The best places to buy comforters aren't necessarily specialist sleep stores. If you know where to look, you can find down and down alternative options in a range of warmths and weights to suit every season and sleeper.
As the resident Sleep Editor at Homes & Gardens, I know all the best places to buy bedding. I've scoured the sites of major home retailers and combed through our back catalog of reviews to bring you my edit of the best places to buy comforters.
Below, you'll find some of the best duvet inserts on the market, tried and tested by a member of my expert team. Where we haven't been able to get our hands on a comforter, we've scoured the specifications and read countless customer reviews to make sure we're recommending quality.
Best places to buy comforters – at a glance
- Woolroom: for natural thermoregulation
- Brooklinen: for breadth of choice and depth of discount
- Buffy: for hot sleepers and vegan shoppers
- Boll & Branch: for ethically sourced down
- The Company Store: for cute, colorful options
- Amazon: for budget-friendly bedding
1. Woolroom
I first sampled wool bedding on the Woolroom Sleep Retreat. As a hot sleeper, I need the best cooling comforter to regulate my temperature. I wondered whether Woolroom would be up to the challenge, but I needn't have worried.
Wool is one of nature's great thermoregulators, and it's especially well suited for anyone who suffers from night sweats. According to the Woolroom Clean Sleep Report 2024, wool can hold up to one third of its weight in water (or sweat), keeping your bed and your body cool and dry. If you suffer from hot flashes, or you live in a particularly warm climate, I suggest you take a chance on wool.
Woolroom comforters come in three weights to suit a range of sleep styles. I recommend Light for hot sleepers; Warm for cold sleepers; and Medium for everybody in between.
This is the entry-level comforter at Woolroom. The wool inside isn't organic, but it is thermoregulating and hypoallergenic to soothe sensitive skin.
'This medium-weight comforter seems to be the perfect warmth,' says one recent shopper. 'I keep my room around 65 at night, all year round. I use this comforter with a sheet and can't complain at all: I find it very comfortable.'
Filled with organic wool, which you can trace to the exact farm and flock, this is the comforter of choice for hot sleepers and eco-conscious shoppers.
2. Brooklinen
Brooklinen products populate our bedding buying guides. From light and fluffy down duvet inserts to thermoregulating down alternatives, you'll find something to suit every sort of sleeper at Brooklinen.
Much like Woolroom, Brooklinen offers multiple weights and warmth levels for their comforters. You can choose between Lightweight, All-Season, and Ultra-Warm as suits you.
Fitted with corner loops for easy attachment to duvet covers, these comforters double as duvet inserts, so you get more for your money. Brooklinen always seems to be running bedding sales, so it's worth shopping around the site to find the best price.
Budget bedding brands fill their down comforters with feathers, whose sharp filaments can poke through the fabric shell and scratch your skin. By contrast, Brooklinen uses only light and fluffy down clusters.
Compared to real down, which is designed to trap air and create natural loft, down alternative blends can look a little thin and flat. With that said, down alternative is a safer bet for vegan shoppers and anyone allergic to feathers.
'I'll be honest, it took two to three weeks to adjust to the weight of this blanket,' reads one recent review. 'Now, I don't ever want to be without it. My anxiety has leveled out, and I fully believe it's the 3 weeks of using the blanket. I'm buying another to take on trips.'
3. Buffy
Wool and down comforters are classics for a reason, but they aren't for everyone. If you prefer to purchase vegan products, you'll need to explore down alternative options.
I suggest you start your search at Buffy. Out of all the down alternative comforters I've tried, the Buffy Cloud Comforter comes closest to the look and feel of real down, with enviable loft to form a beautiful bedspread.
Where most of the comforters you'll find online are only available in white and cream, Buffy comforters come in a wide range of bright shades to complement any color palette: think Cherry Petal, Almond Milk, and Porcelain Blue.
I started sleeping on the Buffy Cloud Comforter this time last year. Naturally lightweight, it's more suitable for summer nights than winter weather, but I can't fault the silky-smooth feel of the lyocell shell.
According to the Buffy website, the Breeze Comforter was designed as 'sensory-friendly bedding': silky-smooth against your skin, without any coarse patches, and cool to the touch to regulate your temperature.
If you're moving house or looking to replace worn-out bed linen, you might consider a Buffy bedding bundle. This set contains a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, a duvet cover, two pillows with matching cases, and the best-selling Cloud Comforter.
4. Boll & Branch
Compared to some of the other sleep stores on this list, Boll & Branch is more expensive. Primarily, that's because Boll & Branch works with real down, ethically sourced, and forgoes synthetic fabrics in favor of cotton blends.
