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One of my earliest beach memories is the sight of my father chasing a large, colorful umbrella down the sands on a particularly windy day on the Maine coast. I’m sure I’m not the only beachgoer who’s witnessed umbrellas uprooting and tumbling into sunbathing neighbors despite all efforts. On top of that, even if your umbrella does remain stationary, you spend most of your day chasing the meager, postage-stamp-sized patch of shade it provides as if you’re some deranged sundial . There is a better way: the sunshade.

A good sunshade provides consistent protection from the sun over a large area while maintaining a comfortable amount of headroom. It should be easy to carry, intuitive to set up, and sturdy in the wind without collapsing. Of the seven shades we tested, our two favorites, the Sun Ninja 4 Person Tent and the Shibumi Shade, meet all of those demands, but they suit different circumstances. The Sun Ninja requires plenty of beach space but tolerates variable wind conditions. While the Shibumi maximizes your shade without intruding on close neighbors, it requires a steady coastal wind to function—and it costs more. We also have recommendations for people who prefer more shelter from the wind.

After five years of relaxing in the sand and playing in the surf, we’ve chosen the best picks to help you enjoy a perfect beach day.

When you have plenty of space on the beach, this stretchable spandex canopy is easy to set up and offers great sun protection in variable winds. However, it commands a fairly large chunk of the beach, which might annoy your neighbors.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $115.

Remarkably consistent in a variety of wind conditions, the Sun Ninja 4 Person Tent is very pleasant to sit under—no matter how strong the sun—and packs away into a small carrying case that’s easy to throw over your shoulder (it weighs just over 7 pounds). The spandex canopy is dead simple to set up: Stretch the four arms of the fabric out across the beach, fill the large pouch at the end of each arm with plenty of sand, and then place the four collapsible aluminum rods under the canopy, raising and angling them into the top corners of the tent until you find the best balance of tensions. The whole process can take one or two people less than three minutes, once they know what they’re doing. Erected, the Sun Ninja provides plenty of shade for four people to comfortably lie down in. (The company also offers an 8-person model for even more space.) In low and moderate winds, the flexibility of the Sun Ninja allows it to shake off most gusts up to 15 mph without falling over. Sitting under the tent feels almost bedouin in nature—nomadic self-contentment. That said, the Sun Ninja’s stretched-out design means you unavoidably take up quite a bit of beach in relation to the 7-by-7-foot piece of shade you create, which might not be appreciated if you frequent crowded beaches.

With a beguiling, minimal design, this shade is easy and quick for one person to set up. As long as a steady wind blows, the Shibumi fabric floats above you, providing enough sun coverage for six people without buckling or collapsing.

If your favorite beach features steady offshore breezes—or even umbrella-tumbling gusts—the Shibumi Shade is a natural choice. Instead of resisting the wind, the Shibumi’s wonderfully simple design puts it to work, which makes sense, given that the shade was conceived on the blustery beaches of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The Shibumi has three components: a long arc of high-strength aluminum tubing (it folds up like a tent pole), a roughly 16-by-8-foot rectangle of parachute fabric, and a sand anchor, which doubles as the shade’s carrying case. One person can set it up in a minute or two. We tested the Shibumi in everything from barely perceptible ocean breezes to stiff 25 mph winds, and it worked admirably, providing about 10 by 15 feet of shade—enough for six adults—when the sun was high. However, high winds produce more noise than one might expect. (If you don’t need quite as much coverage, the similarly constructed Shibumi Shade Mini is designed for one or two people. ) On most days, though, with a gentle onshore breeze, sitting under the Shibumi is like lying under a crisp sheet hanging on a clothesline in the summer sun. While this shade is more expensive than our other picks, the quality of materials—from the aluminum poles usually reserved for high-end camping tents to the parachute fabric—all but ensure this shade will be around for many more summers than your typical beach umbrella or tent.

The easy-to-set-up Sport-Brella features the basic design of a beach umbrella but adds tent flaps for more protection from both sun and (mild) wind. It also has a vent and comes with stakes and sandbags to help keep it from blowing away in stronger gusts.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $60.

