The Zpacks Plex Solo and the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Mid 1 get name dropped in almost every “best one person ultralight tent” conversation, and for good reason. Both are single wall, non freestanding, trekking pole shelters cut from the same premium fabric, and both sit right at the top of what a solo hiker can buy. If you have been circling these two, relax. You are not choosing between a good tent and a bad one. You are choosing between two very good ones.
This guide is here to help you actually decide, not just admire spec sheets. We will put the two side by side, dig into why the fabric question matters more than most beginners expect, and show how your kind of trip (a couple of weekend nights, a five month thru hike, or a loaded bikepacking rig) quietly changes the right answer. By the end you should know which tent is yours, or whether a cheaper shelter would serve you better right now.
The two tents at a glance
Start with what they share, because it is a lot. Both are made from Dyneema Composite Fabric. Both pitch with a single trekking pole (or a tent pole sold separately). Both give you a bathtub floor, sewn in bug netting, and a vestibule to tuck your pack under. The real differences come down to size, weight, and how each one handles a wet, windy night.
- Zpacks Plex Solo: around 13.9 oz for the tent alone, roughly $599, a 52 inch peak, a floor near 90 by 28 to 38 inches, one door, and a comfortable fit for sleepers up to about 6 feet.
- HMG Mid 1: around 16.8 oz for the tent alone, roughly $675, a 54 inch peak with steeper walls, a longer 96 by 32 inch floor, dual peak vents, and an adjustable bathtub floor you can raise or lower.
Before the differences, one plain language note, since these shared traits shape daily life in both tents. Single wall means one layer of fabric between you and the sky rather than a separate inner tent and rain fly, which saves weight but makes condensation something you manage rather than avoid. Non freestanding means the tent only stands up once it is staked out and tensioned against a pole, so it will not work on a wooden platform or bare rock without creativity, and a sloppy pitch shows immediately. Trekking pole supported means your poles do double duty, holding the roof up instead of a set of dedicated tent poles, which is a huge weight win if you already hike with poles and a small annoyance if you do not.
The short version: the Plex Solo is the lighter, smaller, more minimal pick. The Mid 1 is the roomier, taller, more weather ready pick that asks for a little more ground to pitch. Hold that contrast in your head, because almost everything below is really about which of those two things you value more.
First question: is DCF even right for you?
Here is the twist most showdown posts skip. The Plex Solo versus Mid 1 debate is really a contest between two DCF tents, which means you have quietly made a big, expensive decision before you have even picked a brand. That decision is worth pausing on, because for a beginner it matters more than the winner of this particular matchup.
DCF earns its fans. It does not soak up water, so it will not sag overnight and will not gain weight when you stuff it away wet at dawn. Pitch it taut at dusk and it is still taut at 3 a.m. It is astonishingly light for how strong it is, and a strip of DCF tape patches most damage right there on the trail. For someone chasing the lowest possible pack weight, nothing else quite matches it.
The catch is money and mileage. DCF shelters usually cost a few hundred dollars more than a comparable silnylon or silpoly tent, and the fabric is weaker against abrasion, so campsite grit and rough ground wear it faster than its raw strength numbers suggest. One useful way to frame it: the weight you save going DCF can work out to roughly $38 per ounce saved, where most other ultralight upgrades cost a small fraction of that. In plain terms, DCF is a brilliant way to go lighter once the rest of your kit is already dialed, and an expensive one if it is the first upgrade you reach for.
Lifespan is the other half of that math, and it is easy to misread. Careful owners get many hundreds of nights out of a DCF tent, but “careful” is doing real work in that sentence: choosing smooth sites, using a cheap groundsheet as insurance under the floor, and not dragging the tent across grit. Treat a DCF shelter roughly and it will show wear faster than a silnylon tent would in the same conditions. If you know you are hard on gear, that is a genuine strike against DCF that no weight number will fix.
Silnylon and silpoly are the alternative. They pack smaller, cost far less, and shrug off abrasion better. Silnylon absorbs a little water and stretches when wet, so you re tension the guylines after a downpour. Silpoly, the newer darling of the cottage world, barely sags and handles sun better, which is why a lot of experienced hikers now reach for it as the smart value pick. Neither is a downgrade so much as a different set of tradeoffs.
Before you spend on fabric, ask yourself: is the tent really the thing holding my pack weight back, or have I just not trimmed the heavier, cheaper stuff yet? Would I rather own one $600 shelter, or a $250 tent and lighter everything else?
Your trip decides more than your wallet
A tent that is perfect for one style of travel can be a mild headache for another. This is the part beginners skip and then regret, so match the shelter to how you actually get out there, not to the trip you daydream about.
Weekend trips and learning the ropes
If most of your nights are Friday to Sunday within a few hours of home, the honest truth is that either tent is more shelter than you strictly need, and a silnylon tent would keep you just as dry for half the price. What you are really buying with DCF here is a shelter that stays taut, packs tiny, and feels featherlight in the bag. That is a completely valid reason to buy one, as long as you call it what it is: a want, not a need. If you do go DCF as a newcomer, the Plex Solo is the gentler on ramp, with less fabric, less footprint, and less money on the line.
