The Best 4-Person Cabin Tents (Bought & Tested!)

I bought and tested some of the best 4-person cabin tents, and here they are:

1. Gazelle T4 Hub Tent

2. Gazelle T4 Plus Tent

3. REI Skyward Co-Op 4

4. Coleman Instant Cabin 4

This page contains affiliate links, and that means that I may earn a commission if you buy something, at no extra cost to you. You can find my full disclosure policy here.

Here’s a quick summary of everything you need to know about these 4-person cabin tents:

And now, let’s get into the more detailed recommendations.

RELATED: The Best Cabin Tents for 2025

1. Gazelle T4 Hub Tent (Best Overall 4-Person Cabin Tent)

Key Info:

• Peak height: 77.5 inches

• Base area: 61.0 square feet

• Set up timing (1P): 5 minutes

• Weight: 34.0lbs.

• Packed size: 68 by 13 by 10 inches

Pros and Cons:

Summary

If you’re looking for the best possible 4-person cabin tent with an instant tent mechanism, well, you’re in luck, because that’s easily the Gazelle T4 Hub Tent.

The Gazelle T4 has 5 hubs around the entire tent (4 in the 4 walls, and the last hub is at the top). To set this tent up, all you’ve got to do is just pull on the hubs, and the entire tent basically just ‘pops’ open.

The entire setup process, including setting up the rainfly, tent stakes, and guylines, took me about 5 minutes.

What if you don’t set up the rainfly though? Well, then this tent takes you about 1 minute and 45 seconds, which is insanely quick.

The pack away is equally easy, taking me about 5-6 minutes as well. And that’s because the floor of this Gazelle is removable. (It’s attached via Velcro.)

So, I could just undo a part of the floor, the air will just flow out of the tent easily, and I didn’t have to struggle to compress the air out. (For all my other instant tents, this is a big frustration for me.)

I also found the Gazelle T4 to have lots of livable space, more than your average 4-person cabin tent. And that’s because this tent has literally nearly straight walls:

For the other REI and Coleman cabin tents in this review, they both have slightly more slanted walls instead.

The Gazelle T4 is also made of the thickest and highest-quality materials I’ve ever seen in a regular polyester tent, and here are the details:

• Tent body: 210D oxford weave polyester (2,000mm HH rating)

• Rain fly: 210D polyester (2,000mm HH rating)

• Tent floor: 300D oxford weave polyester (5,000mm HH rating)

And on top of that, the tent body and rainfly also have UPF 50+ rating as well.

However, one material that I didn’t like as much were the poles, because they were made of fiberglass.

Don’t get me wrong, they were sturdy and held up well, but I would have preferred them to have been made of aluminum or steel instead, like the other tents in this review.

And the biggest con to this tent is the fact that it has such a humongous packed size. After packing it up, it has a total length of 68 inches, which is taller than I am:

Nevertheless, if this tent can fit into your car despite its humongous packed length, I would highly recommend this Gazelle T4 Hub Tent. It’s the best instant tent I’ve ever tested, and a great addition to my car camping trips.

2. Gazelle T4 Plus Tent (Best 4-Person Screen Room Cabin Tent)

Key Info:

• Peak height: 78 inches

• Base area: 107.7 square feet (includes screen room base area)

• Set up timing (1P): 10 minutes

• Weight: 56.0lbs.

Pros and Cons:

Summary

Full disclosure – I do not have the Gazelle T4 Plus Tent (as I ran out of money to buy it), but I have tested other screen room tents from Coleman, and I know what to look for.

When it comes to screen room tents, the most important thing to look for is whether the panels to the screen room can be shut.

In my Coleman screen room tents, the rainfly doesn’t extend much over the screen room, and the panels to the screen room cannot be shut.

So, loads of water gets into the screen room in the rain, which (trust me) is a giant pain to clean up afterwards.

However, there isn’t this problem with the Gazelle. Look at the Amazon image above of this tent, and notice that the screen room panels are fully closable.

This gives the Gazelle T4 Plus Tent’s screen room much better protection in the rain, and is easily the best screen room in rain I’ve seen so far.

And speaking of rain protection, I also noticed that the Gazelle T4 Plus‘ rainfly is significantly longer than the Gazelle T4 Hub‘s rainfly.

In the Gazelle T4 Hub, I felt that the rainfly was a little too short to provide enough rain protection, and the longer rainfly of the T4 Plus gets rid of that problem entirely.

For more info on this, you can check out my rain test of the Gazelle T4 Hub Tent here:

And one more thing – I love that the Gazelle T4 Plus Tent is able to maintain the same peak height throughout the entire tent, and the screen room too. This gives me loads more livable space than other screen room tents I’ve tested.