If you prefer to also have at least some protection from the wind, you could try the Sport-Brella Premiere, our longtime recommendation for people looking for a beach umbrella. It looks like a typical umbrella tipped on its side, with flaps added to block more of the wind and sun. Two people fit easily underneath it, yet the footprint is moderate, making it a good choice for a crowded beach. You do need to anchor it with stakes and sandbags to keep it from pinwheeling away on a blustery day—it has vents you can open to help reduce some of the drag, though that will, of course, let in some wind. It’s also heavier (thanks to its steel pole) and bulkier than either the Sun Ninja or the Shibumi. (Even when folded up, the Sport-Brella was too long, at 40 inches, to fit in one tester’s trunk.)

This polyurethane canopy sets up in seconds to provide shade and a windscreen for two adults, and it packs up smaller than any other tent-style shelter we’ve tested.

Like the Sport-Brella Premiere, the Lightspeed Outdoors Bahia Quick Draw is meant to block wind and sun alike. And, as the name says, the Bahia is quick to set up—quicker than the Sport-Brella, at least in theory. You unfold and lay out the shelter’s floor, locate the top of the pole assembly, and pull the two cords; the poles pop out into place, followed by the attached water-resistant polyurethane shell. However, if wind is what you hope to hide from, you’ll want to also stake down the three corners, stabilize the overhang that juts out over the shelter’s opening, and weigh down the base with three sandbags—not quite as quick or easy as implied. Just don’t expect it to stand up to a windstorm.

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When you have plenty of space on the beach, this stretchable spandex canopy is easy to set up and offers great sun protection in variable winds. However, it commands a fairly large chunk of the beach, which might annoy your neighbors.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $115.

With a beguiling, minimal design, this shade is easy and quick for one person to set up. As long as a steady wind blows, the Shibumi fabric floats above you, providing enough sun coverage for six people without buckling or collapsing.

The easy-to-set-up Sport-Brella features the basic design of a beach umbrella but adds tent flaps for more protection from both sun and (mild) wind. It also has a vent and comes with stakes and sandbags to help keep it from blowing away in stronger gusts.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $60.

This polyurethane canopy sets up in seconds to provide shade and a windscreen for two adults, and it packs up smaller than any other tent-style shelter we’ve tested.

I’ve worked for Wirecutter for six years in various capacities, writing about everything from travel backpacks to camping stoves to luggage to road-trip gear to car-camping tents. I currently live on the North Shore of Oahu and spend a large amount of time at the beach working on our guide to the best beach and surf gear. For this guide we’re mostly following a trend we’ve seen on the beaches in Hawaii and along the East Coast: families replacing the awkward beach umbrella with larger and more-functional sun shelters. (This guide builds on earlier work done by Eve O’Neill and Abi Smigel Mullens.)

If you’re looking for protection from the sun while you’re at the beach, consider a sunshade. Not only do sunshades serve the same function as a beach umbrella, but they’re also much easier to pack and carry to and from the beach—especially if you’re juggling lots of gear and young children. While our two main picks provide more than enough shade for one or two people, the main purpose of a sunshade is to provide cover for families or large groups. For just one or two people heading to a more crowded beach, we’ve included two beach tents (plus one new mini sunshade) we’ve long recommended in “The Best Beach and Surf Gear: Towels, Totes, Coolers, and More” as alternatives to a beach umbrella. If you’re looking for shelters with screen walls to use both on and off the beach, you might consider our guide to the best canopy tent.

No one can quite agree what, exactly, to call this type of shelter: Beach canopies, sunshades, sun awnings, and beach tents all showed up when we searched for and compared reviews for any one of those terms. Most reviews we found were little more than product roundups, but some were reputable enough to give us a place to start. Of these, we looked at articles from Outdoor Geeky, TripSavvy, Good Housekeeping, and Travel + Leisure. We also considered brands and models that we’ve come across while combing the beaches in Hawaii, California, and the Northeast. Our testing for this guide focused on models similar to our eventual picks: fabric shades that float or stretch out above you, or wind-sheltering buttresses, rather than canopy tents.

Initial testing for the larger sunshades in this guide, the Sun Ninja and the Shibumi Shade, took place on the beaches of Oahu. We tested each shade’s wind tolerance and evaluated how easy they were to set up and take down in different conditions. Beyond that, we looked closely at the quality of materials—particularly the quality of any metal poles included with the shades, as well as the fabric stitching. The testing for sun canopies and umbrellas, which led us to recommend the Sport-Brella Premiere and the Lightspeed Outdoors Bahia Quick Draw in our guide to the best beach and surf gear (we now include them here instead), took place in Northern California and Oahu.

