Manduka eKO vs Gaiam Classic Print: Which One Should You Buy?

The Manduka eKO placed second out of nineteen mats in OutdoorGearLab’s test, at 87 out of 100, behind only the Manduka PRO. It is 5 mm of natural rubber, 26 inches wide, and it earned the only perfect dry grip score in the group.

The Gaiam Classic Print is a $24.98 printed PVC mat that weighs 2.1 pounds and has been most people’s first yoga mat for two decades.

The eKO is a much better mat and it has one problem the Gaiam does not: it weighs 7 pounds.

GearLab rated the eKO 10 out of 10 for dry grip, the only mat in the test to take full marks, and 9 out of 10 for grip overall. No break in period, no slick factory finish to wear through. Unroll it and it holds.

The qualifier is moisture. The eKO is closed-cell, so sweat sits on the surface rather than soaking in, and GearLab put more slippery when wet in its cons. It is superb in a normal room and merely fine once you are dripping.

The Gaiam’s sticky PVC is decent dry and poor damp, which is the same shape of behavior at a much lower level. If grip is why you are reading this, the gap is not subtle.

Manduka lists the eKO at 7 pounds and GearLab measured 6.3. Either way it is more than three times the Gaiam’s 2.1, and weight is the main thing that kept the eKO off the top of that test.

Ten minutes on a shoulder is fine. A twenty minute walk plus a subway ride, four days a week, is a different experience, and it is the reason plenty of eKO owners end up with a second lighter mat.

Manduka’s own answer is the eKO Lite, which is 4 mm and 5 pounds and gives up a little cushion for a mat you will actually bring with you. If your mat never leaves one room, ignore this section entirely.

The eKO is 5 mm of dense rubber and 26 inches wide; the Gaiam is 4 mm and 24. GearLab scored the eKO 9 out of 10 for comfort and support and called it good on hard and soft ground alike.

The extra two inches of width is easy to underrate until you have it and your hands stop hanging off the edge in a wide down dog. The extra millimeter of dense rubber is worth more than a millimeter of foam, because it does not compress away over the first year.

A new eKO smells of rubber, sometimes strongly, and it can take a week or two of use and fresh air to fade. This surprises people who have only owned PVC mats. It is normal for natural rubber and it is not a fault, but it is real, and in a small apartment it is worth unrolling the mat somewhere ventilated for a few days first.

The Gaiam has a mild plastic smell that clears within a couple of days. If smells are a genuine problem for you, that is a point in the cheap mat’s favor and one of the few it has here.

The eKO outlasts the Gaiam by years, which is not what the coverage suggests: Manduka gives the eKO a 30 day return window and no warranty at all, while Gaiam advertises a lifetime guarantee on the Classic Print. The warranty terms line up poorly with how the materials actually wear.

Rubber does need a bit of respect. Keep the eKO out of direct sun and hot cars, which degrade it, and roll it rather than folding it, since GearLab noted it creases easily. The Gaiam tolerates all of this and simply flattens under your hands and heels instead, which is the thing that ends its life.

The eKO is tapped tree rubber, so a genuine latex allergy rules it out completely. The Gaiam Classic Print is latex-free PVC and is the safe option.

If that is you and you still want Manduka build quality, the answer is their PVC line rather than their rubber one. The PROlite is the closest equivalent, with a lifetime guarantee and no rubber anywhere in it.

List is $114 against $24.98, and both move. Check the current eKO price at Amazon and the current Classic Print price at Amazon. Manduka discounts retiring colorways on its own site regularly, so it is worth checking both before you buy.

The eKO also comes in a 79″ Long for taller practitioners. The Classic Print is sold in one size.

Buy the Gaiam Classic Print if you are new and finding out whether this sticks, if you carry your mat every day, or if latex is a problem. It grips well enough for a gentle practice and it costs almost nothing.

Buy the Manduka eKO if the mat mostly stays put and you want one of the best surfaces available in a mainstream mat. The grip is the upgrade you notice on day one, the width is the one you notice in month two, and the weight is the thing to think hard about before you order.