Outdoor Footwear Leaderboard

Why you can trust these rankings

• Hands-on testing. Every score reflects real miles in real conditions, not a spec sheet.
• Independent. We buy our own gear. Brands have no say in what we publish or how we rank it.
• Consistent scoring. Every model is graded on the same criteria, so a 4.5 means the same thing for a sandal as for a backpacking boot.
• Always current. The table updates the moment we publish or revise a review.

Affiliate disclosure: we may earn a small commission if you buy through links on this page, at no extra cost to you. It never influences our rankings or scores. Prices and availability change by the day, so always confirm both with the retailer.

How we test

The same four steps for every pair, whether it is a budget summer sandal or a full leather mountaineering boot.

1. Buy it anonymouslyWe purchase every pair ourselves, so retailers and brands cannot influence the outcome.
2. Field-test on trailReal miles in real conditions: mud, rock, water, heat and cold.
3. Score 12 criteriaThe same rubric for every model, from comfort to grip to durability.
4. Rank and publishOnly then does a pair earn, or lose, its place on the leaderboard.

The 12 criteria behind every score

• Comfort & fit
• Traction & grip
• Support & stability
• Durability
• Breathability
• Weight
• Waterproofing
• Protection
• Cushioning
• Break-in time
• Sizing accuracy
• Value for money

Not every criterion carries the same weight in every category: waterproofing matters more on a winter boot than on a summer sandal, and weight matters more on a trail runner than on a backpacking boot. Our reviews are written and scored by experienced hikers, backpackers and trail runners who log hundreds of trail miles a year. The full method is in How We Test and Review Our Gear.

Our rating and the community rating

Every pair on the leaderboard can carry two scores. They are not competing versions of the truth; they answer different questions.

Why we ask for your vote

We test hard, but we test finite: weeks or months, on the terrain we can reach, on the feet we happen to have. You have what we do not — other foot shapes, other climates, other loads, and often years in a pair where we had a season.

Your vote does two things:

• It keeps us honest. Where our score and the community score line up, the verdict is settled. Where they drift apart, that gap is the most telling thing in the row — it usually points at sizing, at how a shoe holds up in year three, or at a use case we underweighted — and it tells us which pair to re-test and which review to update. We would rather learn that from a thousand hikers than from our own confirmation bias.
• It is a benchmark in its own right. Retail star averages are shaped by returns policies, review-request emails and the odd incentivised sample, and they lump one wet-garden wear in with a trip across the Alps. This column answers a straighter question: among people who actually hike in the footwear, what is the verdict? Editorial score and reader score, same scale, same page — we are not aware of anywhere else you can read both at once.

It is published exactly as it lands. If readers rate a shoe we love a full star lower, that stays on the page — and we go find out why.

How voting works

1. Find your pairClick Vote in the Community Rating column, on a pair you have actually hiked in.
2. Score it out of fivePick one to five stars and leave your email address. Nothing else is asked of you.
3. Confirm by emailClick the link we send. Only confirmed votes count, which is what keeps the column honest.
4. Change it laterWorn them for another season and changed your mind? Vote again and your new score replaces the old one.

What the community rating is not

• Not scraped from retailers. Every vote is cast here, by a reader, and confirmed by email before it counts.
• Not adjusted or curated by us. We publish the average exactly as it lands, including where it disagrees with our own score.
• Not open to brands. One confirmed vote per person per pair, and unconfirmed votes are deleted after 30 days.
• Not a replacement for the review. A 5.0 from three votes means less than a 4.3 from three hundred, which is why the vote count always sits next to the score.

Good to know

• Click a pair’s name to open our full hands-on review.
• An empty community cell means nobody has voted on that pair yet. You can be the first.
• A blank release year means we could not verify the date from a reliable source, so we left it out rather than guess.
• Nothing here is a paid placement. A pair only appears once we have bought it and tested it.

Footwear guides by need

The number one overall is not automatically the number one for you. These guides narrow the field to the pairs that suit your feet, your weather and your kind of walking.

New to outdoor footwear? Start with our Outdoor Footwear Guide. It explains every type of trail footwear, from trail runners to backpacking boots, and when each one makes sense. Read that first and the guides below get much easier to choose from.

The rest of the rulebook

Every number in the table above comes out of a documented process, and that process is published too.

Curious who “we” is? Meet the testers, writers and editors on our About page. If a score does not match your own experience of a pair, cast a vote, or tell us about it.