When you have plenty of space on the beach, this stretchable spandex canopy is easy to set up and offers great sun protection in variable winds. However, it commands a fairly large chunk of the beach, which might annoy your neighbors.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $115.

Several companies make tents similar to the Sun Ninja 4 Person Tent, but all of the comparable models we tested use either fiddly ropes to connect the sand ballasts to the main fabric or frustratingly meager aluminum tubes to support the tent when it faces the wind. Not so with the Sun Ninja, an expanse of sun-resistant (UPF 50+) spandex that stretches from its sand-ballasted corners across four sturdy-enough, vertical aluminum-tube poles. This simple feature saves a ton of time and hassle during setup and breakdown compared to the competition. The four-person tent covers an area of 7 by 7½ feet and has a ceiling height of about 5 feet, depending on how deeply you bury the support poles. (Sun Ninja also makes a larger, 8-person tent—it shades a 10-by-10-foot area—but we haven’t tested that model.)

The Sun Ninja is very simple to set up. With one or two people, the whole thing should take less than five minutes, with most of that time spent filling the corners with sand and making sure you’ve found the right amount of tension to balance the tent against the wind. Rather than fighting high winds the way an umbrella must, the Sun Ninja simply twisted and shrugged off everything but the strongest gusts (over 15 mph) without complaint. (In higher winds the tent can start to feel unstable, or even collapse.) If you haven’t sat under a shelter like this on the beach, having this much shade can feel like a luxury. The tent itself creates a wonderfully peaceful sense of being protected but doesn’t obscure the beach around you, unlike some pop-up shelters, including the Lightspeed Outdoors Bahia Quick Draw. The effect is “romantic,” as one tester described.

Packed up, the Sun Ninja weighs 5¼ pounds and fits inside a carrying case about 18 inches tall and 7 inches in diameter (roughly the size of a small wastepaper basket). It’s simple to sling over one shoulder while you tend to other things, such as children or the other assorted bric-a-brac one might bring to the beach.

The arms of the Sun Ninja stretch considerably farther than the 7-by-7½-foot patch of shade that it creates—about another 3 feet in every direction—which is both a hassle and an unwelcome intrusion on any crowded beach. Apart from that, our biggest concern with the Sun Ninja is the possible effect of consistent sun exposure on the durability of the spandex. A breakdown in any kind of stretchy fabric is inevitable with time.

While the Sun Ninja has a one-year warranty—standard for the shades of this type that we’ve seen—we haven’t tested it long enough to determine its full lifespan. That said, its durability ultimately depends on how often you go to the beach and how long you stay. We will update this article when we have a better idea of how the fabric holds up after months of use.

Unlike some more traditional shelters, the Sun Ninja has no additional pockets or corners to tuck your valuables in, especially when it’s set up in a four-pole position. When erected as a kind of lean-to, they could potentially have some secretive corners where you could hide your gear. But generally speaking, you are more exposed within tents like this.

With a beguiling, minimal design, this shade is easy and quick for one person to set up. As long as a steady wind blows, the Shibumi fabric floats above you, providing enough sun coverage for six people without buckling or collapsing.

The Shibumi Shade is so deceptively simple that once it’s set up, it’s hard to believe the idea didn’t come around sooner. It has only three pieces: a roughly 8-by-16-foot rectangle of parachute fabric (UPF 30+), an arc of linked segments of aluminum tubing (much like a tent pole), and a sand anchor that doubles as a carrying case. When the sun is high, the Shibumi provides an impressive amount of shade—a roughly 15-by-10-foot patch, enough for six people and their gear—without taking up a lot of extra space on the beach. The entire thing, poles included, weighs less than 4 pounds (3¾ pounds, according to our testing) and slings onto your back in a stuff sack about the size of a FedEx tube or portable umbrella (4 by 4 by 26 inches). Shibumi also makes a “mini” model built to the same standards, which is more suitable for one or two people.

