Gore-Tex vs H2No – Who’s Better When it’s Wetter?

Be it a snow day turned slushy or a stormy sidewalk stroll, the stakes are high when reckoning with moisture in the outdoors. You want the best protection possible from rain, sleet, snow, and the ever-present threat of sweat.

If you’ve done your research, you’ve seen that Gore-Tex is a near ubiquitous material used in top-of-the-line waterproof textiles from across the industry. You’ve probably also noticed that most manufacturers feature their own proprietary waterproofing technologies ranging from laminates to coatings.

Patagonia being the paragon of high-performance outerwear that they are, has started labeling their gear with an ‘H2No’ certification. All this begs the question: Is Patagonia’s H2No gear (or any other proprietary waterproofing from an outdoor manufacturer) better than the legendary Gore-Tex? 

The quick and dirty answer is it depends on what you’re looking for. In terms of absolute water-resistance, Gore-Tex is rated higher than any of the materials or configurations used in a Patagonia H2No layer. But if this were the only metric for choosing the best winter or wet-weather coat we’d all be walking around in trash bag ponchos.

Gore-Tex vs. H2No: What are we really asking?

According to our research, we might be asking the wrong question. That is, Gore-Tex vs. H2No is an apples to oranges comparison. H2No is a self-imposed standard of waterproofing employed by Patagonia, granted to a garment only after long term testing both in the field and lab.

Gore-Tex is a textile, an actual material used in the production of waterproof layers. Patagonia, in fact, still uses Gore-Tex in many of their products; and a decade-long partnership between the two saw the release of the first Gore-Tex jacket free of perfluorinated chemicals, like the Patagonia Storm Shift Jacket and Pants.

So how did we get here? To keep it brief, Gore-Tex is still one of the best materials for outdoor gear due to its high degree of breathability and water resistance. But in-house techniques from major manufacturers as well as direct competitors such as eVent are starting to get some traction.

Patagonia has a number of proprietary manufacturing techniques that aim to deliver breathability and water resistance in the same manner as Gore-Tex; they’ve decided to call their baseline standard of excellence H2No.

To help clear the muddle, we’ll talk below about what Gore-Tex is and what it does (and doesn’t do) well. We’ll also take some time to lay out some parameters for Patagonia’s H2No standard and the technologies they use to achieve this baseline of performance.

Grappling with Gore-Tex: A Crash Course

Gore-Tex was invented accidentally in 1969 and quickly adopted as an alternative to non-breathable textiles in raingear. In essence, this mysterious material is little more than teflon stretched in such a way that it forms billions of microscopic pores. When combined with a DWR coating, you have the basis for most high-performance waterproof gear manufactured in the last half-century.

These pores are the foundation of why Gore-Tex works. A single pore in a Gore-Tex jacket is about 0.005% the size of a drop of water, this prevents moisture from rain or other sources from permeating the fabric and getting you wet.

A great example of this is Arc’teryx’s Alpha Jacket. While this jacket has some great styling, another nice thing that makes this distinct from the aforementioned trash-bag poncho is – breathability.

Where liquid water is kept at bay, vapors can still pass through Gore-Tex with relative ease. That means when we sweat and that sweat evaporates to cool us down (as nature intended), the vapors escape through the jacket, keeping us dry within and without.

Why Use Anything Else?

While the benefits of Gore-Tex are massive, there are a few factors that might make savvy consumers look to other textiles for their waterproofing needs.

The first and foremost among these issues is cost: Gore-Tex is expensive. Outerwear that features a large amount of Gore-Tex almost always costs more than alternatives, and depending on the model, it sometimes feels like you’re paying more for a brand name than performance impacts.

The second biggest issue with Gore-Tex are the environmental impacts. Though the brand is committed to minimizing its impact through a number of efforts, they’ve fallen short of the standard set by Patagonia and other manufacturers. Harmful chemicals inherent in the manufacturing process are still used in Gore-Tex products, and despite their commitment to phasing out PFCs by 2025, Teflon is essential to their product and isn’t the best for the environment.

On top of all that, Gore-Tex is notoriously loud, with a swishy, crinkly sound instantly familiar to anyone who’s owned a Gore-Tex garment in the past. Finally, while it does a great job of allowing vapors to escape, any liquid moisture trapped inside of a Gore-Tex layer is going to stay there.

