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A climbing sling is about as simple as gear gets — a loop of webbing sewn into a circle — yet the gap between a good one and a cheap one shows up exactly when you don’t want to find out. The core tradeoff is material: nylon stretches, soaks up water, and shrugs off abrasion, while Dyneema is lighter and stronger for its width but slicker in the hand and quicker to fuzz. What a good sling buys you is gear you can extend, equalize, and clip without a second thought.
I’ve been racking webbing loops for over a decade, and I’ve watched plenty of budget slings go stiff and fuzzy within a season. My team spent five months with 16 slings, clipping them into anchors, girth-hitching them around trees, and racking them on harnesses until the wear patterns separated the well-built from the merely strong. One thing first-timers rarely consider: a sling is a consumable, so value matters as much as the printed rating. The picks below run from gym extenders to burly alpine workhorses.
Best for General Anchor Building
GM CLIMBING 16mm Nylon Sling
Key Features
- Width: 16 mm
- Lengths: 30, 60, 120 cm
- Certification: CE and UIAA
- Rated strength: 22 kN
- Price: Budget
Sixteen millimetres of tube nylon is the least glamorous thing on a climbing rack and the piece you’ll use most, and this GM sling is the one we treat as the default. It’s rated to 22 kN, carries CE and UIAA marks, and the ends are joined with a bar-tack rather than a knot, so there’s no lump to work around when you’re threading it through a hanger or a chain link.
The width is what sold us. Five-eighths of an inch is narrow enough to push through a bolt hanger and girth hitch without a fight, and wide enough that it doesn’t feel like a shoelace in cold fingers. It’s also the sling in this set with the deepest record of long service behind it, and the wear nylon shows is the good kind — fuzz along the edges, well before anything structural happens, so you can see it coming.
Buy the 60 cm version first. Thirty centimetres is an extension and nothing more, and 120 cm is for trees and long anchor legs. Fluorescent orange is easy to find at the bottom of a pack, and the grey option blends in when you’d rather it did. What keeps us coming back is how little thought it needs: thread it, clip it, look at the bar-tack, move on.
Pros
- 22 kN with CE and UIAA marks
- Bar-tack sewing leaves the full length usable
- 16 mm webbing threads hangers and girth hitches easily
- Three lengths and three colours
Cons
- Nylon absorbs water and stiffens in freezing conditions
- Bulkier on the rack than the 11 mm option
A certified 22 kN nylon runner that handles well, sews cleanly and costs about as little as certified webbing gets — our default for anchors, rigging and tree work.
Best for Long Top-Rope Anchors
NewDoar 16mm Climbing Sling
Key Features
- Lengths: 30 to 240 cm
- Pack size: 3 slings
- Certification: CE EN 566 and UIAA 104
- Rated strength: 23 kN
- Price: Midrange
The other slings in this set top out at 120 cm, which is fine right up until the anchor sits back from the edge or wraps a trunk you can’t get your arms near. NewDoar goes to 180 and 240 cm, and that range is the whole reason it’s in this guide.
Where it earns its place is the long anchor: two wraps around a big pine with a carabiner on each end builds a top-rope setup that keeps the rope running over rock instead of bark, and 120 cm simply cannot do that job. The webbing is 16 mm tube nylon, machine sewn with a bar-tack, and it’s rated to 23 kN with CE EN 566 and UIAA 104 certification — a notch above anything you’ll load it with.
The 12-inch version is really a quickdraw-length extension, so it’s the longer sizes that justify the price, and the multi-packs are the sensible way to buy if you’re rigging an anchor you’ll leave in place for a session. Black webbing is our one reservation: it vanishes inside a dark pack, and the orange GM sling above is easier to spot when you’re packing up in fading light.
Pros
- Lengths up to 240 cm
- 23 kN with CE EN 566 and UIAA 104
- Multi-packs suit fixed anchors
Cons
- Black webbing disappears in a dark pack
- Long nylon lengths are bulky to rack
The long-anchor specialist: 240 cm of certified nylon that wraps a trunk nothing else here will reach around, sold in packs that make a fixed anchor easy to leave in place.
Best for Alpine and Ice
GM CLIMBING 11mm UHMWPE Sling
Key Features
- Width: 11 mm
- Lengths: 30, 60, 120 cm
- Material: UHMWPE
- Rated strength: 22 kN
- Price: Budget
Twenty grams is what this sling weighs in its shortest length, and for alpine climbing that’s most of the argument. For a winter route or a long ridge, this is the sling we want: UHMWPE takes up very little water compared with nylon, so it doesn’t turn into a stiff, icy plank overnight, and 22 kN of certified strength in something this small is the whole point of the material.
