Best Pillows of 2025
We evaluated more than three dozen pillows to find out which ones will help you get better sleep
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The biggest barrier between you and a great night’s sleep could be right under your head. Even with the support of a good-quality mattress, if your pillow is too firm, too soft, or just doesn’t offer the support you need, you could find yourself waking up with aches and pains.
A pillow’s core function is to support your neck and back and keep your upper body in alignment as you sleep. “You need to find a pillow that doesn’t crane your neck in any position,” says Joel Press, MD, physiatrist-in-chief at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. “The idea is to keep your neck as neutral as possible when you sleep.”
How Thick Should Your Pillow Be?
The position you sleep in—back, side, stomach, or a combo—and how soft your mattress is should determine how thick or firm your pillow should be. A pillow’s thickness, or "loft," comes down to the amount of filling inside—and the right loft will support your neck and keep your spine aligned as you sleep. While there’s no one-size-fits-all rule, you’ll know you’ve found the correct loft when your neck is in a neutral position. That means the neck and spine are horizontal, with shoulders and hips stacked for side sleepers, and for back sleepers, the shoulders aligned with the hips and the neck with the spine, says Nimira Alibhoy, DC, a chiropractor in Agoura Hills, Calif.
Pillow lovers, take note: A decorative stack is fine during the day, but sleep experts agree that you should use a single pillow at night. If you have more than one, you may be cranking your neck upward all night, and that won’t be helpful, Alibhoy says. And never sleep with your shoulders on the pillow. "If you’re on your back, pull the ends, or ’wings,’ of the pillow out from below the shoulders," she says. "If you’re on your side, make sure it’s tucked under the neck." With this in mind, choose a sleeping pillow with the right thickness for your sleep style. Firmness, determined by the type and density of the filling inside, is important, too.
Our latest batch of testing included 14 new models. Four of the models were adjustable, reflecting a trend in the market to give sleepers more options when choosing the firmness, support, and comfort of their pillow. Ten of the newly tested models performed well enough in our evaluation to be recommended.
If it’s time for you to upgrade, read on for a closer look at the top five pillows from our tests. Some are adjustable, meaning you can remove some of the filling to your liking. Our pillows buying guide can help you decide what you need. And for more options, check out our pillow ratings to see how a full slate of pillows performs in each of CR’s extensive tests.
The Plank by Brooklyn Bedding Premium Shredded Foam pillow impressed evaluators with every test, besting the Coop (below) that held the number one spot in our ratings for years. It offers top-tier support for both back and side sleepers, which, along with its firmness and height, is expected to remain unchanged with use. Because it excels in our breathability assessment and has cooling properties, sleepers can expect a comfortable surface that helps regulate their body temperature throughout the night. This newcomer to our ratings is adjustable, so you can remove, add, and reposition the filling to fit your needs. "Small and large side sleepers may want to try removing about a quarter of the filling for optimal support," says Chris Regan, the CR engineer who oversees pillow testing. Back sleepers may want to remove about half of the filling."
The Coop Sleep Goods Premium Adjustable Loft pillow is made of shredded memory foam and excels in our tests for support, no matter your size or sleep position. It’s quite versatile, too. The pillow comes with extra foam, so you can adjust the filling to your liking. It also keeps its shape well, showing little or no change in height or fluffiness in our resilience tests. Our panel of testers was also impressed by its look and feel. The only area where this pillow falls a bit short is in how well it allows air to circulate. It sleeps slightly warm.
The Sleep Number ComfortFit Ultimate is made of a blend of memory foam pieces and down alternative fibers. Inside the pillow casing are three layers that can be added or removed to tailor the pillow’s comfort to your individual needs. It earns top support ratings for both side and back sleepers, and our testers find it to be very breathable. It’s not as resilient as other options on this list, though, and might not hold its shape over time.
The PureLUX Simply Cool Memory Foam pillow is a dream for those who sleep on their side and almost as dreamy for back sleepers. It offers optimal support for the neck and spine in a highly resilient and breathable package. Made of gel memory foam, this pillow does not retain heat and has cooling properties that will help maintain an ideal body temperature for rest. Because this is a slab-style memory foam pillow, as opposed to shredded memory foam, only the cover should be machine-washed. The core should only be spot-cleaned.
Purple mattresses have made their mark on the sleep industry with their "GelFlex Grid" technology. Today, you can get that same pressure-relieving and contouring comfort with Purple’s DreamLayer pillow. This adjustable fill pick is designed with a urethane foam pad, with gel, and it has two removable layers. While side sleepers may like this pillow more than back sleepers, smaller sleepers will want to try it without the extra layers first, Regan says. Larger sleepers should try adding one of the additional layers. This highly breathable pillow offers cooling properties and a washable cover. It doesn’t retain warmth, either.
How to Care for Your Pillows
Pillows require a bit of maintenance to be kept in good shape. Be sure you know how to wash your pillow. And if you have asthma or a dust mite allergy, consider adding a pillow protector. Regardless of how well you take care of your pillows, they do need to be replaced regularly, particularly if you have allergies. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recommends replacing pillows every two years. Indoor allergens, such as dust mites, thrive in places that trap moisture, and that includes bedding. For more information about pillows, consult our pillow buying guide, where we cover additional factors to consider as you shop.
How CR Tests Pillows
Consumer Reports currently rates more than five dozen pillows from widely available brands, each poked, prodded, and pounded by machines in the lab. We assess how well each one supports the head and neck of people of various sizes—petite, average, and large/tall—whether they sleep on their side or their back. And we use a pressure mat to analyze about 1,600 pressure points, focusing on the contact area between the head and the pillow.
We also evaluate how well pillows hold their shape by placing an evenly distributed 225-pound weight on each one (to simulate the human body) in a room set to 98.6° F (to mimic body heat) for 96 hours. “Some pillows will show considerable changes, but fluffing will bring the pillow back to the exact characteristics it had prior to the test,” says Regan. “Some aren’t able to bounce back.” That’s reflected in a lower resilience score.