One person can set up the Shibumi Shade in under two minutes: You unfold, connect, and lay out the 25 feet of aluminum tubing on the beach, thread the pole through the front of the parachute fabric, and secure the front two corners with the provided straps. Next, insert the tube ends into the sand in a pleasant arc, making sure the front of the fabric faces into the wind. Lastly, lay the stuff sack out in front of the pole, fully extending the guyline, and fill it with sand so that it acts as an anchor against the wind. The aluminum tube is engineered to withstand extreme tension for significant periods of time. We’ve tested the Shibumi in breezes as light as 3 mph and in steady, sand-blasting winds around 25 mph (though Shibumi doesn’t recommend using it in winds exceeding 20 mph), and the shade worked perfectly. However, dast you face stronger winds, the Shibumi gets louder. It’s unavoidable. But most of the time, when the sea breezes remain below 10 mph, the feeling of being under the Shibumi, lying under the gentle undulation of a sheet as it silently floats above your head, is wonderfully dreamlike.

With a design this simple, there’s little to critique. If there’s a flaw, it’s that to work, the Shibumi needs some wind—no matter how light—moving in a steady direction, like what you’d find on most US coastlines. There’s no other way to, say, stretch out the fabric or brace the back corners, an addition that, honestly, might ruin the shade’s compelling simplicity. Also, similar to the Sun Ninja, the construction of the Shibumi means you can’t hide your valuables within the shelter.

The Shibumi is somewhat expensive for a beach shade, about double the price of the Sun Ninja. But the materials upgrade is obvious. After years of testing camping equipment, I can tell that the aluminum tubing is a high-quality metal (probably responsible for much of the higher cost) more often found in all-weather backpacking tents than in beach equipment. Shibumi, a small company in North Carolina, offers a satisfaction guarantee rather than a warranty, but after talking with the founder, we’re comfortable with Shibumi’s level of commitment to its customers.

The easy-to-set-up Sport-Brella features the basic design of a beach umbrella but adds tent flaps for more protection from both sun and (mild) wind. It also has a vent and comes with stakes and sandbags to help keep it from blowing away in stronger gusts.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $60.

In our original search for a strong, portable beach umbrella, we spent 10 hours researching and six hours testing, but every model we looked at presented a series of compromises—they either were heavy and difficult to move or had too many cheap, plastic parts. The Sport-Brella Premiere was more effective than any traditional beach umbrella we found in its price range.

The Sport-Brella offers an improvement over regular umbrellas in every detail. Although the difference in design isn’t too dramatic—part of the canopy rests on the sand, as opposed to staying hoisted above you—the difference in performance is significant. Thanks to its three ground contacts and lower center of gravity compared to lofty umbrellas, in our testing the Sport-Brella stood firmly anchored in coastal winds, when traditional umbrellas shifted and buckled. From anchor to ribs, the other umbrellas we tested were covered in cheap, plastic bits that looked like they could snap or crack easily, but the Sport-Brella has only two plastic parts, and they’re dense and sturdy. The main rip-stop canopy, which has a UPF 50+ lining, is vented, and the windows on the sides zip open to help during especially fierce gusts. And unlike many models, the 8-foot-wide Sport-Brella (which is a foot wider than most others) doesn’t have a valence, so you’re spared the annoying sound of fabric flapping in the wind. The smaller footprint is also easier to manage on crowded beaches.

Unlike our other picks, in most conditions you should stake the Sport-Brella to the sand, which involves a few extra parts and more time during setup. In our testing, though, the entire process was easier than driving in an umbrella anchor, though not as simple as setting up the Sun Ninja or the Shibumi Shade. When you’re done, the Sport-Brella has built-in pockets for storing all the pieces, and the whole thing fits into a sturdy shoulder bag for easy transport.

All that coverage and security comes at the cost of portability. At 9 pounds, the steel-and-fabric Sport-Brella is more than twice as heavy as a standard beach umbrella or the Shibumi Shade, and it’s a bit heavier than the Sun Ninja. The Sport-Brella was also 3 inches too long (at 40 inches) to fit into the back of a tester’s Jeep Cherokee. But compared with a traditional umbrella, the coverage and stability it offers may make it worthwhile for some.

This polyurethane canopy sets up in seconds to provide shade and a windscreen for two adults, and it packs up smaller than any other tent-style shelter we’ve tested.