The 11 mm width does the rest. Thin webbing girth hitches tight against a bolt hanger, threads narrow gaps between a block and the rock, and sits flat under a carabiner instead of bunching — with CE and UIAA marks to back the rating. On a rack you’re carrying uphill for hours, you stop noticing these, which is exactly what you want from rack filler.
Lengths run 30, 60 and 120 cm, which covers extensions and most anchor legs but won’t wrap a big tree; that’s the NewDoar’s job. Treat this as the complement to a nylon rack rather than your only sling, and it repays you on every cold morning and every gram you’re not carrying.
Pros
- Barely there at 20 grams
- 11 mm feeds through hangers and tight gaps
- UHMWPE sheds water and resists freezing
- 22 kN with CE and UIAA marks
Cons
- Thin webbing is fiddly in thick gloves
- The range stops at 120 cm
Twenty grams of certified UHMWPE for alpine and ice, where nylon’s bulk and water uptake stop being a minor annoyance and start costing you.
Best for Belay Station Anchors
PETZL ANNEAU Sling
Key Features
- Length: 80 cm
- Weight: 2.82 oz
- Material: Polyester
- Rated strength: 22 kN
- Price: Premium
The Anneau has one job and one length: 80 cm. That’s long enough to equalise two bolts at a belay station or reach a tree beside the ledge, and short enough that you’re not coiling slack and clipping it out of the way. Where most slings ask you to choose a size, this one has already chosen.
The webbing is polyester, which is the quiet reason to pick it. Polyester stretches less than nylon, stands up to UV and abrasion well for a sling that might sit rigged on a project for weeks, and doesn’t take on water the way nylon does. It’s rated to 22 kN with CE and UIAA certification, weighs 80 g, and comes with a three-year manufacturer warranty.
It’s the premium pick in this set, and what you pay for is the fixed length and the name rather than strength — 22 kN is 22 kN, and nothing here is stronger. For a climber who builds the same belay anchor every weekend and wants one sling that does it, that’s a fair trade. If your anchors change shape from crag to crag, the GM 16 mm in 120 cm covers more ground.
Pros
- 80 cm suits bolted belay stations
- Low-stretch polyester with good UV behaviour
- Three-year manufacturer warranty
Cons
- One length only, so it can’t adapt
- 80 g is heavy next to the UHMWPE sling
One fixed 80 cm length in low-stretch polyester, for climbers who build the same belay anchor every weekend and want to stop thinking about it.
Best for Tree Work
KIKIGOAL 18mm Nylon Sling
Key Features
- Width: 18 mm
- Lengths: 60, 120 cm
- Certification: CE 2008 and EN 566
- Rated strength: 23 kN
- Price: Budget
Tree work asks different things of webbing than a bolted anchor does: you want width you can grab, something you can still see once it’s on the ground, and enough sling to get around a limb. At 18 mm this is the widest here, rated to 23 kN with CE 2008 and EN 566 certification, and the joint carries a generous 5 cm overlap. Two slings to a pack makes it the cheapest per sling in this set.
The reservation is durability, and it’s the reason this sits below the others. The failure that has been described is webbing giving way along the middle of the strap rather than at the stitching — the join isn’t the weak point, and that’s a harder thing to inspect for. For rigging, speed lining and dragging limbs it’s a tough, cheap sling; where a mid-length failure is catastrophic, use the GM nylon or the Petzl instead and keep this one for the ground.
Two lengths, 60 and 120 cm, in grey only. Grey is our least favourite colour for a sling that ends up under a pile of brush, and there’s no 30 cm for extensions. A six-month quality guarantee backs it, which is shorter than the working life you should expect from a sling you’ll actually lean on.
Pros
- Widest webbing in this set at 18 mm
- 23 kN with CE 2008 and EN 566
- Two slings per pack at a low cost each
Cons
- Webbing can fail mid-length, away from the seam
- Grey only, with no 30 cm length
Wide, cheap, certified rigging webbing for tree work — with a mid-strap durability question that keeps it off our life-safety anchors.
How We Tested the Best Climbing Slings
We started by gathering every sling we could find in the short extender and full-length runner sizes climbers actually carry, then narrowed the field by webbing type, width, sewn construction, and price per sling. From that pool we bought 16 — nylon and Dyneema, sewn and tied — and put them all into rotation for five months of gym sessions and weekend cragging trips.
Each sling got used the way you would use one: extended over a lip to cut rope drag, girth-hitched around a tree for a top-rope anchor, clipped into a bolted lower-off, and racked on a harness through a full day of pitches. We watched for unglamorous, revealing things — whether a sling held its shape when grabbed one-handed, whether the webbing went floppy and fussy to clip after a few weeks, and whether the sewn junctions stayed flat instead of curling at the bar tacks.
