Our Experts
Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission.
Reviews ethics statementWith 5+ years of mattress testing experience, we use our different sleeping position and body type perspectives to offer well-rounded, honest reviews.
How we sort our mattresses
Best gel mattress overall
Brentwood Home Oceano
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$200 off Oceano, Crystal Cove & Hybrid Latex mattresses
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Best cooling gel mattress
Leesa Legend Chill Hybrid
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30% off mattress + free sleep bundle
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The way a mattress is designed and put together has a lot of impact on how it performs -- not all mattresses are built equal. If you've had difficulty falling asleep or you're a hot sleeper, changing to a gel mattress could help ease your troubles. These bedroom mainstays are known to not only help you stay cool by moving away body heat but they have great cushioning that helps with movement isolation and pressure relief. But how do you know what the best gel memory foam mattress is for you?
That's where we come in. Our team of sleep experts has been testing mattresses for years, breaking down what makes a good or bad bed. We've rounded up our recommendations for the best gel mattresses available today.
Read more: How to Stop Sweating in Your Sleep
What is the best gel mattress?
There are plenty of mattresses out there that have gel foam layers. We found that the best gel mattress is the Brentwood Home Oceano. It's a medium-soft mattress that people who want a lot of cushion will love. Not only that, but its mixture of pocketed coils and micro-coils makes it a durable choice.
Owned by Avocado Green Brands, Brentwood Home mattresses are made in California in the company's own factory.
Best gel mattresses of 2024
Brentwood Home Oceano
Best gel mattress overall
Our take - The Oceano is Brentwood Home's best-selling hybrid mattress. Featuring a medium-soft feel, this bed is good for sleep positions and has a cooling effect that's popular with hot sleepers.
Firmness
3 or medium-soft
Warranty
25-year limited warranty
Bear Pro Hybrid
Best gel mattress for athletes
Our take - The Bear Pro is an all-foam bed with five layers. Bear is known for its proprietary Celliant fabric, which keeps you cooler at night and promises faster recovery times from muscle soreness and sports injuries. This particular gel memory foam mattress features a celliant cover, as well as advanced cooling technology using gel, copper foams and graphite. That makes it ideal for athletes or anyone else who works out on a regular basis.
Firmness
6-7 or medium-firm
Warranty
10-year warranty
Zinus Green Tea Memory Foam
Best budget gel mattress
Our take - The Zinus Green Tea memory foam mattress is a major bargain that budget shoppers won't want to miss. It has a softer feel, although it does seem to firm up in colder weather, a common characteristic of dense memory foam.
Type
memory-foam mattress
Firmness
3-4 or medium-soft
Warranty
10-year limited warranty
Labor Day Deal
Leesa Legend Chill Hybrid
Best cooling gel mattress
Our take - If you or a partner are a hot sleeper, you know the struggle of trying to stay cool or at least temperature-neutral at night. The Leesa Legend Chill is a truly cool-to-the-touch mattress that utilizes cooling fibers in the cover. Under the cover are five other layers including a quilt foam gel layer, a layer of micro-springs, a comfort foam layer, a zoned support layer of up to 1,032 individually wrapped coils and a final layer of high-density foam.
Warranty
10-year limited warranty
Type
memory foam mattress
Firmness
2 options -- medium-firm and firm
Warranty
lifetime warranty
Firmness
4 or medium to medium-soft
Warranty
lifetime warranty
The mattresses above were personally hand-picked by our CNET Sleep editors and proved to be the best-performing gel mattresses among the 200-plus beds they've tested. With that being said, with so many to choose from, there are bound to be a few quality mattresses that miss the cut. Below are other mattresses tested by the CNET Sleep team that are worth mentioning as some of the best gel foam beds.
Lucid 10-inch Gel Memory Foam mattress: As an ultra wallet-friendly mattress, budget shoppers may really enjoy the Lucid mattress. It has a slow-responding, viscous feel that's typical of traditional memory foam. It comes in a large range of height options and three firmness levels, so most sleeping positions can find a Lucid Gel that suits their preferences. I don't recommend this to people who weigh over 230 pounds. It's not going to be as durable or supportive as a hybrid mattress that contains coils.
