Comparisons, with a named buyer for each answer

Most gear comparisons pick a winner. On published specifications there usually is not one -- there is a trade, and which side of it you want depends on facts about your life rather than facts about the product.

So every comparison in this section ends the same way: with a named buyer for each answer. If that reads as fence-sitting, look at the numbers. A Sea Eagle SE370 carries 650 lb and a Red Paddle Compact fits in a checked bag. Declaring either the winner would just be hiding what the other one is for.

The four decisions

Inflatable versus hardshell is a storage question wearing a performance costume. Garage and roof rack, or cupboard and hatchback -- that settles it more often than speed does.

Kayak versus paddle board is the most useful page here if you have not bought either. Kayaks carry roughly twice the payload and inflate in a fraction of the time; boards put you standing, which is the entire reason people love them.

Kayak versus packraft comes down to whether the walk to the water is the main event. Fourteen pounds separates our lightest kayak from the next lightest, and that gap is where the packraft category lives.

Inflatable versus folding is pack shape against hull shape. It is also the page where we say plainly that we hold no published folding-kayak specifications and therefore rank none.

The numbers most of these turn on

The pressure row explains most of the rest. A kayak is round tubes, which hold their shape at very low pressure. A board is a flat drop-stitch panel, which only becomes rigid at 15 psi. That single difference cascades into weight, inflation time and how each one feels.