Best Decking of 2023

What type of decking will hold up for the long haul? To find out, we exposed samples made from aluminum, composites, and wood to extreme conditions.

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When you’re choosing decking boards, pretty much any deck will look great when it's brand new, but how materials hold up over time can vary considerably. A deck built with subpar materials will start showing its age in a year or two. Fast-forward a decade, and a wooden deck that was beautiful that first summer might have warped or cracked wooden boards. Even a composite deck might have a faded finish or a section that sags between joists.

Historically, most decks were made from wood, such as pressure-treated pine or cedar. But new materials, including aluminum, composites (which use a mix of wood fiber and plastic and are designed to resemble real wood), and vinyl, offer compelling alternatives.

"The desire for minimal maintenance has helped alternative decking materials like vinyl or composites grow in popularity against wood," says Min Kim Bryant, CR's senior market analyst who covers decking. "Wood is still dominant in most of the country, but in the Northeast, alternatives now account for more than half of all newly built decks."

Of course, it's not a given that all wood alternatives will perform equally or that they’ll beat out traditional wood options.

"Only one type of decking that started with strong performance when it was brand-new managed to hold up well over a span of three years," says Rich Handel, who leads decking testing at CR. "On the flip side, plenty of deck boards started with only mediocre performance when they were new and got worse over time, sometimes discoloring or fading as they aged, too."

For wood alternatives, we test individual product lines from brands such as Azek, Fiberon, and Trex. With wood, we simply test by species (like yellow pine, cedar, and ipe). Wood of a particular species should perform similarly, regardless of where it's milled or sold.

In our Yonkers, N.Y., test facility, we use specialized instruments to test each decking sample for resistance to flexing to ensure that boards won't bow or bend if you’re entertaining a crowd or if you park a heavy grill in one spot all summer long. Next, we size up which materials resist common stains, such as ketchup and mustard, and which offer some slip resistance—very important if you’re installing a deck near a pool.

We also drop weights of various sizes on the surface of each board to see which samples dent on impact. And we send more than a dozen samples of each material to two areas with extreme climates: hot and dry Arizona, and Florida, where the humidity presents a different challenge to certain materials. We assess those samples yearly for three years, evaluating their appearance and retesting for all the attributes above to see whether age and exposure to the elements affect overall performance. Wood products are tested without a stain or sealer.

For a look at all the considerations, start with our decking buying guide. CR members can also jump right to our decking ratings or read on for the best decking from our tests. Unless otherwise noted, the prices below are per linear foot.

Decking comes with serious trade-offs depending on the brand, material, and species. As a rule, wood is harder, so it tends to resist flexing better than composites. Composites, on the other hand, generally resist staining better because they have a manufactured outer shell that's nonporous. For this article, we’ve whittled down the best decking option within each material type, ensuring that all of the deck boards here have the following in common:

Paul Hope

Paul Hope is a senior multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports and a trained chef. He covers ranges, cooktops, and wall ovens, as well as grills, drills, outdoor power tools, decking, and wood stains. Before joining CR in 2016, he tested kitchen products at Good Housekeeping and covered tools and remodeling for This Old House magazine. You’ll typically find him in his old fixer-upper, engrossed in a DIY project or trying out a new recipe.