I’m looking for some general comparison between memory foam and pocket coil mattress in terms of longevity, and other pros and cons between the two.
Hello,
It is tough to make a general comparison because the upholstery itself wildly varies in quality in both types of mattresses. What I can tell you is that in either mattress the upholstery is the weak link… Good pocket coils are very durable so if really good upholstery is used like latex it can last a long time. If poor quality poly foam is used which is the typical pocket coil mattress it likely will not last very long.
In a memory foam bed I think the general consensus is that 4lb foam is pretty good, 5lb and up will generally last quite a long time. The base foam under the memory foam layers you would generally want a 2lb or higher density for a decent life span.
Getting those specs can be tricky in the first place with a lot of companies so I would make my first recommendation to only buy from someone that has good transparency about what is in their mattress.
Cheers,
Daniel
Hi newalf,
Not surprisingly I completely agree with Daniel 
There really isn’t any way to compare memory foam to pocket coils because one is a comfort material and the other is a support component (although there is a type of pocket coils called microcoils that can also be used as a comfort material). It helps to think of a mattress as a firmer support layer that is primarily there to provide good support/alignment with various comfort materials on top of it that are primarily to provide comfort/pressure relief. In some cases there will also be transition layers in between them which have a more dual function and help with both support and comfort so that the transition from softer to firmer materials is more gradual and even.
This means that it’s usually more meaningful to compare support materials with support materials and comfort materials with comfort materials. A “memory foam” mattress only uses memory foam in the upper comfort and/or transition layers because memory foam is too soft to be used as a support material so a memory foam mattress will usually use polyfoam as the support material (or in some cases an innerspring or latex is used as well).
Most of what you “feel” on a mattress will come from the top 5" - 6" of a mattress (depending on the weight of the person and the sleeping positions with lighter weighs sinking in less than heavier people) and the deeper layers will have less effect on how the mattress feels.
So if you are comparing a “memory foam” mattress to a “pocket coil” mattress you are really making two comparisons. One is comparing the pocket coils to polyfoam (in a more common memory foam mattress) which are the support materials and the other is comparing the comfort layers above the pocket coils with the memory foam comfort layers in a typical memory foam mattress.
If you look under the “mattresses section” of the site you will find more information about each of the different types of support materials here and the different comfort materials here that are usually used in mattresses.
The choice between materials is a personal preference but I would also keep in mind that the upper layers of a mattress are usually the weak link of a mattress (a mattress will tend to soften and break down from the top down) so it’s always most important to make sure that no matter what materials you prefer in the comfort layers of a mattress that they are higher quality versions of that type of material so that your mattress has less chance of softening or breaking down prematurely which can result in the loss of comfort and support and the need to replace the mattress (and foam softening and the loss of comfort and support isn’t covered by a warranty).
If you have a pocket coil as the support system in one mattress and polyfoam as the support system in the other and both of them used the same type, thickness, and density of memory foam in the comfort layers then they would be very comparable in terms of durability and would have some strong similarities in terms of “feel” because they would have the same comfort layers but some of the “feel” of the pocket coil would “come through” the memory foam and it would be more “springy” and responsive than the memory foam mattress that used polyfoam as the support core. If you had a pocket coil mattress that used a different material in the comfort layers (such as polyfoam or latex) and compared it to a typical memory foam mattress then how the different comfort materials would compare would have the most significant impact on how the mattresses compared as a whole both in terms of “feel” and in terms of durability.
Phoenix