On the other hand, take a look at my Coleman Evanston 6. Notice how Coleman’s screen room tent tends to slope down?

Basically, the peak height in the Evanston 6’s inner tent is about 68.5 inches. However, in the screen room, the peak height is only about 62 inches, this is barely my height, and it slopes down quite a bit after that.

So, based on all the points above, I feel that the Gazelle T4 Plus Tent is a fantastic screen room tent, the best one I’ve seen so far. In fact, I’m saving up money to buy it as we speak!

3. REI Co-Op Skyward 4 (Most Spacious 4-Person Cabin Tent)

Key Info:

• Peak height: 78 inches

• Inner tent base area: 58.5 square feet

• Vestibule area: 23.6 square feet

• Set up timing (1P): 12 minutes

• Weight: 14.2lbs.

• Packed size: 25 by 10 by 9.5 inches

Pros and Cons:

Summary

The REI Co-Op Skyward 4 is the only cabin tent I have that actually comes with a vestibule, giving me a much bigger than average base area for a 4-person cabin tent.

Check out all the base areas of all the cabin tents in this review:

Cabin Tent	Tent Area	Vestibule	Total Area
REI Skyward 4	58.5 sq. ft	23.6 sq. ft	82.1 sq. ft
Gazelle T4	61.0 sq. ft	0	61.0 sq. ft
Coleman 4	55.4 sq. ft	0	55.4 sq. ft

And I loved that I could turn the vestibule into an extended awning on hot days, which provided a ton of shade over the tent.

Here’s my recommendation to you – Use the awning on hot days, and use the vestibule on rainy days. This gave me so much versatility, and that’s the main reason I love this Skyward 4.

I also really like all the user-friendly features in my Skyward. Here are the main ones that I can think of.

First, I love the door to this tent (REI tent doors tend to be awesome). There’s sadly only 1 door, but it has a lot of pros though.

It’s pretty big, and takes up almost the entire wall of the tent. The zippers are also very snag-free, and I can unzip the door completely one-handed.

Second, this Skyward tent has 4 conveniently-located storage pockets right at the front of the tent.

That was a really smart move, because all the pocket seams will be protected from the rain by the vestibule.

And also, I could reach into the pockets without stepping into the tent.

There’s also a whopping 5 loops in this tent (1 at the top center, and 1 more in each of the 4 corners), for hanging lanterns or other camping gear.

This gives me a total of 9 storage options, and the other 4-person cabin tents in this review don’t have as many.

However, I didn’t like how ridiculously tiny the rainfly of this tent is. It’s the shortest rainfly I’ve ever seen in a cabin tent.

It’s pretty waterproof though, and survived my 1-hour heavy rain test without any leaks. But that’s only because my rain test had no wind at all.

The moment there’s wind, it’ll blow the rain right under the rainfly, and leak into the tent.

Overall, I felt that the REI Skyward 4 is a great tent, provided you’re not camping in heavy rain with strong winds to blow the rain under the rainfly. Heavy rain without any wind is perfectly fine though!

4. Coleman Instant Cabin 4 (Best Budget 4-Person Cabin Tent)

Key Info:

• Peak height: 61 inches

• Base area: 55.4 square feet

• Set up timing (1P): 4.5 minutes

• Weight: 20.0lbs.

• Packed size: 40 by 11 by 8 inches

Pros and Cons:

Summary

The main reason I’m including the Coleman Instant Cabin 4 in this review is because it’s the most affordable 4-person cabin tent of the lot.

Overall, I found the Coleman Instant Cabin 4 to be a no-frills cabin tent, and a great pick if you’re on a tight budget.

The most prominent feature it does have though, is its instant tent mechanism.

Being a no-frills instant tent, the Coleman Instant 4 does set up and pack away faster than the other cabin tents in this review:

• 1-person setup timing: 4.5 minutes

• 1-person pack away timing: 5 minutes (can be quicker if I had expanded the carry bag)

Even the Gazelle T4 Hub Tent (my #1 recommendation above) took about 30 seconds to 1 minute more than this tent, for both the setup and pack away timings.

However, this being a budget-friendly tent, it would no doubt come with certain cons that I need to bring to your attention.

This is the only 4-person cabin tent in this review where I didn’t have standing room.

The peak height came in at only 61 inches, which is slightly shorter than my height of 5’3. So, my head presses against the roof when I try to stand upright.

It also doesn’t have many storage options, with only 2 pockets and 1 top loop, but with no overhead gear loft.

It also has only 1 very small door, and no ceiling mesh. In contrast, all the other cabin tents in this review have at least 1 big door (Skyward) or not-so-big doors but there are 2 of them (Gazelle), and loads of ceiling mesh at the top.

