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After researching dozens of the top boards on the market, we bought the 7 best women's snowboards to ride side-by-side and find out which board is truly the best. We evaluated and compared how these boards handled across the entire mountain, riding everything from the fluffiest powder to the iciest groomers. We looked at how playful and maneuverable each board is, how stable they are at top speeds, and how well they held an edge in all conditions. Check out our comprehensive review to see which women's snowboards reign supreme, which is the best board for any and all abilities, and which are true quiver-killers. If you're looking for a unisex or men's board, check out our reviews of the top-rated men's snowboards on the market.
Editor's Note: We updated our women's snowboard review on October 31, 2024, to an all-new fleet of 2024-2025 models that we tested this past winter.
The Cardiff Lynx took the crown this year for good reason. This all-mountain freeride powerhouse provides playful pop, impeccable carving capabilities, and effortless float in pow, making it a well-rounded snowboard and an easy top choice in our women's snowboard test. We rode the Lynx in various conditions, from deep powder to slushy spring snow, and it crushed in all environments. This board is constructed with a poplar and paulownia core and carbon stringers from tip to tail, providing a durable, reliable ride underfoot. The Lynx is designed with camber between the feet and rocker in the tip and tail, which offers riders a smooth glide, maximum engaged turns, and superior edge control. It is super responsive while carving, making it an excellent choice for ripping fresh corduroy or slashing down a side-country run. We found that the Lynx easily transitions from edge to edge, making it an incredibly fun carving machine.
The board displayed here has the 2024 graphics, but Cardiff assured us that the specs of this board will remain the same when the 2025 model is released.
It was hard to find a flaw with the Cardiff Lynx – at the bottom of each run we were smiling ear to ear, astounded by its performance. If your riding style is more aimed at getting after it in the park, you should look for a deck that's more geared toward that style of riding. Although it does provide a lot of pop for jumps and side hits, its wider footprint wouldn't be ideal for a rail rider. If you identify more as a park rider, we recommend the YES Hel Yes as a great alternative, which offers a width and flex that is more conducive to tackling the steel.
The Burton Hometown Hero was one of the easiest boards to figure out and get to ripping moments after strapping in, making it a top choice for just about any rider to enjoy. Burton is a household name in the snowboard industry, and their decades of R&D really shines with the design of this board. The freeride directional shape allows you to rip some powder in the morning, followed by some after-lunch hot laps in the park without feeling like you're on the wrong board for either. We enjoyed this board's soft flex and nimble feel, making freestyle riding a fun and easy task.
With a manufacturer-claimed flex rating of 6 out of 10, this deck might leave some of the hardest-charging ladies wanting something a bit more aggressive. If you are looking for a burlier board, we recommend checking out the Weston Rise, which offers a stiffer flex and a shape that's well-suited for dropping cliffs and ripping lines. The Burton channel system has some pros and cons of its own. We love that stance widths are “infinite” as opposed to the limitations of traditional hole patterns, but we also found out that the bolts tend to come loose quicker than the classic four-bolt system. It's important to check your bolts every now and then between ride days because the fact that there are only two bolts per foot means that if one backs all the way out, you will have a very interesting run on your way to the shop to figure it out.
Simple shape if you're looking for a more unique ride
If you want an all-mountain charger that's designed with butters, ollies, and tricks in mind, check out the Yes Hel Yes. We loved this board for its rideability in all types of snow, from the most challenging icy chop to the softest champagne pow. The Yes Hel Yes has the perfect combination of all-mountain versatility, solid handling, and playful fun that even the most aggressive riders will appreciate. It took our tester by surprise how well the Directional CamRock profile and UnderBite edge contour handled all sorts of conditions with minimal effort. Where the Yes best impressed was on side hits, jibs, and butters. If you love ripping the mountain but can't resist spinning a three of that cat-track, this is the one.
Directional twins are the most common shape of snowboard, but we have seen a recent resurgence of boards that are designed to be ridden in one direction. If you like the idea of sticking to your natural stance the vast majority of the time, the Jones Stratos is a directional all-mountain assassin. If you're in the market for a true twin, we can't say enough good things about the Cardiff Lynx.
