The Best Garden Hose for Your Tiny Patio or Giant Yard 

If you’re lucky enough to have outdoor space and plan to do any gardening in it, you’re going to need a hose at some point. But the best garden hose for you will be specific to your situation. It depends on a number of factors, including what you plan to use it for, how much space you have to store it, how long you want it to last, and—as I learned testing different types of hoses—how much hose wrangling you’re willing to do.

Heavy-duty hoses are generally the most durable, but they’re also cumbersome both when they are empty and full. A more flexible hose may not offer the same long-term durability, but it’s so much easier to manage, whether you’re watering your garden, trying to keep a sprinkler flat on the ground, or hooking it up to a pressure washer.

To find the best lightweight and heavy-duty garden hoses, I tested eight promising 50-foot hoses, ranging from fabric-covered expandable models to sturdier hoses made from commercial-grade rubber. Read on for my top picks. To see how I tested and what I looked for, scroll to the bottom.

I noticed the Fitt Force Pro pop up in hardware stores over the past few months and was intrigued by the idea of a “commercial grade” hose that expands and shrinks for easy storage. Most expandable hoses I’ve seen (yes, on TV) are enclosed in fabric. This one is made from abrasion-proof, puncture-proof “thermoplastic elastomer santoprene”—an elaborate term for a soft but durable rubber-like material.

Without gloves or tools, attaching the crush-proof aluminum couplings to my spigot was incredibly easy and disconnecting it was equally effortless. The box says this hose has a water flow rate of 450 PSI and once it was fully expanded to ⅝ inches (the standard garden hose diameter), the pressure seemed comparable to the heavy-duty hoses I tested. Other than its expandability, the Fit Force Pro’s main selling point is that it’s a breeze to use, even in cold weather. I walked all around my yard swirling it and trying really hard to get it to kink and only succeeded twice, but each time the lightest tug released the kink. I did find that it performed much better with a hose nozzle than without one, though that is true for most expandable hoses.

Empty, the Fitt Force Pro is as flat as a pancake and it stores very compactly (the box it came in is about the size of a basketball). It took little effort to reel in on my plastic hose reel, but it also comes with a little carry strap with reinforced handles (I used it to hang the hose on a hook in the garage). Because it feels so durable, I’d be comfortable leaving this hose outside too. Customer complaints I've read online mostly come from people who tried to use the hose while coiled or stored on a reel, but...that’s not how you’re supposed to use a hose, especially an expanding hose that shrinks flat.

There’s honestly nothing I didn’t like about this hose, and I’d be happy to have it as my only hose, even though I have a big yard and plenty of storage space for less compact options. Because it performs better with a sprayer nozzle, it would be nice if one were included, but there is a kit option on Amazon.

If you don’t need (or want) an expanding hose, but would rather not wrestle with a heavy-duty hose every time you water your vegetable garden, I recommend the bright green Flexzilla. It’s lightweight and flexible—even in cold temperatures. As promised, the hybrid polymer hosing material is highly resistant to kinks. I had to try really, really hard to get a full hose to kink at all, and releasing the kink was even easier (just a slight shake). Connecting the aluminum fitting to my spigot by hand was a breeze, too, and coiling the hose onto a plastic hose reel was super smooth.

This hose is so easy to maneuver though, because it’s not heavy-duty. For most homeowners, hobby gardeners, and outdoor plant enthusiasts, that’s a good thing, but reviewers have complained about the Flexzilla’s long-term durability. Those complaints don’t seem totally fair as there’s not a good reason to expect something that costs less than $50 to last a decade or longer—especially something that gets left out in the elements more often than it probably should. For those concerned with durability, it does come with a limited lifetime warranty covering manufacturer’s defects.

It would be nice to have color choices beyond neon green, but that’s certainly not a dealbreaker, especially given its functionality and accessible price point.