And of course, as is the case with all budget-friendly tents, the rainproofing on the Coleman Instant Cabin 4 isn’t up to par.

After just 15 minutes of heavy rain, I found quite a bit of leaking from the seam connecting the bathtub flooring to the black tent fabric, which was not seam taped and instead inverted.

But overall, if you’re on a tight budget, you can purchase this Coleman Instant Cabin 4, and just purchase an additional waterproofing spray and seam sealant. It’ll cost a lot less than buying a higher-end waterproof cabin tent like the REI Skyward.

Here’s what I recommend:

• I use this waterproofing spray for my polyester tents.

• I use this seam sealant for my polyester tents.

So far, here are my recommendations:

1. Best Overall 4-Person Cabin Tent: Gazelle T4 Hub Tent

2. Best Instant Tent: Gazelle T4 Hub Tent

3. Best Screen Room Tent: Gazelle T4 Plus Hub Tent

4. Most Spacious 4-Person Cabin Tent (so far): REI Co-Op Skyward 4

5. Best Budget 4-Person Cabin Tent: Coleman Instant Cabin 4

Alternatively, if you don’t want to limit yourself to just 4-person cabin tents, you can check out my overall review on the best cabin-style tents (featuring 4P, 6P, 8P, and 10P cabin tents).

Here are some other 4-person cabin tents that I would love to buy and test out, but I haven’t been able to do so cos I’ve already blown all my budget away on other tents:

• Eureka Space Camp 4: A great looking cabin tent with a full-coverage rainfly and vestibule.

• Big Agnes Spicer Peak 4: Less features than the Eureka, but still with a full rainfly.

• Snow Peak Alpha Breeze Tent: A high-quality Japanese cabin tent with a whopping 4 doors.

• Core Tent for 4 or 6-persons: Also a budget-friendly tent like Coleman.

There are also these 4-person cabin tents that I’ve not bought, but I have them in a 6-person capacity (and that’s why they didn’t show up here):

• Eureka Copper Canyon LX 6: Bang for your buck cabin tent with an awesome carry bag

• Caddis Rapid 6: My runner-up instant tent pick (second to the Gazelle T4)

• REI Co-Op Wonderland 6: A palatial 6-person cabin tent

What are some key things I need to bring to your attention here? These are:

• 4-person tent sizing

• Weather protection of cabin tents

RELATED: What is a Cabin Tent?

4-Person Capacity

The most important thing I need you to take note of here is that a 4-person cabin tent typically fits only a small family of 3 (that’s already a fairly tight fit), or more ideally, just a couple of campers.

When all these cabin tent brands state that their tent has a ‘4-person’ capacity, it means 4 campers sleeping side by side, like this:

In higher-end camping tents like REI and Gazelle, you may get a little leftover room after 4 sleeping bags go into the tent.

However, in budget-friendly tents like Coleman, you would space for only 4 single pads, and nothing else:

Alternatively, you can fit just 1 queen bed, or 1 queen bed plus 1 twin bed:

Weather Protection

Another important thing to take note of is that cabin tents aren’t typically the best in rain and wind.

As you might have already seen when I was going through my recommendations above, these cabin tents have really tiny rainflies, covering only the very top of the tent (usually where the ceiling mesh is), and nothing much else.

This is my general observation, but there may be exceptions to the rule (like the Eureka Space Camp 4).

As such, if you’re going to be camping in harsher weather conditions, you should opt to go for more aerodynamic dome tents instead, which would shed wind better.

Also, get a tent with a full rainfly instead, and this would keep the rain out better.

I bought and tested all 3 of the 4-person cabin tents here, and I’ve even bought other cabin tents that are 6-person sizes and up. All of these cabin tents set me back thousands of dollars, but this allows me to provide completely objective reviews for you.

Also, I typically spend at least 1 week in each tent that I test, so these 4-person cabin tents in this review took about 3 weeks to test.

And with all the time, money, and experience, here’s what I can safely recommend to you for your next camping trip:

1. Best Overall 4-Person Cabin Tent: Gazelle T4 Hub Tent

2. Best Instant Tent: Gazelle T4 Hub Tent

3. Runner-Up Instant Tent (but also more affordable than Gazelle): Caddis Rapid 4

4. Best Screen Room Tent: Gazelle T4 Plus Hub Tent

5. Most Spacious 4-Person Cabin Tent (so far): REI Co-Op Skyward 4

6. Best Budget 4-Person Cabin Tent: Coleman Instant Cabin 4

7. Best 4-Person Cabin Tent for Heavy Rain: Snow Peak Alpha Breeze (or any other 4-person cabin tent with a full rainfly)

I hope this helps, and feel free to reach out to me on my YouTube channel if you have any questions. I’m only a YouTube comment away, and I do my best to answer everyone.