The Jones Stratos snowboard has created a name for itself amidst top-rated all-mountain boards on the market, and rightfully so. This snowboard is a top performer in all facets we tested, from staying afloat during deep powder days to carving the groomers at the resort. This tapered directional freeride shape makes floating through powder effortless and getting up on edge for deep carves a breeze. The board has a short sidecut, which makes transitioning from edge to edge quick and seamless, especially on groomers. This board wants to be on edge, and it locks in with little to no effort. If you're looking to drastically improve your carving skills, this is the board for you. Camber underfoot and rocker at the tip and tail is the perfect design to allow for engaged turns and easy powder ripping. It's rated at a mid-stiff flex, which our testers found super beneficial when ripping through questionable snow conditions at high speeds, as it battled through with minimal chatter.
Although the Jones Stratos is an incredible all around snowboard and mega powerhouse in varied conditions, it may feel a bit advanced and aggressive for a beginner rider. The directional shape and 3D contour base may feel slightly foreign compared to your regular all mountain snowboard. For an easier ride, we suggest the Burton Hometown Hero, which offers a more traditional all-mountain shape without sacrificing the playfulness and pop.
With a rocker, camber, rocker profile and a tight sidecut, the Stratos wants to turn.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
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Mother Nature's offerings.
Credit: Aspen Rain Weaver
How We Test Women's Snowboards
To acquire boards a season ahead of the public, we reached out to 20 of the most reputable brands in the industry to seek participation in our review with the caveat that we will never play favorites for freebies. The brands that you see in this review are the ones that chose to join in. In keeping with our no-bias Golden Rule, we either directly paid the brands for the boards or donated to the non-profit of their choice in their name. By offering the donation option, it allowed brands to participate that didn't have a way to charge us for products that weren't on the market yet and helped raise money for non-profit organizations such as the
We feel honesty is critical in our industry to help you sort through the marketing claims and make the best decision possible. We dove straight into testing, which took place in Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is a ski destination that has earned its place for its world-class snow, scenery, and terrain. The access and terrain allowed our testers to collect high-quality qualitative data to produce this objective review. To learn more, check out our full in-depth article outlining our testing process.
Our testing of women's snowboards is divided across five rating metrics:
Edging (25% of total score weighting)
Float in Powder (20% weighting)
Stability at Speed (20% weighting)
Playfulness (20% weighting)
Pop and Jumping (15% weighting)
Why Trust GearLab
Our lead women's snowboard tester, Rachel Lightner, has been snowboarding for over 20 years. Rachel locked her eyes on snowboards at the young age of 8 and never put a pair of skis on her feet, instantly falling in love with the flow of snowboarding. Learning to ride on Mt. Ashland in southern Oregon, where the tagline is “It's Steeper Here,” Rachel is no stranger to steep lines and aggressive riding. Starting out as a competitive slopestyle snowboarder in high school, she pursued a career in competitive freestyle riding for her college and USASA. She retired from the rail competitions after graduating but took up competing in banked slaloms. Her big claim to fame was snagging third place in the amateur pro women's division at the Legendary Banked Slalom on Mt. Baker. Rachel has snowboarded in the vast majority of West Coast mountains, Alaska, and Japan. In the winter, she is a backcountry snowcat guide in Tahoe and loves to earn her turns on her splitboard.
We found the Ladies Choice to be playful in just about any condition.
We did the footwork for you to get a jump on the 2025 season.
Analysis and Test Results
To find the best women's snowboard of them all, we began by conducting extensive research to identify all the most promising boards, then bought them all to test side-by-side. Our testing process is divided into the five following weighted rating metrics:
What's the Best Value?
While many of these snowboards cost about the same, the Yes Hel Yes stands out when it comes to getting the best bang for the buck. Right off the bat, it typically has one of the lower retail prices of the group. Additionally, it is one of the best all-around options, riding well across a wide variety of different terrain and snow conditions compared to some of the more niche boards available. The Cardiff Lynx is in the same general price range, offering top-tier performance at a cost that's substantially lower than the most expensive models.
