Manduka eKO Superlite vs Gaiam Premium 6mm: Which One Should You Buy?

The eKO Superlite is 1.5 mm of natural rubber that folds into a suitcase. The Gaiam Premium is 6 mm of PVC built to be somebody’s only mat. One costs $54, the other $29.98.

GearLab tested both in the same 2026 round of 19 mats, which is unusual for a pairing this mismatched and makes the tradeoff easy to state with numbers instead of adjectives.

That is not a typo and it is not unfair. A mat and a half millimetre thick puts almost nothing between your kneecap and the floor. Only the Jade Voyager matched it at the bottom of that column, and the Voyager is also a travel mat.

The Gaiam scored 6.5 for comfort and support at 6 mm. That is a middling number in a field where the Manduka PRO takes a 10, but it is four and a half points of real padding over the Superlite.

Overall the Superlite came out at 54 out of 100 and the Gaiam at 62 with a Best Buy award. Most of that eight point gap is comfort, and comfort is weighted at 35 percent of GearLab’s score.

Natural rubber beats cheap PVC on traction and the test bears it out. GearLab measured the Superlite 7.5 dry and 5 wet; the Gaiam got 6 dry and 4 wet.

So the thin rubber mat is the grippier one in both conditions, by about a point and a half. Neither is a hot yoga mat, but if you are choosing between them for a sweaty room the Superlite is the less bad option, at the cost of every scrap of padding.

The Superlite is designed to be folded into quarters and stuffed into a carry-on. It creases and the creases show, then relax after an hour or so on the floor. That is the entire reason the mat exists.

Folding a 6 mm PVC mat is a bad idea. The Gaiam rolls, and rolled it is about the size of every other yoga mat, which is fine for a car or a studio cubby and hopeless for luggage.

The other job people buy the Superlite for is laying it over a studio’s shared mat, and 1.5 mm of grippy rubber is well suited to that. It does not work over carpet, where a mat this thin slides around on the pile and you would be better off with the Gaiam.

2.2 pounds against 3.3, and GearLab measured them at 2.3 and 3.3. Close enough that weight alone is not the argument; the packed size is.

The Superlite goes flat into a bag. The Gaiam does not go into a bag at all. If the mat is travelling by plane, that is the whole decision and none of the scores matter.

71″ against 68″, both at 24″ wide. Sixty eight inches is short and catches anyone much over five foot eight.

Manduka also sells a 79 inch Superlite for a few dollars more, which is the longest travel mat we know of. Gaiam has no long version of the Premium.

The Superlite is natural rubber, made in Taiwan, and it arrives smelling of it. That smell is the most common complaint in Manduka eKO reviews across the line and it fades over weeks rather than days. Rubber also rules the mat out if you have a latex allergy.

The Gaiam is PVC and latex-free. GearLab gave it 8 out of 10 for care and cleaning against the Superlite’s 7, and a damp cloth is all either needs. Neither mat carries a third-party certification.

Worth knowing if Manduka’s reputation is why you are looking: the lifetime guarantee applies to the PRO and PROlite lines, not to the eKO family. The Superlite gets none (30 day returns) and nothing after that.

Gaiam puts a lifetime guarantee on the Premium, which covers manufacturing defects rather than a finish worn smooth. The longer promise is on the cheaper mat here, and it is not doing as much work as it sounds like.

$54 against $29.98, so the thin one costs most of twice the thick one. Manduka runs several Superlite colorways lower than list at any given time, and there are around nineteen of them, so the spread is wide. Check the Superlite price and check the Gaiam price.

Paying more for less mat only makes sense if the folding is the feature you are buying. If it is, $54 is fair for it. If it is not, this is an expensive way to get a worse practice surface.

Buy the Gaiam Premium if this is going to be your only mat. Six millimetres, a test award, and half the price. The Superlite is not a mat you want to practice on four times a week.

Buy the eKO Superlite as a second mat for hotel rooms and holidays, where its 2 out of 10 for comfort is the price of fitting in a bag at all. Plenty of people own both, and that is the arrangement we would actually recommend.