After spending eight hours researching and testing six top-rated, camping-tent-style beach canopies—with a toddler in tow—over two years, we’ve determined that the Lightspeed Outdoors Bahia Quick Draw is the easiest and fastest to assemble and more compact when stowed away. However, compared to the floating, dreamy feeling of lying under the Sun Ninja or the Shibumi, sitting under the Bahia is more like huddling in a lean-to for shelter.

Assembly of the Lightspeed involves just one step and a few seconds. The poles and straps come attached, so all you need to do is locate the top, pull the side poles down, and tug on the string to pop up the tent—like opening a giant umbrella backwards. Once unfurled, the recycled-polyurethane canopy (UPF 50+) provides ample shade and shelter for two people to sit in or a baby to play in while at the beach—it’s big enough to fit two reclining beach chairs underneath the awning. (Unlike our other picks, the Lightspeed also incorporates a floor, which parents may especially appreciate.) For windier days, the shelter has four loops to stake down the corners, two adjustable cords to stabilize the top, and three additional sandbags to weigh down the base—but having to do all that complicates the setup process.

The one potential drawback we’ve found is the somewhat complicated articulating-buttress system that extends over the Bahia when it’s set up. All those plastic and metal moving parts are asking for problems over time, though we haven’t had any issues in our testing (yet). A Wirecutter editor who intermittently used a previous version of the Lightspeed for about six years in Southern California had the same concern, and although the action is not as smooth as it was before stray sand worked its way in, the moving parts still function as expected.

Neso Grande Sunshade: Unlike our pick, the Sun Ninja, which uses the same stretchable fabric of its canopy as its arms, the Neso uses grommets and rope to connect the canopy to the sand anchors. While this is a touch more useful for setting up the shelter in dirt and on dry land, it’s also much more fussy and prone to tangles during setup.

Otentik Family: This shares nearly the same design as the Neso, with the same grommets and rope connections and similarly finicky setup.

Otentik Nano: This smaller shade is an interesting choice for couples but was brought down due to its ultra-small poles, which felt flimsy in anything but the lightest breeze.

Alpha Camp UPF 50+ Beach Shade Tent: There are several Amazon-only brands selling knock-off models of the Neso or Otentik for $40 or $50 less. While we’ve occasionally found diamonds among such off-brand models, we don’t recommend these. Their reviews seem cooked, and the quality of the Alpha’s materials were particularly poor. The similar Umardoo Family Beach Tent is better than the Alpha Camp, but our complaints still apply: The cheaper cost is apparent in the Umardoo’s materials and construction.

A former pick, the Genji Sports One-Step Instant Push Up Hexagon Beach Tent costs more than the Lightspeed without doing much extra. It also appears to have been discontinued.

The attractive, functional Coleman Hatteras Fast Pitch Beach Shade could be fully sealed off from the elements, but its color-coded poles didn’t make up for the fact that the structure still had to be pitched like a traditional tent. (It has since been discontinued.)

We were unimpressed by both the Kelty Cabana and the Coleman RoadTrip Beach Shade Shelter. Neither did anything better than our pick at the time (the Genji Sports tent), yet each took far longer to set up due to their more-traditional tent-pole-and-clip support structures.

For people who want the benefits of a traditional beach umbrella—namely an unobstructed view and the feel of the ocean breeze—we used to recommend the Coolibar 6 Foot Intego Beach Umbrella UPF 50+. The ribs in its canopy and the shaft-and-tilt mechanism are made of fiberglass and metal, respectively, instead of the flimsy plastic used in the cheaper Tommy Bahama and Rio Brands umbrellas, which we also tested. However, the Sun Ninja and the Shibumi now provide those same benefits without the threat of your having to chase them as they spin away down the beach.

We haven’t had a chance to look at more standard pop-up sun awnings that you might see while tailgating or at an outdoor expo or farmers market. These tents are tricky to evaluate because many of them are nearly identical; in fact, it’s likely many are manufactured by the same suppliers and then rebranded. That said, they are a fixture at plenty of beaches and park barbecues, so we want to take a closer look at them in the future.

This article was edited by Ria Misra and Christine Ryan.

Kit Dillon is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. He was previously an app developer, oil derrick inspector, public-radio archivist, and sandwich shop owner. He has written for Popular Science, The Awl, and the New York Observer, among others. When called on, he can still make a mean sandwich.

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