How many nights a year will this tent actually see? At ten nights, does saving three ounces matter more to you than saving a few hundred dollars, or less?
Long trails and thru hikes
This is where DCF stops being a luxury and starts paying rent. On a long trail you pitch and break camp every single day, often in the wet, and a shelter that does not sag, does not soak up water, and does not add ounces to your morning pack is worth real money over hundreds of miles. The Plex Solo has become a thru hiking staple for exactly this reason: it is about as light as a fully enclosed, bug proof tent gets. The Mid 1 gives up a few ounces but hands you more room to wait out a storm and better venting for humid nights, which counts for a lot when the tent is your home for months rather than a weekend.
On a long trail, would you rather carry the lightest shelter possible, or a slightly heavier one you can comfortably sit out a rainy afternoon inside?
Bikepacking
Bikepacking flips one priority: packed size and shape can matter as much as raw weight, because everything has to fit into small bags bolted to your frame. DCF’s low weight is lovely here, but its bulk is a genuine consideration, since DCF actually packs a touch larger than silnylon for the same tent. The Plex Solo’s smaller overall size makes it the easier fit on a bike. And because you may not carry trekking poles when you ride, remember that both tents will then need a separate pole, which Zpacks and HMG both sell in carbon. The Mid 1’s larger footprint can also fight you at the tight, pre made sites common on bike routes.
Will you be carrying trekking poles at all on the bike? If not, have you budgeted for a dedicated tent pole and the pack space it takes up?
Plex Solo vs Mid 1, straight up
Now the actual showdown, category by category, so you can see exactly where the extra ounces and dollars go.
Weight
The Plex Solo wins, at roughly 13.9 oz to the Mid 1’s 16.8 oz for the tent alone. Nearly three ounces adds up over a thru hike, but for a weekend it is the kind of difference you will never feel on your back. Be honest about which of those you are.
Space and height
The Mid 1 is the roomier home. Its floor runs about 96 inches long against the Plex Solo’s roughly 90, and its 54 inch peak with steeper walls gives taller hikers noticeably more usable room to sit up and move. If you are over 6 feet, that gap is real and you will feel it every night. The Plex Solo is comfortable up to about 6 feet and starts to feel snug beyond it.
Weather and venting
Both handle three season storms well when pitched tight and fully guyed out. The Mid 1 leans a bit more storm ready, thanks to dual peak vents and that adjustable bathtub floor, which you raise for airflow or drop to block splash. That matters because every single wall DCF tent, these two included, will collect condensation on a still, damp night. Owners of both report waking up to wet inner walls near lakes and in humid air, so plan on cracking a vent and picking breezier sites rather than expecting the fabric to solve it for you.
Footprint and setup
The Plex Solo is easier to place. It needs six to ten stakes and a bit of fussing to get the corner angles right for a taut pitch, but its smaller footprint fits more sites. The Mid 1 rewards you with space but demands more flat ground and its own set of stakes (six minimum, closer to nine or eleven when it is blowing), plus a couple of mid panel tie outs that you skip at your peril. In tight forest or rocky ground, that is a real difference in how quickly you get to bed.
Price
The Plex Solo is usually a little cheaper, around $599 against roughly $675 for the Mid 1, though both prices move and both climb once you add stakes and a pole. Zpacks also offers lighter and fancier Plex Solo variants, so check the exact model before you compare, and do not forget the true out the door cost rather than the sticker.
Are you optimizing for the lightest, easiest to pitch shelter, or for the roomiest, most weatherproof one? Your honest answer to that basically picks the tent for you.
If the price makes you flinch
No shame in it. If $600 plus stakes and a pole feels like a lot for something you will use a handful of nights, that is because it is. A silnylon or silpoly trekking pole tent gets you most of the experience for far less. The Durston X Mid 1 in silpoly and the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo in silnylon are two beginner friendly favorites that cost roughly half, weigh a few ounces more, and teach you the exact same skills: pitching taut, managing condensation, reading a campsite. Hike a full season in one of those and you will know from your own nights out whether DCF is worth it for you. That is a far better teacher than any spec sheet, including this one.
So, which one should you buy?
Go with the Zpacks Plex Solo if you want the lightest, smallest, simplest option, you are around 6 feet or under, you are heading out on long trails or bikepacking rigs where every ounce and every inch of pack space counts, or you simply want the tent that is easiest to squeeze into a pack or a frame bag and pitch anywhere.
Go with the HMG Mid 1 if you are taller, you want to sit out storms in comfort, you value the dual vents and adjustable airflow for humid or condensation prone camps, and you do not mind carrying a couple of extra ounces and hunting for a slightly bigger patch of level ground.
And seriously consider a silnylon or silpoly tent instead if this is your first real ultralight shelter, your nights out are mostly short trips close to home, or buying DCF would come at the cost of upgrading the rest of your kit, where your dollars usually save more weight anyway.
Both of these tents are excellent, and you are not going to regret either one out on the trail. The regret only shows up when the tent does not match the trips you actually take. So picture your next ten nights out, not your dream thru hike, and buy for those. Whichever way you lean, learn to pitch it tight in your backyard before it counts in the rain, because a great tent set up badly is just an expensive tarp. The dream hike will still be waiting, and by the time you get there you will know exactly what you want over your head.