Some down alternative blends come close, but nothing can quite replicate the look and feel of authentic down, and Boll & Branch uses the best in the business to produce their comforters and duvet inserts.
Boll & Branch down is certified by the International Down Standard, which aims to uphold ethical production practices from farm to factory. Specific requirements include no live-plucking, no force-feeding, and traceability, so you can trace your down back to the farm and flock of origin.
This is our long-reigning champion for the title of 'best duvet insert'. Available in Lightweight, Midweight, and Ultra-Warm, this piece tends to run a little warm, so I'd only go for Ultra-Warm if you live in a cold climate year-round.
Boll & Branch does dabble in down alternative, so there are options for hot sleepers and vegan shoppers, but I don't think it looks or feels as premium as the real deal.
Kickstart your bedding collection with a duvet insert and two pillow inserts from Boll & Branch. Choose between Down and Down Alternative in Lightweight, Midweight, or Ultraweight, and any size from Twin to California King.
5. The Company Store
The Company Store is the place to shop for comforters in colors, prints, and patterns. Where Buffy offers a limited range of bold hues, The Company Store keeps it classy with muted shades, such as Thyme Green and Feather Tan. You'll also see floral prints and retro ginghams to make a statement against the best white bed sheets.
In terms of price, The Company Store is comfortably middle-of-the-pack: a cut above Buffy and Amazon, but less expensive than Boll & Branch, Brooklinen, and the like.
'I live in North Texas, so I'm no stranger to hot nights,' says expert tester Alex Temblador. 'And because my house is 104 years old, it's not the best in terms of insulation. You can see why a lightweight comforter is a necessary part of my sleep routine. The LaCrosse Premium Down Comforter is my ideal fit.'
To experiment with prints and patterns, explore The Company Store collaborations with Rifle Paper Co. If you like the look, you can shop the matching sheet sets and shams.
'Great size and great quality,' reads one recent review. It is a little warmer than I was anticipating, but still manageable. If you have a small washer, you will struggle to get it through a cycle. For the dryer – just hang dry. Since it is so fluffy, the inside will never dry unless you keep rotating it for hours.'
6. Amazon
Amazon is one of the best places to buy affordable bedding, but you'll find a lot of second-rate, synthetic sets, too. If you want to find a quality comforter at Amazon, you'll need to make the most of their search filters: screen for fill material, including 'cotton', 'down', and 'polyester', and cover material, including 'cotton' and 'acrylic'.
One of the best things about shopping for bedding at Amazon is the wealth of customer reviews. My advice: try not to be taken in by the first few five-star reviews, but equally, don't be put off by the odd mixed rating. You want to read a wide range of reviews to get the fullest possible picture of what it might be like to sleep with this comforter.
This is the number-one best-rated comforter on Amazon, with a 4.7 average star rating from more than 27,000 verified reviews. Most shoppers agree it's the best warm comforter for buyers on a budget.
'It's been a long time since I've purchased real down in a comforter, but I have to admit, this Martha comforter is well worth it,' reads the most recent review. 'It fluffs up immediately into a substantial height, plenty of loft, but not too heavy.'
'My current comfort was finally wearing out, so I ordered a few different ones ranging in price (up to $150) to see which one I liked best. The Serta comforter was the nicest and least expensive of the group. The fill is soft and not crinkly like some cheap comforters.'
FAQs
What kind of comforter do hotels use?
Most high-end hotels use down comforters, filled with fluffy clusters taken from ducks and geese. Down is naturally thermoregulating, so it's suitable for all seasons and climates, and it's designed to hold air, which creates that attractive, lofty look.
Your hotel comforter will likely feature baffle box stitching: small boxes between the top and bottom layer of the insert, which keeps the down evenly distributed throughout the comforter. That's how housekeepers avoid lumps, bumps, and cold patches in your hotel bedspread.
If you've always wanted to know, 'which bedding do luxury hotels use?', then you'll enjoy our expert explainer.
Is a comforter the same as a duvet?
No. The difference between a comforter and a duvet is that a duvet comprises two separable pieces, an insert and a cover, where a comforter is one integrated piece, with the insert sewn inside a fabric shell.
If you're struggling to choose between the two, you're in luck: I've weighed up the pros and cons of duvet vs comforter for different styles of sleepers.
Once you've bought one of the best comforters, it's important to take good care of it. It's worth learning how to wash a comforter at home for hygienic sleep.