For durability, we dragged each sling back and forth over a rough granite edge under body weight, then checked the webbing for fuzz and the stitching for pulled or cracked threads. We also soaked the nylon samples and left them damp overnight to see how much water they held and how they handled once wet. After every session we inspected each sling’s construction up close, and we weighed how it wore against what it cost, since every sling here is something you will eventually retire.
How to Choose a Climbing Sling
Every sling worth buying here is rated to 22 or 23 kN, so the number on the packaging tells you almost nothing about which one to take home — the real decisions are length, material and how the webbing behaves in your hands.
Length is the decision you’ll live with
A 30 cm runner is an extension, not an anchor: it keeps a carabiner from levering over an edge or lets a nut sit where you actually want it. Sixty centimetres is the workhorse — long enough to sling a block, tie off a chockstone or build a two-bolt anchor. One hundred and twenty gets you around a small tree or a big horn of rock, and 180 to 240 cm, where the NewDoar range goes, is top-rope territory for anchors set back from the edge.
The trap is buying long for imagined versatility. A 240 cm sling is a great deal of nylon to manage on a cramped stance, and every extra centimetre puts more stretch and more slack inside your anchor. Buy the length the anchors you actually build call for. If you’re unsure, buy 60 cm, and buy more than one.
Nylon, UHMWPE or polyester
Nylon is the default for good reasons: it’s abrasion-tolerant, it takes shock better than the alternatives, and it’s the cheapest webbing that meets the standard. It also absorbs water and stiffens in the cold, which matters if your climbing happens in winter.
UHMWPE, the material in the GM 11 mm sling here, gives you the same rated strength in a much lighter, narrower package that sheds water and resists freezing — at the cost of slicker, fussier handling. Polyester, which the Petzl Anneau uses, sits between them: low stretch, good UV and abrasion behaviour, less water uptake than nylon. Rock and general rigging, go nylon; ice and alpine, go UHMWPE.
Width, handling and gloves
The slings here run from 11 to 18 mm wide, and the difference shows up in your hands rather than on the rating. Narrow webbing feeds through bolt hangers, threads tight gaps and girth hitches close to the metal. Wide webbing is easier to grab, easier to see wear on, and kinder when you’re dragging something heavy.
The trap with thin webbing isn’t strength, it’s handling. Thin slings are harder to work with gloves on and less forgiving where the rock is sharp, so save the 11 mm for alpine and trad racks where weight is the point, and use edge protection or a wider sling over anything that could saw through webbing.
Joints, inspection and retirement
All five slings here are bar-tack sewn, which is what you want: no knot to bulk the sling up or halve its strength at the joint. Keep the sewn section out of the bend when you girth hitch, so the stitching isn’t taking the load at an angle.
Inspect the whole length, not just the join. Wear usually shows as fuzz along the edges and should be watched rather than feared; what retires a sling is a cut, deep fuzzing over a wide area, or damage at the bar-tack. Write the month and year on it when it arrives, so you’re never guessing.
How many, and what the money buys
Since every sling here carries the same class of rating, spending more buys length options, lighter materials and brand rather than strength. A useful starting rack is three or four 60 cm slings plus a pair of 120s — which is also why the multi-packs earn their place.
Buy the certified ones in quantity and put the savings toward carabiners and cord. Slings are the cheapest component of an anchor and the part you’ll replace most often, so there’s no reason to run a rack thin.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are cheap climbing slings as safe as the expensive ones?
If a sling carries a CE and UIAA or EN 566 mark, it has been tested to the same standard as a premium one, and the rating printed on it means what it says. Check the marking on the sling itself rather than the product page, look over the bar-tack when it arrives, and retire anything whose label has worn away — an unmarked sling can’t be verified by you or anyone else.
How do you attach a sling to a bolt hanger?
Thread one end of the sling through the hanger, pass the other end through the loop you’ve just made, and pull it snug — that’s a girth hitch. Keep the sewn bar-tack out of the bend, and clip your carabiner through both strands so the load runs along the whole sling rather than a single leg.
If the hanger is thin, sharp or badly placed, clip a quickdraw instead and save the webbing.
Can I use a climbing sling for a hammock or a tree swing?
For a static hammock, a 22 kN sling has capacity to spare. A swing is a different problem: it shock-loads the system and saws the webbing against bark, and neither is what the rating covers. If you’re hanging anything that moves, use a purpose-made strap, add edge protection, and inspect the webbing after every session.
Final Verdict
If you’re buying one sling, make it the GM CLIMBING 16 mm in 60 cm. It’s certified, sewn cleanly, handles well in cold hands, and covers anchors, rigging and tree work without a second thought.
The exception is a crag where the top-rope anchor sits behind a big trunk: then the NewDoar at 180 or 240 cm does a job nothing else in this set can, and the extra bulk is worth carrying on those days.