A hammock listing normally publishes the weight of the fabric body alone, and the suspension is frequently the heavier half of what you carry. Compare complete assemblies or the comparison means nothing.
What goes on the scales
A hammock that is actually usable overnight is at least four things:
The hammock body itself, quoted in denier — 70D nylon ripstop is the common camping weight, 40D and below is the ultralight end — with a stated weight that is the number in the listing.
The suspension: tree straps with a stated width, plus whatever joins them to the hammock. Straps and carabiners are usually sold separately from the hammock and carry their own stated figures, and steel hardware is dramatically heavier than aluminium.
A bug net, integrated or zip-on, without which the summer months are not enjoyable.
A tarp, because a hammock has no roof, plus its guylines and pegs — and tarps are frequently listed without any of those.
Why the listed number is not the kit
None of the above is a criticism of hammock makers. A hammock body genuinely is a light object, and a listing that publishes its weight is publishing a true figure about the thing in the box.
The error is at the comparison stage, when a bare hammock weight is set against a solo tent’s packed weight — the figure counting pegs, guylines and stuff sack. That is not a like-for-like comparison, and the conclusion it produces is wrong by a wide margin.
Do the arithmetic explicitly
Take each published figure separately, in the maker’s own units, and add them up on paper: body, straps, carabiners, net if separate, tarp, guylines, pegs. Where a component’s weight is not published, that is a gap in the total and worth recording as a gap rather than filling with an estimate.
Compare that sum against the tent’s packed weight, and against the tarp-and-bivy total, and the three usually land closer together than the headline numbers suggest.
Where the hardware hides
Carabiners are the clearest example. Two steel screw-gate carabiners weigh a great deal more than two aluminium ones, and a listing that supplies steel is not doing anything wrong — steel is cheaper and takes abuse — but the difference lands entirely in your pack. Where a maker publishes the material and the stated weight for the pair, it is worth reading before assuming they are a rounding error.
Strap width is the other one. Wider webbing spreads load across bark, which is what many sites and landowners ask for, and wider webbing weighs more per metre. Length matters in the same way: straps long enough to go round a substantial trunk are longer, and therefore heavier, than the minimum set.
Packed size behaves differently
A hammock system has no poles, and that is its real advantage over a tent: nothing in the bag sets a minimum packed length. A hammock and its suspension compress into an awkward but soft bundle that fills gaps in a pack, whereas a tent’s pole set is a rigid object of a fixed length.
If you are packing around a specific rucksack, that shape difference sometimes matters more than the grams.
What to check on the listing
The stated weight and what it includes, whether suspension is supplied, the strap width and material, the carabiner material, whether the bug net is integrated, and the length and width of the hammock itself — because a gathered-end hammock is slept in diagonally and needs roughly two feet of fabric beyond your height before that flat lie is available at all. A light hammock you cannot lie flat in is not a saving.
What people ask before buying
Are tree straps really that heavy?
They are webbing wide enough to spread load across bark, long enough to reach round a trunk, and there are two of them. Makers publish the stated weight for the set, and it is routinely a substantial fraction of what the hammock body weighs.
Does the bug net come with the hammock?
Sometimes integrated, sometimes a zip-on accessory, sometimes not offered at all. Read the listing rather than the photograph, because an integrated net is part of the published weight and a zip-on one is not.
Last reviewed 6 September 2026