The 6 Best Foam Rollers of 2025

The following is not a comprehensive list of every foam roller we’ve tested. Here we review those that are still available.

Smooth rollers

The LuxFit Foam Roller (High Density) — available in 12-, 17.5-, and 36-inch lengths — has the same slightly textured surface and density as our top pick. Somehow, though, the roller’s material felt a bit pocked.

Like our top pick, the Yes4All High Density Foam Roller is available in various sizes, from 12 to 36 inches long, and it’s shaped like a traditional cylindrical foam roller. It claims to support 300 pounds of body weight. It felt slightly harder than the Amazon Basics roller we recommend.

Textured rollers

The 321Strong Foam Roller (Medium Density Deep Tissue) and the Original Body Roller — both 12.5 inches long and 5.25 inches in diameter — turned out to be nearly identical, with the same textured pattern. The Original Body Roller is too light and slipped out from under us several times while rolling. The 321Strong roller had a distinct chemical smell out of its plastic that dissipated only after several weeks. We felt its deeper texture when rolling, but it was tricky to control when we tried to target areas like the calves precisely.

The dual-textured Gaiam Restore Deep Tissue Foam Roller is made of smooth, dense foam. But it feels cheaply made. We also spotted a few buyer reviews on the Gaiam website complaining of internal cracking or seams coming apart.

The Lululemon Double Roller has wavy grooves on its exterior (intended for arm and leg massaging), plus an interior roller that’s meant to target the back. When fully intact, it measures 20 inches long. We liked that it was a 2-in-1 roller that can provide both deep SMR and a softer, cushiony roll. It’s a decent option for a longer textured roller, but we found the interior roller didn’t give us enough stabilization when rolling. Some of our paid testers also noticed their clothes sometimes got stuck on the wavy design. Ostop generally advises to not wear baggy clothing when you’re foam rolling. “It’s more likely to get little folds in the fabric, which won’t feel good when you’re rolling over them,” Ostop said. “Tighter clothing is better or bare skin.”

With its aggressive-looking studs, the RumbleRoller Full-Size Original can look awesome or awful, depending on your deep-tissue needs. Either way, our experts cautioned that this isn’t the roller for people who are new to SMR — and indeed, it’s better for sustained trigger-point work over rolling.

Smooth and dense, with a texture that looks like elongated bubbles, the 26-inch Teeter Massage Foam Roller (Less Firm) isn’t wholly unpleasant, and we liked the longer length (though it’s still 10 inches shorter than many of our favorites). But we found it slippery and bumpy to roll on, and it had two pronounced seams that were fairly sharp.

The assertive looking knobs on the 26-inch Teeter Massage Foam Roller (More Firm) are intense and, for most people, would be too much for rolling. Like the RumbleRoller, this one is more suited for lingering trigger-point release.

Measuring 14 inches long, the TRX Rev Roller is covered in dozens of round trigger points that deliver an extreme rolling experience. On our hamstrings and back, we found it created a hard but satisfying roll, but it was too painful on other body parts, particularly the neck and glutes.

Handheld foam rollers

The Idson Muscle Roller Stick for Athletes consists of nine dimpled, hard-plastic segments that are noticeably harder than the foam-covered roller of our favorite handheld SMR tool. The dimples provide a bit of added texture, but we didn’t notice a significant difference in intensity or the ability to finesse the amount of pressure applied.

The Pro-Tec Athletics RM Extreme Contoured Roller Massager is similar to the Tiger Tail, but its foam covering is segmented, with the ability to slide the segments together or keep them apart. Unfortunately, our pros found them largely ineffective in terms of changing the depth of the massage the roller provides — and given that the Pro-Tec roller is a handheld with the obvious limiting factor of arm strength, it doesn’t bring much new to the table.

Travel foam rollers

The Brazyn Life Morph Collapsible Foam Roller has a smart design: The roller collapses flat so it can be tucked into its mesh bag for travel or storage; loops on either end of the roller are pulled firmly to bring the roller back to its cylindrical shape. The mechanism held up over repeated pulls and deflates. Compared with our favorites, though, the roller felt hard and rolled clunkily. We took it on the road on a few occasions, and it was nice to have something to roll with, but it never won us over.

Like its sibling, the Gaiam Restore Deep Tissue Foam Roller, the collapsible Gaiam Restore Foam Roller (currently unavailable) didn’t feel great. Cleverly designed, it slides apart into two portable, packable sections. But it’s hard and bumpy to roll on, and a corner of the foam began to pull away from the body soon after we tried it.

Vibrating foam rollers

We dismissed the Homedics Gladiator Vibration Foam Roller without testing because while most vibrating foam rollers are rechargeable, this one runs on four C batteries, which — with frequent use and replacement — would quickly add to its otherwise lower cost.

The 13-inch Hyperice Vyper 2.0 was the most powerful (and the loudest) foam roller we tested. We haven’t tested the Vyper 3.0.

The 12-inch Therabody Wave Roller is sleek and smooth with an upscale feel, all the way down to its cloth storage bag. Its five vibration settings range from soothing and gentle (levels one through three) to serious vibration (levels four and five). Like many of the vibrating rollers we’ve tried, it does emit a loud hum at top speed — particularly when it’s vibrating on the floor (we moved to a yoga mat to help dampen the noise). That said, it feels nice to use for short periods of time.

The VulkRoll Vibrating Foam Roller’s 17-inch length was enough for Amy to roll two legs at once (though it’s still shorter and more expensive than our top pick). Unlike the other powered rollers we tested, this one has an undulating setting, which we found soothing for sore muscles, especially along the calves.

This article was edited by Tracy Vence and Kalee Thompson.