Most people don’t need a heavy-duty water hose for basic yard work and outdoor cleaning, and after testing several different types of hoses, I don’t ever want to use one again. That said, if you need the most durable hose you can get, we recommend the Continental Commercial Grade Rubber Hose. It’s unwieldy compared to the Flexzilla and Fitt Force Pro, but when it comes to hoses, bulk and heft are the price you pay for long-term durability. The Continental’s hosing is made from reinforced, abrasion-resistant rubber, which remained relatively flexible in cold weather, and the brass connector was fairly easy to attach to my spigot by hand while wearing a rubber work glove. (If I were attaching it for long-term use, I would have used pliers.)

The Continental has great water flow, but I was surprised to see the listed PSI is 400 (less than the Fitt Force Pro). Because it’s such a big heavy hose, a little kinking is inevitable, and I did need to use two hands, tug-of-war style, to release kinks, but it’s still much more kink-resistant than cheap vinyl hoses.

This hose is only available in black, and as I mentioned above, its heft feels like overkill for basic residential use. Like the other heavy-duty rubber garden hose we tested (the Dramm ColorStorm), it was too heavy to properly roll onto a plastic hose reel, and I had to use one hand to crank the reel while using the other to guide the hose so it wouldn’t get tangled up in the handle. If you end up choosing a heavy-duty hose, you’ll definitely need a sturdy reel because it’s also no fun to coil by hand.

Working one hose at a time, I unpacked and uncoiled each, connected it to the spigot on the outside of my house (first by hand and with locking pliers if needed), connected a spray nozzle to the end (the same one each time), and got to work turning my yard into a mud pit. While actively spraying, I walked as far as I could in every direction and back again, trying my hardest to tangle and kink each hose. In addition to spraying the ground, I sprayed down my brick patio, my wood deck, and my sons’ playset. To test the pressure, I grabbed my dog’s favorite rug, flung it over the fence, and started spraying it down using the “jet” setting on the nozzle gun. I disconnected each hose from the spigot (first by hand and with the pliers if necessary), then connected each to a plastic hose reel and attempted to reel it in for storage.

Once I’d decided on my top picks, I retested them on a chilly spring day (38º) so I was able to see how each performed in cold weather. I then tested the crush-resistant claims by stepping on the connectors, slamming them against a brick patio, and dropping a brick on each. No hose couplings were crushed in this testing, though they all got a little bit scratched up.

A lightweight hose is simply more pleasant—and convenient to use—so it will likely get used more often than a heavy-duty hose that’s hard to wrangle. I looked for garden hoses that were comfortable to hold, flexible enough to manage when full, and easily coiled for storage.

A hose that easily tangles or kinks makes yard work so much harder than it has to be. With that in mind, I wanted to see what it would take to get each hose to kink (and unkink) when in use and paid special attention to the hoses that were billed as kink-proof or kink-resistant.

Assuming that, like me, most people don’t want to get out a tool box just to connect their hose to a spigot, I looked for hoses that allowed for leak-free connections by hand—even if that meant a hand with a nonslip rubber glove on it.

I had no doubt the commercial-grade hoses would produce enough water pressure to spray dirt off of a sidewalk or playset when connected to a nozzle, and I wasn’t disappointed. I did, however, pay special attention to the pressure put out by the smaller and expanding hoses to ensure no water pressure would be sacrificed for other considerations. Though I didn’t have a method for measuring PSI (pounds per square inch of pressure), I found all of the hoses had adequate pressure for residential use.

Unless you’re into some serious landscaping, you probably don’t need the absolute toughest hose materials, but I still looked for sturdy couplings that wouldn’t crush underfoot and flexible casings that won’t degrade if left outside too long.

I don’t necessarily believe a garden hose needs to last forever—and I haven’t yet tested these for long-term durability—but a good hose should last a few years, minimum. Unfortunately, some of the hoses I tested felt like they wouldn’t last more than a few weeks when left outside in extreme weather. I do plan to hold on to the top picks for at least a year (and I’m terrible about taking my hose inside for the winter), so I’ll update this review if I encounter any durability issues.

