Camping cot vs hammock: which gets you off the ground?

The short verdict

The four, side by side

We have put the best cot we score against the best hammock we score, and then the packable versions of each, because the interesting comparison is not “heavy cot against light hammock” — it is what happens when you make the cot light too.

Where each one can actually be pitched

This is the whole decision and it takes one sentence: a hammock needs two anchors roughly 10 to 15 feet apart that will take several hundred pounds of dynamic load, and a cot needs a flat patch a little longer than you are.

ENO publishes a hanging distance of 9 feet 2 inches plus or minus 10 inches for the DoubleNest, which is the useful number to keep in your head when you look at a pair of trees. Where those trees do not exist — desert sites, alpine camps above the treeline, beaches, most established campgrounds with numbered pads, RV sites, and any campground that bans hanging anything from its trees — the cot is not the better option, it is the only one.

The reverse case is just as real. On a steep, rooty, rocky hillside where no flat ground exists, a hammock is luxurious and a cot is unusable. Tree cover and terrain, not preference, is what should decide this.

Weight: a factor of twenty

The Kammok Roo Double is 17.1 ounces and packs to 4.3 x 4.3 x 6.5 inches. The ENO DoubleNest is 19 ounces and packs to about the size of a grapefruit. Neither figure includes straps, which are sold separately by both makers and add roughly another half-pound.

The TETON Outfitter XXL is 26 lb and packs to 45 x 7.5 x 13 inches. That is a factor of about twenty on weight and a bag that will not fit in a small car boot alongside everything else. The honest middle is the Helinox Cot One Convertible: a packable aluminum cot that brings the gap down to a few pounds, at a price.

If weight is the deciding factor and there are trees, the argument is over. This is the same logic we apply to backpacking chairs: past a certain weight, a comfort item stops being carried at all.

Warmth: both are cold, differently

A cot is cold because air moves under the deck all night and takes your body heat with it. The fix is a pad on the deck, and the number to look for is R-value: our cot pad rankings run from R 2.9 to R 6.2, and how to stay warm on a cot covers the rest.

A hammock is cold for a related but distinct reason: your insulation compresses where your body presses into the fabric, so a sleeping bag under you does almost nothing. The two fixes are an underquilt hung outside the hammock, or a pad inside it. Kammok builds eight gear loops into the Roo Double specifically so insulation can be clipped in.

In both cases the sleeping bag over you is the easy half. The half people skip is underneath, and it is the half that decides whether the night works.

Comfort and backs

A hammock hung correctly, with a deep sag and your body diagonal across it, is flat enough that many people sleep better in one than on any camp bed. Hung tight and lain in straight, it curves your spine and squeezes your shoulders, which is where the “hammocks hurt my back” reputation comes from. It is a technique problem, not a product problem, and it takes a few nights to learn.

A cot with a pad is predictable: flat, firm, and the same every night. For anyone with a bad back who does not want to experiment, that predictability is worth a lot, and our cots for bad backs page ranks on published support specs. Note also the capacity gap in the tables above: cots run to 600 lb, hammocks to 400 or 500, and a hammock also has to survive being sat down into rather than lain on.

Two people: a cot per person, a double cot, or a bunk. Kammok is explicit that the Roo Double comfortably fits two for lounging but recommends one person for overnight sleeping, which is true of every “double” hammock and surprises people who bought one as a shared bed. For a couple, see cots for two.

What breaks, and who sells the part

On a cot: the deck fabric at the rails, and the leg or end bar that takes the tension at set-up. TETON sells the cot top, end bars, side rails, legs, feet and frame caps and publishes a video for the cot-top swap, which is why it is the highest-scoring cot on this site. Coleman, by contrast, sells nothing — see cot replacement parts.

On a hammock: the fabric at the gathered ends, the suspension, and the carabiners. ENO sells a Hammock Repair Kit and replacement suspension straps, and covers the hammock for two years from an authorized seller, excluding UV and elemental damage. Kammok covers soft goods with a limited lifetime guarantee but publishes no parts list, so a repair there is a claim rather than an order.

Which should you buy?

Buy a hammock if you camp in forest, carry your gear, sleep alone, and are willing to add an underquilt or a pad. Start with the ENO DoubleNest if you want the standard and a repair kit, or the Kammok Roo Double for a 500 lb rating and a lifetime guarantee. Budget for straps either way.

Buy a cot if you camp where trees are not guaranteed, share a tent, need a rated capacity above 500 lb, want the same setup every night, or expect to keep the thing for a decade. The cot rankings start with the TETON Outfitter XXL for exactly that reason.

Buy both is not a joke: a hammock is a pound and lives in a car permanently, and it turns any pair of trees into a chair. Many people who sleep on cots own one anyway.