What to Get Instead of a Pool Table: 6 Alternatives Compared

If you want something instead of a pool table, table football is the best all-rounder for a smaller games room, air hockey suits energetic family games, and table tennis suits active players with plenty of length. A poker table or pool dining table works when your room has another job. Each needs considerably less cue clearance than pool.

That's the short answer, so you can stop here if it's all you needed. If you're comparing options for a particular room, the dimensions, weights and prices below will help you decide.

Which pool table alternative takes up the least space?

Table football, by a clear margin. The surprise is that a 7ft air hockey table actually covers more floor than a 6ft English pool table, even though most guides describe air hockey as the compact option.

Here's how the tables in our own range compare, using each manufacturer's published dimensions:

So why does pool still feel like the space hog? It's the cue, not the table. Our room size guide recommends a room of roughly 15ft x 12ft for a 6ft pool table, because you need a full cue's length of clearance on every side.

Your alternatives are far less demanding around the edges. Air hockey players stand at the two ends, so the long sides can sit close to a wall or sofa. Table football players stand along the two long sides, and nobody needs room for a backswing. One owner in a Hearth.com forum discussion about small games rooms made exactly this observation about pool: the table itself would probably fit, but the space around it for a comfortable shot wouldn't.

Weight matters too. At 212kg, the slate pool table above weighs more than three times as much as the air hockey table, which affects your floor, your staircase and your delivery team.

Is table football the best alternative for a small games room?

For most homes, yes. It needs the least space, it suits adults and children equally, and two-a-side matches mean four people can play at once.

Imagine your spare room is about 3m wide. You'd love a pool table, but once you measure for cues, you're short by more than half a metre. The usual result is a cramped table where every other shot means a shorter cue or a bumped wall. Choose a table football table that measures 125cm wide including the rods, and you still have space for bar stools along one side. Suddenly the Friday night games actually happen, with friends round and a drink in hand.

Parents in the same Hearth.com discussion support this. One explained that their children mainly use the football table when friends visit, and another said a decent table (often called foosball) can simply be slid out of the way. The original poster, who started out wanting pool, eventually decided table football was "going to be the ticket".

The G-500 in the table above weighs around 75kg and has a 120 x 70cm playfield, which is the standard competition size, so your skills transfer straight to the pub. At £679.00, it's also the most affordable table in this guide.

Is air hockey a good alternative to a pool table?

Yes, provided you can tolerate the noise. Air hockey is the easiest game here to learn, so your youngest child and their grandparents can compete on equal terms from the first evening.

The drawback is the noise level. A fan pushes air through many tiny holes, and the puck cracks against the rails at speed. Another contributor to the Hearth.com discussion described a rented games loft with air hockey, table football and table tennis operating simultaneously as "absolutely deafening". If your games room shares a wall with a bedroom, take that seriously.

Air hockey is also lighter than you might expect. The 7ft Buffalo Dominator weighs 63kg, which makes delivery through a standard doorway much easier than slate, although it's still too heavy to reposition every evening.

Is table tennis better than a pool table for a family?

It's better if you want everyone moving, and worse if your room is short. A full-size table matches the official 2.74 x 1.53 metre playing surface described in Olympics.com's guide to the rules of table tennis. That's already longer than a 7ft air hockey table, before anyone steps back to return a shot.

The advantage is that some home tables fold away. The Heemskerk 2250 folds to 155 x 155 x 100cm on braked wheels, and one half lifts vertically so you can practise alone. That makes table tennis (or ping pong, if you prefer) a practical choice for a garage or garden room that also has to accommodate a car, bicycles or exercise equipment.

What if your games room also has to be a dining room?

Then a pool dining table or a poker table usually makes more sense. Both earn their place on the evenings when nobody is playing.

A pool dining table is still a pool table, so it won't solve your space problem. It solves a second-room problem: dinner on the top, then pool once the plates are cleared. Ours start at £1,700.00. A poker table works the other way, occupying roughly the footprint of a large round dining table, with 155cm across seating eight players. It's a centrepiece for card nights rather than an active game, so it generally suits your adult friends more than your children.

Are multi-game and folding tables a sensible compromise?

They're excellent for children and occasional play, but they are genuinely a compromise. Most online guides will tell you a 3-in-1 table is the clever small-room solution. Experienced players are considerably less convinced.

On a Quora discussion about combination tables, a former women's professional pool tour player says they're fine for children and entertainment, but the cushions won't behave like a proper table. Several other answers make a similar point: a surface designed to blow air for hockey can't also be as stable as a slate bed.

So be realistic about who will play. If it's mainly your children, a multi-game or folding table could be exactly right. If an adult in your household wants to improve at one particular game, buy that game properly.

What are the downsides of skipping the pool table?

The biggest one is that nothing else plays like pool. If what you really love is potting the black after a long, tactical frame, none of these alternatives will replace that feeling.

I'll be honest: if space is your only reason for saying no, measure again. A 6ft pool table with shorter cues fits more rooms than people expect, and it may serve you better than a second-choice game you rarely use.

The opposite mistake is equally common. A homeowner in a Houzz discussion about finishing a downstairs room admitted a pool table "would not get a lot of use", and the most popular reply asked why buy one at all. In the Hearth.com discussion, another contributor described a family pool table that was played less and less, and eventually became mostly a surface for sorting laundry. An unused table is hard to sell on, too, as the guide to pool table resale value explains.

If you simply want something inexpensive for an empty wall, a dartboard costs a fraction of anything here. We don't sell them, and for some rooms it's still the right answer. At the other extreme, a full-size arcade machine such as our PAC-MAN's Pixel Bash (£6,330.00) gives your room a nostalgic focal point, though it costs far more than any table above.

FAQ

What is the cheapest alternative to a pool table?

Of the tables in this guide, table football is the most affordable, starting at £679.00 for the Garlando G-500. A dartboard is cheaper again if you only have a wall available.

Which games table is quietest?

Table football is usually quieter than air hockey in your house, because there's no fan running continuously. A poker table is the quietest option of all, since the only sounds are chips and conversation.

Can you put a table tennis top on a pool table?

Yes, you can buy conversion tops, and plenty of families use them happily. The playing height won't always match a dedicated table tennis table, so treat it as a family option rather than one for serious practice.

The verdict

For most homes, table football is the best thing to get instead of a pool table, with air hockey a close second for families who don't mind the noise. Choose table tennis if you have length to spare, and a poker or pool dining table if the room has to work as something else. If you're still deciding mainly on space, measure for a 6ft pool table first, because it may fit after all.