The 4 Best Packing Cubes of 2024

AmazonBasics 4 Piece Packing Cube Set: These cubes stand out most for their inexpensive price, but the amount you save isn’t worth the drop in quality compared with our other picks. The AmazonBasics bags are made from a nylon that feels cheap, and we weren’t satisfied with the stitching quality, either.

Away The Insider Packing Cubes: Having deeper walls than most packing cubes, these Away bags resemble very minimalist bricks. Each one has one large viewing window, made of a fine weave mesh, and YKK zippers. They’re about $10 more per set than the Eagle Creek Pack-It Reveals, but you do get four cubes in the Away set instead of three. They fit into Away’s suitcases exceptionally well—bento like. However, for the price, we think you’ll be better served with the Reveals.

Bagail 6 Set Packing Cubes (and the nearly identical Veken 6 Set Packing Cubes, Bago 4 Set Packing Cubes for Travel, TravelWise 5-Piece Packing Cube Set, and Shacke Pak 5 Set Packing Cubes): All of these sets, found on Amazon, are made from similarly cheap-feeling panels of thick nylon or ripstop and ornately separated strips of mesh. They all have similar problems: Their zippers tend to snag, they come with no trustworthy warranty, the fabric feels chintzy in your hands, and the panel stitching seems rushed and uneven. There are much better sets available.

eBags Classic Packing Cubes: We found this set of three cubes, a former runner-up pick, difficult to pack during repeated use in our long-term testing. The combination of reinforced seams and ultralight material is a strange mix: Although the reinforcement makes the ultralight material stand up, so that each cube is easier to pack, this set wasn’t as easy to pack as the Reveals, nor as pliable as our ultralight pick. (As of June 2024, eBags is out of business.)

Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Isolate Compression Cube Set: Like all Eagle Creek gear, this pair of cubes are well constructed, but we prefer the fully zippered design of our REI compression pick, which are also a little more rigid and easier to pack.

GoRuck Packing Cubes: This packing cube is very well made, but it comes at a premium price—$45 for a single medium-size cube when we tested it. (It’s since dropped in price to $25; a smaller size costs $15.) The cube itself splits down the middle and reveals two sides, both of which have mesh panels for viewing and keeping things separated. Like all of these brand-specific designs, this one fits very snugly in the bag it’s made for, though you need about four to fill the basic GoRuck GR1.

Peak Design Packing Cube: This stylish choice has unusual “tear away” dual zippers, for one-handed opening (like peeling back the lid on a can of sardines), and compression zippers. Each cube has four separate YKK zippers, plus extra compression netting and a barrier between the two compartments, pushing the weight of the medium version to just over 5 ounces. The price for that size is $40—$5 less than what you’d pay for the whole Eagle Creek Pack-It Isolate Cube Set. (The Peak Design’s smaller size costs $30.) It’s not a bad cube per se, but overly fussy and expensive compared to our current picks.

PKG Union Compression Packing Cubes: The Union compression cubes are $30 more than our top-pick compression cubes for a set of three. They’re similar in design to our Reveal picks with a few higher-end details, such as a faux-leather handle and small storage pockets.

Topo Designs Pack Bag 10L Cube: The Topo cube is made of the same high-denier nylon of most of Topo’s gear, so if you already have a Topo bag, this cube would nicely match. It’s well made and very strong, but it lacks a mesh viewing panel. It’s also expensive. A single small (5-liter) cube costs $20, and the medium (10-liter) cube costs $24.

Trakke Foulden Packing Cubes: If you aren’t worried about price and need a very strong and waterproof packing cube, these are a great option. But at $90, plus shipping costs from the UK, these packing cubes are a stretch for most travelers.

Travelpro Essentials Packing Cube Set: These cubes are made of lightweight polyester, with a small strip of mesh paneling, so you can glimpse what’s inside. For $35 you get a set of three, and they fit well inside Travelpro’s carry-on suitcase. However, for the price and build quality, we found that these didn’t compare as well as our top pick. The trim around the zippers tended to catch, and the lightweight material made them slightly more difficult to pack than the similarly lightweight Eagle Creek Isolate set.