam to tweak the pillow’s height.

Margaret Eby For Forbes

The ease of adjustability set the Coop Home Goods Original Pillow apart, and it was exactly what Washington University sleep neurologist Dr. Eric Landsness suggested looking for when I spoke to him. Because finding the right pillow firmness for you is, as he put it, “a Goldilocks game,” discovering a pillow that you can also change the softness of, albeit manually through taking out and putting filling back in, was a huge draw. “Variable firmness would allow you to optimize your pillow as needed,” Dr. Landsness said. “In a pillow you’re stuck with one setting and one setting only.” But not with this pillow. Though other shredded memory foam options performed solidly in testing, this added feature is what put the Coop Home Goods over the top.

In my testing, I noticed that many pillows took hours to dry, or smelled funny after a wash. I’ve taken to air drying the pillow if I have the time—I think it helps the memory foam bounce back to its original shape—but it also can go in the dryer on low. It takes me two or three cycles, but that’s still a lot easier to deal with than washing my down pillows. Plus, with a 100 day trial period, you can easily return the Coop Home Goods if it’s not to your liking.

Best Value Pillow

A Surprisingly Comfortable And Affordable Down Alternative Pillow

Amazon Basics Down-Alternative Pillows (Set of 2)

Fill: Down alternative | Firmness: Medium | Warranty/trial period: 30 days

Best for:

People looking for a more budget-friendly pick
Sleepers who want to avoid down but don’t like memory foam
People looking for a pillow that washes and dries easily

Skip if:

You prefer a pillow made of down or memory foam
You’re looking for a pillow with more loft
You want a longer warranty or trial period

To my pleasant surprise, the Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow consistently aced my testing, and it was the most inexpensive option I tried. I’ve been burned by very cheap pillows before—they start out fine, and end up flattening out, or they provide an uncomfortably sweaty sleep experience. But the Amazon Basics is one of the pillows I keep gravitating to even almost a year after my initial tests. It’s also one of the pillows that both my parents liked the best in their testing, so much so that they ordered some for their house. I’ve kept these in our guest room—along with several other pillows as options—and found that most guests really like them. They haven’t flattened out or developed weird lumps even after many rounds of washing and many guests sleeping on them, and they’re a nice mixture of supportive and soft. The only complaints were from people who preferred a much firmer pillow.

Supportive And Breathable

This pillow is supportive but still has a good deal of give to it. In comparison to down options, I found it was just as soft without flattening down too much. It doesn’t end up compressing into a crumpled ball on the top of your bed, like other inexpensive pillows I tried.

Despite being one of the least expensive pillows I tested, the Amazon Basics Down Alternative was . [+] one of the most comfortable.

Margaret Eby For Forbes

In my tests, the Amazon Basics was more breathable than pricier pillows, too. It retained slightly less heat and humidity than the Brooklinen Down Alternative Pillow, which costs twice as much and can’t go through the washer or dryer. It also stayed cooler than most foam or down options, so this pillow could be a great choice if you sleep hot.

Easy To Clean And Quick-Drying

The Amazon Basics pillow washed and dried easily and quickly without shrinking or clumping, and required zero fluffing. That’s particularly useful for a spare room pillow, which might need freshening up between guests—I throw mine in the dryer for 20 minutes in between people staying at my house, just to refresh them. Unlike other pillows, it didn’t require an extra cycle (or two) in the dryer.

The Amazon Basic pillows, after a very thorough wash and soak in enzyme cleaner, still bounced back to their original loft, and didn’t retain any unpleasant odors. At 30 days, this pillow has one of the shorter return and trial periods—some pillows I tested offered a 3-year warranty. But these pillows are so affordable that they’re less of a risk to buy; if they don’t suit your fancy, you can repurpose them for a guest room (or give them to your neighbor).

Best Down Pillow

A Lofty Pillow That Comes In 3 Firmness Options

Parachute Down Pillow

Fill: Down | Firmness: Medium | Warranty/trial period: 3 years

Best for

If you prefer a down pillow
People looking for a long warranty period
If you want to select your firmness level

Skip if

You want a less expensive pillow
You want a pillow that maintains its shape

Of all the down options that I tried, the best was Parachute Down Pillow. It comes in three firmness options: soft, medium and firm. (For this pillow and all the down pillows that had firmness options, I tried the medium firm one). Most down pillows I tried had these options, which is a bonus if you prefer the softness and warmth of down but would like a firmer choice.

Some Considerations For Down Pillows

Down can compress more than the other fill materials I tried, and this pillow does have a tendency to flatten down and retain the shape of your head. It’s easily fixed by fluffing it out, but it is just one extra thing to deal with. After sleeping on the Parachute Down Pillow for many months, I’ve found that it held up well to nightly slumber, though I do regularly have to do some adjustments to puff it back up after a night’s sleep. That’s pretty par for the course, according to my research and testing.

Down pillows tend to be more expensive and require more upkeep than pillows stuffed with other material, but many people prefer their softer feel. John Spear, general manager of the Hotel Drisco, noted that of all the selections on their pillow menu, down was by far the most popular. Down is the traditional material of luxury pillows: it’s great at insulation, so it retains warmth, and it’s very soft. On the other hand, down is not so great if you’re a hot sleeper. As someone who tends to be very cold when I go to sleep, and wake up overheated, I’ve found that down pillows are only an option for me in the winter.

There are also animal welfare concerns with down, since it comes from geese and ducks. While some people may think they have a down allergy, they might actually be reacting to dust mites living inside the down or feathers in their pillow, and prefer a foam option.

A note about down: There’s no such thing as a truly 100% down pillow, because of how difficult it is to separate down and feathers. Down is the soft coating that’s underneath the feathers of birds, and so you generally remove both. The Parachute Down Pillow is filled with a minimum of 85% goose down, which is 10% more than is required by law for a down product. Down labeling is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, so any down pillow you buy will have a label indicating the percentage of down that is in its filling. Because down is a natural material that comes from ducks and geese, down clusters are always mixed together with feathers. Separating the down from the feathers is challenging and expensive—the higher percentage of down a pillow is, generally the more expensive it is, too. To be sold as a down product, the filling must be at minimum 75% down (the rest is feathers, which are less soft and can be scratchy). Usually that down product will have more down than that minimum percentage, but modifying the fill content label is onerous, and so it isn’t unusual just to keep the minimum down label even if the actual percentage of down is higher.

All that to say, the Parachute minimum of 85% goose down is impressive, particularly for the price. By contrast both the L.L. Bean and Garnet Hill pillows had a minimum of 75% down on their tags—the actual down content may be higher for both, but you’re guaranteed more with the Parachute pillow. The higher amount of down filling also likely contributed to how well the Parachute pillow released heat. The Parachute pillow also excelled in loft and cleaning tests compared to other down pillows. While other down pillows sank down immediately, providing little cushion between your head and the mattress, the Parachute down pillow maintained a supportive structure.

It’s also stood up well to washing and drying, which I’ve done two or three times during my long-term testing. I’ve taken to layering it with the Coop Home pillow so that I find the right amount of sink and support for myself, and it’s a great combination. And it comes with a three-year warranty, one of the best return policies of any of the pillows I tried.