At best this can lead to Gore-Tex jackets feeling slimy inside after heavy use, and at worst will trap water inside the coat, soaking your base layers.

Check out our Down Jacket Guide

Is H2No the Way to Go?

To quote Patagonia “H2No Performance Standard is not a technology or specific material—it’s an extensive, years-long testing process”. That’s all well and good, but there seems to be a lot of confusion about how this translates to comparative performance. Again, to keep things brief, how well an H2No jacket will stack up against the competition depends entirely on the specific model of jacket.

In real world conditions, some H2No jackets will be better than some Gore-Tex jackets, and some Gore-Tex jackets will be better than H2No. Check out Patagonia’s Torrentshell jacket for one that is performing better than Gore-Tex.

What you get from Patagonia’s self-imposed standard is a baseline of performance- a standard of quality you can ground your expectations in when choosing your next rain jacket.

Patagonia goes about achieving this standard through a variety of different means. For example their Torrentshell rain jacket is made of nylon, where the Powder Town ski coat has a shell made from polyester. Some jackets have a two layer build, others are 3L; regardless, you can depend on them to keep you dry.

Setting the Standard

In order for a jacket or waterproof layer to earn Patagonia’s H2No certification, it must undergo a stringent series of tests over the course of years. If this sounds intense to you, keep in mind that they’re competing against five decades of real-world user testing from Gore-Tex.

Patagonia breaks down its testing process into four distinct phases, taking care to test both the material and the final product design.

• Starting with the base material, Patagonia subjects their chosen textiles to a “Killer Wash” designed to approximate 30 years of use and flex in wet conditions.
• After the material is proven to hold up to the rigors of the Killer Wash, it undergoes the treatment a second time and must retain its water-resistant capabilities to a lesser (but still stringent) benchmark.
• Patagonia then performs similar tests for breathability, durability, and surface-repellent power.
• The next step is to field test the materials by sewing together rough silhouettes in a standard alpine shape for use in more practical circumstances, sometimes using two separate materials in the same jacket for a side-by-side comparison.
• After approving a material, it’s back to the design table to draft a finished product. Using feedback from testers and results from the lab, Patagonia finalizes the jacket and sends it back out to the field for a final round of testing.

Gore-Tex vs. H2No: Which Should You Choose?

With all of the rigors Patagonia subjects their products to, we have a pretty good idea of the specific metrics their waterproof layers perform within. With this information in hand, we can conclusively say that Patagonia’s H2No gear fails to keep up with Gore-Tex in terms of both water resistance and breathability.

But this doesn’t mean we think you should choose Gore-Tex without considering your options. In fact, our testers have learned the hard way that basing big decisions purely on lab results is seldom in your best interest. Instead, the question of which is better is more contextual than anything else.

When to Pick Gore-Tex

If you’re looking for the most waterproof layer possible, Gore-Tex is the way to go. Situations where you expect to be rained on all day, every day, for multiple days in a row are where Gore-Tex really shines.

Our testers love their Gore-Tex layers for wet-weather backpacking, pairing with a down coat to stay dry in the winter, or to wear ski touring when the going gets sweaty.

Our biggest reservations with Gore-Tex are based around cost and climate impact. As mentioned, Gore-Tex tends to be expensive, though this is a much less of a concern when compared to the equally lofty prices of Patagonia’s gear. In terms of climate impact, there’s no getting around the fact that Gore-Tex has its issues just by virtue of existing.

When to Pick H2No

Patagonia makes great products. They tend to not only be comfortable but made with environmental best-practices in mind. We think that Patagonia is still a good choice for many recreators, despite falling behind Gore-Tex in metrics. Their ski coats, rain jackets, and waterproof mid layers are all of excellent quality and would serve anyone well. Contextually, there are plenty of situations where an H2No certified layer would be a better option than Gore-Tex.

We’ve tried Patagonia H2No products on the slopes, in the woods, and on our daily commute. Patagonia jackets have impressed us in every condition, in every circumstance, and live up to the reputation the brand has established. Without a doubt, if you want a more casual rain jacket it’s the way to go. For the wettest conditions where working up a serious sweat is going to be an issue, Gore-Tex might be a better choice for you.