DreamCloud mattress: As the name implies, the DreamCloud mattress is an ultra-luxurious mattress that feels like a cloud when you sleep on it. I'd compare it to a fancy, five-star hotel mattress. It's made with gel memory foam, but the fluffy pillow top on the cover of the bed makes it feel more neutral and bouncy. It's incredibly thick and made with supportive pocketed coils in the bottom, so it's perfect for all body types. It also has an accommodating firmness level; it's rated around a medium or a five out of 10, making it fitting for all sleeping positions from back, side, stomach and combination.
Our team of sleep experts has tested hundreds of mattresses. We've established different tests and assessments we put each mattress through during that process. While testing, we consider firmness, feel, motion isolation, durability and edge support.
Firmness and feel
Think about firmness as how hard or soft a mattress is. Our experience testing mattresses has given us an extensive collection to compare a new bed to, allowing us to determine where it falls on the firmness scale.
Feel is where we get hands-on with the bed. We roll around on it and describe how it feels. We also pay close attention to how materials respond to weight and pressure. We note how quickly a bed snaps back when weight is lifted off it.
Durability
No mattress will last forever, but you want to choose one that you'll get the expected seven to 10 years out of. We hypothesize how long a mattress will last based on its construction. Beds with coils will stand the test of time better than foam, which may sag over years.
Motion isolation
Motion isolation may not seem like a big deal at face value, but it matters if you have a partner or pet who moves around a lot. The last thing you want is someone waking you up while they toss and turn.
To test motion isolation, two team members move around on the bed and gauge how well each bed dampens movement. We also place a glass of water on the edge of the bed and move around near it. The bed doesn't have good motion isolation if the glass turns over.
Edge support
Edge support is how strong the edge of the bed is. It's a key factor if you sleep on the edge of the bed. We test this by sitting and lying along the border. If we feel like we will fall off because the mattress is folding under the weight, it doesn't have good edge support.
Our CNET Sleep editors picked the beds and other products we write about based on editorial merit. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Find out more about how we test mattresses.
Before shopping for a gel mattress, consider four key factors: your sleeping position, body type, budget and cooling technology expectations. This will help you weed out beds that won't fit your needs and leave you with only suitable options to narrow down to one.
Sleeping position
Your sleeping position matters for which firmness level you should choose. The various sleeping positions need different things from a mattress.
- Side sleepers need a soft to medium mattress with enough cushion to cradle their curves. Getting a bed that's too firm as a side sleeper will result in pressure points at the shoulders, hips and knees.
- Back and stomach sleepers need a medium to firm, supportive mattress to keep their spine aligned all night. When you sleep on a bed that's too soft, your spine will curve and you'll wake up with back pain.
- Combination sleepers should choose a firmness based on the position they spend the most time in at night.
Body type
Your body type also matters because it decides how firm a mattress feels. People who weigh more will put more pressure on the bed, which means it will feel softer to them. The opposite is true for petite body types; it will feel firmer.
People over 230 pounds should go with a mattress with plenty of support, like an innerspring or hybrid mattress.
Cooling technology
Some of the best gel memory foam mattresses have cooling technology built into them, which is a must for hot sleepers. Look for a bed with cooling covers like GhostBed or foam layers with copper or graphite. Mattresses with latex foam also are naturally more breathable.
Budget
Mattresses are a significant investment. Establishing how much you can spend on your next bed will help narrow your options. The average price of an online mattress is between $850 to $1,200. Some beds are under $500 and luxury mattresses are over $2,000.
Third-party certifications
Gel foam is a synthetic material and manufacturers often don't disclose the exact ingredients. For this reason, it's wise to look for certifications like CertiPUR-US to ensure that all the materials in your mattress are safe.
Gel mattresses often sleep cooler than regular mattresses because the material doesn't retain heat like traditional memory foam. Gel beds also tend to be more responsive to pressure. It ultimately promotes a cooler and more comfortable sleeping experience. Because of this, gel foam mattresses are typically more expensive than your standard memory foam beds.
Our CNET Sleep editors chose the following beds as the best gel mattresses:
- Brentwood Home Oceano
- Casper Wave Hybrid
- Bear Pro
- Zinus Green Tea Memory Foam
- Leesa Legend Chill
- Saatva Loom & Leaf
- Puffy Lux Hybrid
It depends on whether your gel mattress is made with foam or if it's a hybrid mattress (designed with foam and coils). A gel foam mattress will last around five to seven years depending on how well you take care of it. A hybrid mattress should last around eight to 12 years. You should rotate your bed every six months so you evenly distribute pressure and give it a yearly deep clean.