I was most excited to try the Garden Glory hose. I like pretty things and Facebook clearly knows this because I’ve been targeted with ads for the brand’s gorgeous hose kits for at least a year. The hose itself is a high-quality, lead-free PVC, and it was flexible right out of the packaging, even after being stored in my cold garage. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a leak-free connection to my outdoor faucet. All told, I spent at least 20 minutes trying to get two different Garden Glory fittings tight-enough by hand (which sometimes included a rubber work glove and a cloth rag) and never managed to make it work. I considered using pliers, but didn’t want to damage the plastic. Maybe it was the fact that I had a hose with plastic connectors instead of one with brass fittings. Maybe it was the cold weather combined with the plastic. Maybe it’s the fact that this hose is manufactured in Europe, and American spouts might have slightly different diameters? Whatever the reason, I really want to love this hose, so I’ll hold on to it for a while and try again when the weather warms up.

Perhaps you’ve seen the Big Boss Xhose Pro on TV? Yes, it’s one of those “As Seen on TV” expanding hoses, and in addition to Xhose Pro, I purchased a similar hose from Amazon for comparison’s sake. While the two hoses are practically indistinguishable, I slightly prefer the no-name brand because it came with a sprayer (a necessary addition to an expanding hose like this) and has solid brass couplings where Xhose Pro has a combo of brass and plastic. Unfortunately, the preferred hose is no longer available (though this one looks nearly identical), and while neither was my favorite expanding hose, this style of hose is still a great option for light use if you have a small space and will actually store your hose inside. Just be sure to get a sprayer nozzle if you go with the Xhose Pro.

In long-term testing, other reviewers found the Dramm ColorStorm even more durable than the Continental, but what makes this heavy-duty hose so durable also makes it unpleasant to handle. It was impossible to get a tight fit on the spigot by hand, even a gloved hand, and I had to use locking pliers to fully attach the hex-shaped nickel-plated brass connectors. For frequent, long-term use, that might be okay, but for watering plants and hosing out my chicken coop—jobs that currently require me to use two different spigots—it’s a bit much. The ColorStorm also has a few sets of textured lines running the entire length of the hose that, when the hose is full, are uncomfortable to grab without gloves (and grabbing the hose is necessary to remove minor kinks or coils). In the end, this hose just felt too heavy-duty for most residential jobs, and the 50-foot hose is anywhere from $30 to $60 more expensive than the Continental, depending on where you shop.

The Waterworks WeatherFlex Medium-Duty Garden Hose looks and feels like the ubiquitous “cheap hose” you might pick up at any hardware or big-box store, but it’s billed as an “all-weather hose” with “flexible all-weather construction.” The product description even promises “a garden hose that stays flexible no matter what the thermometer reads.” Right away I debunked the all-weather claim when uncoiling a stiff hose on a chilly Saturday in April. Reading the fine print revealed that “to ensure maximum flexibility, set up should be performed in temperatures above 70 degrees.” But who reads the fine print on hose packaging? If I weren’t reviewing hoses, I never would have looked. I continued testing it anyway, and I thought I’d made a tight-enough connection by hand, but when I tugged on the hose to release a pretty annoying kink, the aluminum connector partially pulled away from the spigot and made a horrible whistling noise until I turned off the water. Hard pass.

For most residential use, we recommend the expandable Force Fitt Pro. It’s a lightweight, flexible hose that performs as well as the standard and heavy-duty garden hoses we tested. It’s also much more durable than fabric-covered expanding hoses. If you’d prefer a standard hose, the Flexzilla Garden Hose is just as easy to maneuver around a yard, deck, patio, or garden bed and if properly maintained, it should last at least a few years. Looking for a heavy-duty hose that will last indefinitely? Consider the Continental, an affordable, relatively flexible basic black hose made with commercial-grade rubber.