Lululemon The Mat vs Manduka eKO Superlite Long: Which One Should You Buy?

The Mat is Lululemon’s everyday mat: 5 mm, a polyurethane face over an FSC-certified rubber base, 5.2 pounds, $118. The eKO Superlite Long is Manduka’s packable travel mat: 1.5 mm of natural rubber that folds rather than rolls, 2.5 pounds, $58.

One oddity worth getting out of the way: the travel mat is the longer of the two, at 79 inches against 71. That is the whole point of the Long version, and it does not make it a substitute for a real mat.

This is the widest gap we have measured between two mats. GearLab scored The Mat’s comfort and support a perfect 10, level with the Manduka PRO at the top of a 19-mat field. It scored the eKO Superlite 2 out of 10, third from bottom, ahead of only mats built the same way.

That is not a criticism of the Superlite so much as a description of it. One and a half millimeters is a grip sheet. Kneeling on a hard floor is essentially unpadded, and the mat is designed on the assumption you will unroll it over carpet, a hotel rug, or a studio loaner mat you would rather not touch.

The Superlite’s textured natural rubber grips from the first practice with no break-in, which matters a great deal for a mat you might unroll once on a trip and not touch again for a month. GearLab measured it at 7.5 out of 10 dry and 5 wet, decent for something this thin.

The Mat absorbs sweat into its polyurethane coating and gets tackier as a class warms up, from a lower starting point: 6.5 dry and 4.5 wet. In a cool room the Superlite is arguably the more secure surface, which is a strange thing to be able to say about a travel mat.

Lululemon lists The Mat at 5.2 pounds and GearLab’s scale read 5.9. It rolls into a thick cylinder. You can carry it to a studio three blocks away; you would not want it strapped to a backpack through an airport.

The Superlite Long is 2.5 pounds and folds flat to roughly the footprint of a laptop sleeve, which is the only reason to own one. Fold creases show for the first few sessions and settle with use.

The Superlite Long is eight inches longer and two inches narrower: 79″ × 24″ against 71″ × 26″. Twenty-four inches is the older narrow standard and it shows in a wide stance.

Both have bigger siblings. The (Big) Mat is 84″ × 28″ at $128, and Manduka sells the standard 71 inch Superlite at $54. Nothing in the Superlite line goes wider than 24 inches.

The Superlite is tapped natural rubber made in Taiwan. It smells strongly for the first week or two, it is not safe with a latex allergy, and its argument is that it biodegrades at the end of its life rather than sitting in landfill. Being closed-cell, it wipes clean quickly, which is worth something on a hotel floor.

The Mat is rubber under a polyurethane coating, and GearLab scored its materials 7 out of 10. The coating is the part that grips and the part that wears: owners report it going patchy or flaking at the hands and feet after a year or two of daily practice.

Manduka gives the Superlite 30 days of returns and nothing after, which is its standard position on the rubber line. Thin rubber also wears faster than thick rubber, so expect a Superlite that travels monthly to thin at the contact points within a few years.

Lululemon’s Quality Promise has no stated term and is handled case by case. If a guarantee is part of what you want from a travel mat, neither of these has one, and the Manduka PRO Travel is the only packable mat we cover that does.

$118 against $58. Neither is on Amazon: Lululemon sells through its own site and stores and Manduka sells the Superlite Long through manduka.com. Ignore third-party prices on The Mat; several sites still quote it near $98 and the US list is $118.

The Superlite Long comes in charcoal, midnight, or leaf green at last count, while the 71 inch version runs to twenty colorways. The Mat offers 10 colorways at last count.

Buy The Mat if this is the mat you practice on. It is the more comfortable surface by the widest margin in GearLab’s scoring, it handles sweat better as a class goes on, and it is a genuine daily mat. Accept that the coating is a wear item and that one retailer sets the price.

Buy the eKO Superlite Long if you travel and you are tall. It grips without a break-in, folds into a bag, and costs $60 less, and it is not a substitute for a real mat on a hard floor. Our Superlite vs PRO Travel page compares it against the other packable option.