Edging
The most important of our testing metrics, our series of edging tests account for 25% of the total score for each board. Having a snowboard that has a solid edge grip is imperative to your riding progression and overall comfort on a board. Knowing you can lay into a carve and being able to trust that your edge will hold is a key element in an enjoyable snowboarding experience, not to mention it looks super steezy when you lay down a deep carve and can look back at a trenched line you drew in the snow.
Aggressive edge hold lets you ride hard and fast on all sorts of terrain. We took each board out in various snow conditions and rated how well they grabbed with both the toeside and heelside edge, paying particular attention to how grabby each board is with hardpack snow, crud, and ice. This was one of the first tests that we did, relying on the factory tuning of each board out of the box. Many newer boards have some sort of serrated edge, marketed under various names — Magne-Traction, Grip-Tech, EdgeBite, etc. — and we found this made a huge difference when it came to edge hold, with all the top-scoring boards having some sort of scalloped edge.
The shape of the Stratos is perfect for laying trenches.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Our top-rated board for edging was easily the Jones Stratos Women. This board rode like it was made to carve, seamlessly gripping into a turn and feeling secure from the start to finish. Its short sidecut made it effortless to get up on an edge and dig a deep carve in all types of snow conditions and The unique 3D Contour Base allows for fluid turn initiation.
Another top-rated snowboard in the edging category was the Cardiff Lynx, whose carving capabilities felt almost identical to the Jones Stratos. A tight sidecut and Cardiff's HALFcamber allows this board to transition from edge to edge with minimal effort. Our testers felt like it would seemingly hop from toeside to heelside with ease, earning it a score near the top of the pack for this metric.
The Cardiff Lynx feels like surfing, providing a quick and playful edge to edge turn.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Burton Hometown Hero was also a favorite in the edging test and was a blast to carve on the groomers. This board is playful and nimble so it makes turning a joy. The board's directional camber and medium flex make it soft enough to pop over to your other edge but still offers enough stiffness to grip a turn and lay down a deep carve.
The Hometown Hero has the Goldilocks balance of shape, camber, and flex.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Float in Powder
No one wants to nose-dive over their board and miss out on a powder run, right? That's why we take our float in powder metric seriously, to ensure you reap the benefits of the deepest powder days. For this metric, we assessed how well each board rode in powder conditions. To determine scores, we looked at the amount of float each board had out of the box, how it handled deep snow, the effort required to turn, and how much fun it was to ride in the deepest powder stashes. Altogether, these tests account for 20% of the final score for each board.
The Jones Stratos slayed it in the pow. Its tapered directional freeride shape combined with a mid-stiff flex makes the perfect board for staying afloat on the deepest of days. This board also features a Float Pack, which are additional inserts to have a super setback stance and allow for optimal nose float and making it nearly impossible to tomahawk over your board, a huge perk for us powder hounds when every turn counts.
The Jones Stratos has a special set of mounting holes called “Float Pack” that are specifically intended to keep your weight toward the back of the board for the deepest days.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Cardiff Lynx offers a wider footprint, instantly making it an easy ride through deep powder and landing itself a top score for our powder category. This board features Cardiff's BUTTERblunt Nose & WINGtail technology, which means the nose and tail are designed to allow easy transition from side to side but massive float without the extra length and weight of traditional powder shapes.
The tiny bit of added width offered by the Lynx makes for substantially more surface area which translates to way better float in the pow.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Never Summer Lady FR also deserves an honorable mention in the powder department. Never Summer is based out of the mountains of Colorado, so these folks are no strangers to deep snow. This board features a stiff flex, carbon fiber stringers, and a PowerGrip sidecut, making it a powerful and sturdy option to get you through deep stashes of snow.
The Weston Rise proved to be an impressive ride when it came to ripping through deep powder stashes. This board offers 20mm set back so you can simply rock a setback stance and let the board do the heavy work for you and spare the burning calves. A fun fact to note is Weston uses sustainable wood to craft their boards, so if you love your deep pow days, you're contributing to a sustainably minded company whose working to preserve our dearly loved powder days. The Burton Hometown Hero's mounting system is made to place your bindings wherever you want within the channel's range which gives you lots of options for setting your stance back for the powder.
