Camping hammocks
Hammock listings are unusually generous with numbers and unusually vague about what those numbers describe. This guide reads the cut sizes, the stated loads and the suspension supplied, and says which figures cover the whole kit and which cover only the fabric.
A hammock is the cheapest way to sleep off the ground and the easiest to buy badly, because the object in the photograph is only about a third of what you need.
The fabric is the part that is well described. Cut length, cut width, a thread count, a stated load: hammock listings publish all four more consistently than tent listings publish a floor size. What is thinner is everything that turns the fabric into a night’s sleep.
Length decides the lie. In a gathered-end hammock you sleep diagonally, and the diagonal you can reach comes from the length of the fabric, not from the width.
The COVACURE and the UPhitnis both state 290 cm. The NatureFun and the Monkey Swing both state 275 cm, the SkrekuiMa 270 cm and the XUNIVERS 260 cm. All of them state 140 cm of width. The NORDMUT states neither, which is the one real gap in an otherwise well-specified listing, and it is why that hammock suits somebody who will find the fit on the first night rather than plan around it.
If you are over about 180 cm, read the length before anything else on the page.
Every hammock here publishes a load figure and they range widely: 350 kg on the COVACURE, 300 kg on the NatureFun, the Monkey Swing and the SkrekuiMa, 225 kg on the NORDMUT, 200 kg on the XUNIVERS. The UPhitnis publishes 300 kg in its description and 600 lb in its title, and the two do not agree.
Two of these attribute the figure rather than simply asserting it: the NatureFun states 300 kg attributed to TÜV testing, and the ANYOO cotton hammock elsewhere on this site attributes its own 300 kg to a TÜV report.
Whatever the number, it describes the hammock and its webbing. It is not a statement about the tree, the branch, the post or the wall bracket, and no product listing can make one. That part of the decision happens at the pitch and belongs to whoever is hanging it.
This is where the listings separate, and it is the section worth reading twice.
The Monkey Swing publishes the most detailed suspension on this page: two tree straps, each 2.5 cm wide with eleven openings, and solid steel carabiners. Strap width matters to the bark; the number of openings matters to how finely you can set the hang.
The COVACURE supplies two aluminium carabiners, two tree straps with five-plus-one loops, and — unusually — two aluminium pegs and two guy cords for the net. The SkrekuiMa supplies two straps of 2 m each with five loops and two D-shaped carabiners. The NatureFun supplies two 2 m straps and two iron carabiners, and states that anchors six metres apart can be spanned, which is the most directly useful sentence any of these listings prints.
The UPhitnis supplies two looped tree straps of 2 m each and does not say whether carabiners are included. The NORDMUT states tree-friendly nylon straps and aluminium carabiners with no length, width or loop count.
Suspension is heavy, so a hammock weight that excludes it is not a carrying weight.
The NatureFun states 580 g and states that the figure includes the two carabiners and the two straps. The SkrekuiMa states 580 g on the same basis. The XUNIVERS states about 0.9 kg including its two iron carabiners and its loops.
The others publish a bare number. The Monkey Swing states about 700 g without saying what is counted, the NORDMUT 790 g on the same terms, the UPhitnis 800 g. A 580 g complete kit and an 800 g fabric-only figure are not two points on the same scale.
The NORDMUT states 10 x 15 cm, the NatureFun 18 x 13 cm, the UPhitnis approximately 23 x 30 cm and the COVACURE 24 x 19 x 10 cm folded. The Monkey Swing, the SkrekuiMa and the XUNIVERS publish none, which on a piece of kit chosen for how little space it takes is an odd omission to find repeatedly.
An integrated net turns a three-season hammock into a summer one and adds fabric you cannot remove.
The COVACURE states an integrated net. The UPhitnis states an integrated mosquito net closed by a side zip and states that it cannot be dismantled. The XUNIVERS states the same arrangement and the same limitation. The SkrekuiMa describes no net at all, which for a hammock used in cool weather or under a bug-free canopy is a saving rather than a lack.
Decide this one deliberately. A net that does not come off is fabric carried in every season.
None of these hammocks has one. A gathered-end hammock sheds nothing, and a night of rain without a tarp is a night in a bathtub.
The AMAZONAS tarp is cut for the job: 3.40 x 2.80 m, packing to 25 x 10 cm, supplied with a colour-matched fabric bag and nothing else — no guylines, no pegs, no poles. Its own listing publishes two answers to two questions, and both are worth knowing before ordering: the title says ripstop nylon while the description says 100 per cent polyester ripstop at 210T with a PUR coating, and the title says 0.8 kg while the description gives 650 g as the own weight. Neither pair is reconciled on the page.
