The Three Main Mattress Types, Explained Honestly
Every mattress boils down to one of three basic constructions, or a combination of them. Here’s what actually separates them, beyond the marketing copy.
All-Foam (Memory Foam)
All-foam mattresses use layered foam, often including memory foam, which contours closely to your body and slowly springs back after you move. They’re generally excellent for pressure relief and motion isolation, if your partner gets up at 3am, you’re less likely to feel it. The tradeoff: foam retains more body heat than coils, and some people find it feels like sleeping “in” the mattress rather than “on” it.
Hybrid
Hybrid mattresses combine pocketed coils in the core with foam layers on top. You get the responsiveness and airflow of coils with some of the pressure relief of foam. Logan & Cove and Douglas’s Alpine model are both hybrids. Hybrids generally sleep cooler than all-foam and offer more edge support, useful if you sit on the edge of the bed often or share a bed and want to use the full surface. They tend to cost more than comparable all-foam options.
Innerspring
Traditional coil mattresses with a thin comfort layer on top. Less common now in the direct-to-consumer space, most newer Canadian brands have moved to hybrid construction instead, which generally outperforms old-style innerspring on both pressure relief and motion isolation for a similar price.
So Which Should You Actually Choose
If you sleep hot, share a bed, or want strong edge support: lean hybrid. If you want maximum pressure relief, sleep alone or don’t mind normal motion transfer, and want to save some money: all-foam is a legitimate choice, not a downgrade. Neither is objectively better, they solve different problems.
Curious how this applies to the specific brands we recommend? See our full reviews for the construction details on each.