The Burton Channel system allows you to slide your bindings all the way back when you know it's going to be a deep one.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Stability at Speed
Next, we ranked and scored each board on how comfortable we felt when riding it at maximum speed. To test this, we took each board down the steepest groomers we could find, noting if it developed any speed wobbles or other instabilities when on edge or flat and how it handled any sections with chop or crud. Being able to feel secure and trustworthy of the board you're ripping at top speeds is essential for progression, so this category accounts for 20% of the overall score. Whether you're racing your buddies down a run or cruising out of a stomped big mountain line, we want to ensure you feel confident to rip your board at top speeds, so we did it for you, and yes, it was a fun metric to test.
A top performer in all categories, the Cardiff Lynx blew us away with its stability at high speeds. Sloppy snow and chatter were no match for the Lynx's Boundary Build, which consists of carbon fiber stringers laid beneath a poplar and paulownia core, making this board sturdy underfoot and reliable through the toughest terrain.
Our testers felt perfectly comfortable going full-throttle on the Cardiff Lynx.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Arbor Veda received an impressive score in our stability at speed test. The Veda is Marie France Roy's pro model, who is known for shredding the steepest and gnarliest lines out there, so it was no surprise that it performed well when put to the test of high speeds and variable terrain. Combining Arbor's GripTech for added contact points at the feet with their System Camber, this board provided a sturdy ride that felt stable and favorable when cruising through chop.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Playfulness
The whole reason we snowboard is ultimately to have fun, right? We prioritize a testing category for playfulness, which accounts for 20% of the overall score. We measure this by riding each board all over the mountain, from the park to the steep and deeps, awarding points for how well they spun, maneuvered, popped and flowed with the mountain. We are looking out for how fun the board feels without sacrificing a solid construction.
The Burton Hometown Hero easily snagged the title for the most playful board in our testing lineup. This board has tons of play, a soft enough flex to butter and pop, and a quick and easy turning radiance that makes carving feel like a dance. When riding with a flat base, the Hometown Hero's profile has a twin freestyle stance, making riding switch and popping ollies second nature. This board was crafted with the everyday freerider in mind, and it stepped up to its name with its impressive play in all terrain types we tested it in, making it a true hometown hero of snowboards.
Getting some slush slashes in the wiggle snake at Palisades Tahoe.
The Burton Hometown Hero is one of the most playful boards of the bunch.
We had a blast ripping the Hel Yes all over the mountain.
If you ask us, a board's playfulness is tantamount to its overall performance, especially in the spring.
Another super playful board that we couldn't stop ripping around the mountain was The Yes Hel Yes. It was truly hard to take the bindings off this board, as its playfulness and responsive ride made it almost too much fun. Rocker at the tip and tail and camber between the feet provides just the right amount of pop and play in this freeride ripper, and our tester found it easy to butter off the nose and catch air off just about anything.
The Yes Hel Yes is one of our favorites for playing in the slush.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Pop and Jumping
Everyone loves getting off the ground from time to time, and you need the right board for the job. Popping and jumping is our final test metric and accounts for 15% of our rating. We see how easy it is to get these boards off the ground and into the air, from simply ollying in the flats to taking it off jumps and side hits at the park.
We can't get enough of the Burton Hometown Hero and its popping and jumping capabilities. Although this board is advertised as an all mountain freeride board, we could've easily mistaken it as a jibbing park board. The Hometown Hero wants to be in the air and pops with minimal effort, making it a top choice for your playful riding desires.
The Yes Hel Yes also impressed us with its pop and jumping capabilities. This board is a freestyle machine and made for a fun ride when popping and jumping across the mountain. The board features two bamboo stringers down the middle, which keeps it light enough to pop but strong enough to feel sturdy once in the air. Big Hel Yes from us on this one!
The Hel Yes is just at home in the air as it is on the snow.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Conclusion
We hope this review was helpful in helping you narrow down your search to find the perfect board for you. Whether you're an up-and-coming ripper finding your confidence in the groomers or sending the steepest lines you can find, there is a board for you in this review. Our goal at Outdoor Gear Lab is to provide our readers with the most concise, clear, and accurate review of the products you're searching for, and we hope this women's snowboard review offers just that. Now, get out there and get to shredding!