That is a listing to buy on its cut size and its packed size, which are stated once each, and to treat its fabric and its mass as open questions.
Not one hammock listed here publishes a ridgeline length. The ridgeline is what fixes the sag, and the sag is what decides whether you lie flat or fold in half. It is also the easiest thing to add afterwards: a length of cord between the two ends, set once, and the hammock hangs the same way every night regardless of how far apart the trees are.
Read the cut length, read what the weight includes, read what is in the bag, and plan for a tarp. Those four decisions cover almost everything a hammock listing does not.
Gathered-end hammock · 275 × 140 cm · 210T parachute nylon · 300 kg stated, attributed to TÜV · 580 g including straps and carabiners · 18 × 13 cm packed
The most completely published hammock here: length, width, a load figure with a named testing body, and a 580 g weight the maker states includes the suspension.
Best for: A first hammock bought on published figures, where the complete-kit weight is the number being compared.
≈ $15 / 19 €
Gathered-end hammock with bug net · 290 × 140 cm stated · 210T parachute nylon · 350 kg stated · packs to 24 × 19 × 10 cm
The joint-longest body in this hub and the highest stated load, sold complete with net, straps, carabiners and spreader pegs — and with no weight published anywhere in the listing.
Best for: Summer nights among trees where the net matters, and where the pack has room for a set that publishes its folded size but not its mass.
≈ 27 €
Gathered-end hammock · 275 × 140 cm · parachute silk, no denier · 300 kg stated · 700 g stated · two 2.5 cm straps with 11 eyelets and steel carabiners
A hammock that publishes the width of its tree straps and the number of eyelets in them, and gives one 700 g figure without saying whether that hardware is inside it.
Best for: A two-person sit or a solo pitch where wide, well-described tree straps are the priority.
≈ £30 / 24 €
Gathered-end hammock · 270 × 140 cm stated · 210T parachute nylon · 300 kg stated · 580 g including straps and carabiners
The only hammock in this hub whose published weight is stated to include the straps and the carabiners, which is the figure you actually carry rather than the one that flatters the listing.
Best for: A first hammock where the carried weight has to be known before it arrives, rather than worked out after the straps are added.
≈ 18 €
Gathered-end hammock · 290 × 140 cm · 210T nylon · 300 kg in the text, 600 lb in the title · 800 g stated · 23 × 30 cm packed · integrated bug net
The most fully specified netted hammock here, and the one whose title and description give two different load figures that do not agree.
Best for: A summer trip where a long netted body and a published packed size decide the choice.
≈ 27 €
Gathered-end hammock · 210T parachute nylon · 225 kg stated · 790 g stated · 10 × 15 cm packed · tree-friendly straps and aluminium carabiners · no dimensions
A hammock that publishes the smallest packed size in this hub and never publishes a length or a width — the two figures a hammock is actually chosen on.
Best for: A pack where the packed size is the binding constraint and the fit will be found on the first night.
≈ £35 / 30 €
Hammock tarp · 3.40 × 2.80 m · title says ripstop nylon, description says 210T polyester · 0.8 kg in the title, 650 g in the text · 25 × 10 cm packed · bag only
A hammock tarp that contradicts itself twice on the same page — nylon or polyester, 0.8 kg or 650 g — while publishing the smallest packed size in this hub.
Best for: A hammock that needs a roof, where the packed size is the constraint and the contradictions are read first.
≈ 56 €
The hammock and its webbing, as the maker publishes it. It says nothing about the tree, the branch, the post or the anchor you hang it from, and those are the parts that are not on any specification sheet. Treat the number as a description of the product, not of your pitch.
Sometimes, and the listing has to say so. The NatureFun states 580 g including the two carabiners and the two straps, and the SkrekuiMa states the same. The Monkey Swing states about 700 g and does not say. The NORDMUT states 790 g and does not say.
None of them. A ridgeline sets the hang angle and therefore the flatness of the lie, and it is the single figure this whole family leaves out. It can be added afterwards with cord.
If there is any chance of rain, yes — a gathered-end hammock has no roof of its own. The AMAZONAS tarp is cut for the job at 3.40 x 2.80 m and packs to 25 x 10 cm, though its own listing publishes two different weights and two different fabrics.
Prices in these summaries were read on the dates each review gives. The live figure sits beside every product.
This is a summer category: demand for tents, sleeping bags and stoves is at its lowest in November and at its highest in July and August, and a price crossed out in the middle of that swing tells you nothing on its own. UniverTrack records what each retailer has actually been charging, so a reduction is measured against the price that really held rather than against one that never did, and alerts you when it is genuinely the moment to buy.
