I recently purchased LVP for my personal residence, and due to my "type A" personality spent quite a bit of time researching options :-) I made a table to keep track of various factors, and wanted to share it here in case it's helpful to anyone else. I did most of this research in August 2020 so of course things may change, and I may have missed a thing or two, but I figured it might be useful to have an overview of some prominent brands if anyone else is as overwhelmed starting their search as I was.

The brands I considered were all click-lock installation floating floors at least 5mm think, in the ~$2-4 price range, and all claim to be waterproof, scratch resistant, and stain resistant. Some have multiple lines with other features and I'm just showing the line that most closely matched my criteria.

(If the image doesn't display well, you can also find the chart here)

I also made note of various helpful reviews (many from BP):

LifeProof +s: "best overall," "easy to install, great value,"

LifeProof -s: "tabs break during install"

TM Allure Ultra +s: "held up great"

TM Allure Ultra -s: negative reviews on houzz, subfloor unevenness issues

Smartcore Ultra -s: negative reviews on houzz

NuCore +s: "great over imperfect subfloor"

NuCore -s: "shouldn't be used in wet rooms"

DuraLax -s: weight limit and issues with area rugs

Mohawk SolidTech -s: lots of bad reviews on floorcritics

CoreTec +s: great product at great price

I ended up going with CoreTec ProPlus since I found it on sale for $2.50, and I'm actually not very happy with it! I think mainly I didn't think enough about the design since I was primarily concerned with durability, and I really don't like the one I chose (Chesapeake Oak). I'd heard that CoreTec ProPlus is one of their cheaper lines in part because the designs are less realistic, and I definitely see that.

My other issue is less about the floor itself - my subfloor is in pretty bad shape (lots of dips and one area with major slope), and we didn't fully realize the extent of it until after we installed the LVP. We actually plan to take it back up to further repair the subfloor, and then re-install :-p. Based on my experience, I definitely can't recommend the 5mm CoreTec ProPlus for anyone with any subfloor imperfections unless you're planning to do a very thorough repair job!

Hope this is helpful :-)

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