The Best Folding Chairs | Reviews by Wirecutter
Any folding chair can provide you with extra seating that’s easy to store, but few are durable and comfortable enough to use for prolonged periods of time. After considering dozens of chairs and reading their reviews, we narrowed our search to chairs using the following criteria:
Comfort: Folding chairs are notoriously uncomfortable, so we searched, above all else, for chairs that looked like they’d be tolerable to sit on for a decent amount of time. Materials and design (including seat size and shape) both play a part in how comfortable a chair is. We had a slight preference for wider chairs with flexible, forgiving backs and good ventilation.
Materials and durability: We considered chairs made from wood, steel, and plastic but overall preferred those made from polypropylene or any other flexible plastic, which we found to be much more comfortable to sit in. Although it may seem that steel and hard plastics would be more durable, the polypropylene chairs we’ve been using for years have held up just as well.
Size: We considered chairs in a range of sizes, but we preferred those that folded compactly. Some contenders with thick plastic seats took up too much space when folded (not ideal for an item that will be in storage much of the time).
Price and quantity: We looked for chairs that, ideally, were sold individually and cost about $30 or less. Most chairs we tested met this criteria, but some were sold only in two- or four-packs.
With these guidelines in mind, we considered chairs sold at Home Depot, Amazon, Target, and IKEA that had positive reviews. Over the past years, we’ve looked at more than 15 chairs and tested the top six contenders. Our tests included repeatedly opening and closing the chairs, sitting on each one for an hour at a time, and generally trying to scuff them up.
