A badger with a tape measure.

Bag Badger is an independent field guide to luggage. We care about wheel locks, handle heights and airline sizers far more than any reasonable mammal should, so that you don't have to.

How the badger works

Measure. Every bag is a small record of exterior dimensions, weight, capacity, price, colors and hardware, taken from the brand's own product page, with the page and date noted.
Re-check. Those pages are fetched again every day. When a number changes, the bag is flagged until a human looks and accepts or corrects it.
Compare. Each bag is checked against the economy carry-on and checked-bag limits of 149 airlines, by exterior size in any orientation, so you can see which ones it fits and which it misses.

What we do and do not claim

The badger is playful; the numbers are not. Three kinds of information can appear on this site, and we try to keep them apart:

Manufacturer specification. What the brand publishes. Today every measurement on the site is this kind, re-verified against the brand's page.
Independently verified. Something we or a trusted third party have measured ourselves. None yet; when it arrives it will be marked.
Badger opinion. Field notes and observations, clearly written as such. The badger has never pretended to test a bag it has only read about.

Airline fit is a size comparison, not a promise: airlines apply weight limits and sizer boxes differently, and a bag one millimetre over a stated limit is counted as a miss.

The collection

238 bags from Aer, Away, Briggs & Riley, CALPAK, Herschel Supply Co., July, LOJEL, Monos, MUJI, Nomatic, Quince, RIMOWA, Travelpro, TUMI. Carry-on and checked suitcases only for now; backpacks and other bags may follow as their own categories.

The data behind the site is a folder of plain JSON files that anyone can read and diff. Project name in the code: bagger.