How our railing compares

Same columns for every tier, guard rail and cable. Our figures are our own engineering calculations — we hold no evaluation report yet, and the code testing page sets out exactly what that means. Competitor figures are what each maker publishes; where a maker publishes nothing, this page says not published rather than guessing.

ProGuard — the commercial tier

Guard rail

	CR ProGuard	Fortress Fe26	Westbury Tuscany
Post	2″ square	2″ square 3″ for commercial	2½″ square
Wall	2.7 mm at 36″ · 3.15 mm at 42″	13 GA panel	3.05 mm
Material	Galvanised steel	Pre-galvanised steel	6005-T5 aluminium
Span	6 ft	93.5″ at 42″	8 ft at 36″ · 6 ft at 42″
Base plate	13 mm	not published	½″ + 6 screws
Report	none yet	CCRR-0192	CCRR-0530 + Florida HVHZ

Cable

	CR ProGuard	Fortress Cable	Feeney DesignRail
Post	2″ × 2.7 mm	2″ × 2.5 mm	2-3/8″
Top rail	2×1″ × 3.0 mm	two-piece, 4.1 mm	not published
Span	4 ft	93.5″ at 42″ commercial	6 ft at 36″ · 5 ft at 42″ commercial
Report	none yet	CCRR-0248	CCRR-0570

CoastLine — salt air

Guard rail

	CR CoastLine	Viewrail 2205	Superior Aluminum
Post	2″ × 3.81 mm	2205 duplex stainless	not published
Material	6061-T6 aluminium	2205 duplex	Aluminium
Finish	AAMA 2605 over e-coat	AAMA 2605	AAMA 2603
Salt warranty	see below	10 yr within 5 miles	not published
Report	none yet	covers their aluminium line, not 2205	none found

Cable

	CR CoastLine	Zylorix Marine	Atlantis Rail
Post	2″ × 3.81 mm	2″ × 1.35 mm	Stainless, grade not published
Material	6061-T6 aluminium	T316 stainless	not published
Base plate	13 mm	6 mm	not published
Price	—	$80	dealer only
Report	none yet	none	none found

Only one real coastal warranty exists in this field — Viewrail's, and it is on a duplex stainless post, not aluminium. Ours has to be written to match what the isolation hardware actually delivers, not what the category implies.

EdgeLine — the entry tier

Guard rail

	CR EdgeLine	VEVOR	Gyykzz
Post	1.57″ square	1″ × 2″	2″ square
Wall	1.35 mm	1.5 mm	1.0 mm
Height	36″ only	36″	36″
Report or load claim	none — and we say so	none	none
Price	—	$34–42	$54

Cable

	CR EdgeLine	Muzata	CKE
Post	2″ × 2.7 mm shares the ProGuard post	2″ square	2.56″ square
Wall	2.7 mm	not published	not published
Material	Galvanised steel	304 stainless · 6063 aluminium	Aluminium
Height	36″ only	36″	36″
Report or load claim	none	none	“200 lb point load” — self-claimed, no third party
Price	—	$80–90	$73 · $160 complete kit

Why ours holds up — the two parts that matter

A guard rail fails in one of two places: the post bends, or the base tears off the deck. Everything else is trim. So there are only two numbers worth comparing, and most listings publish neither.

1. The wall of the post

A post is a hollow tube. What resists a person falling against it is the thickness of that tube wall — not how wide the post looks. A 2-inch post with a thin wall is a 2-inch post that bends.

Watch for “nominal”. Steel tube is normally sold at a nominal wall and mills are allowed to deliver up to 10% under it, so a post ordered at 2.5 mm can legally arrive at 2.25 mm. Every wall we publish is the ACTUAL delivered thickness, not the number on the order.

2. The plate under the post

The post is welded to a flat steel or aluminium plate, and that plate bolts to your deck. Under load the plate tries to peel up off the surface. A thin plate bends before the post ever does, and no amount of post makes up for it.

Post	Wall	Base plate	What backs the claim
Our ProGuard (steel)	2.7 mm actual	13 mm	Built to clear the certified numbers below
Our CoastLine (aluminium)	3.81 mm	13 mm	Same wall as the certified aluminium post below
Fortress (steel)	2.5 mm minimum	6 mm	Intertek CCRR-0248 — commercial
Viewrail (aluminium)	3.81 mm	9.65 mm	ICC-ES ESR-4798 — residential
Trex (aluminium)	3.18 mm	12.7 mm	Intertek CCRR-0202
Budget listings (VEVOR, Muzata, CKE and similar)	often not published — where it is, commonly 1.0–1.5 mm	not published	No report. No test. No published wall.

That last row is the real comparison. A cheap rail is not cheap because someone found a clever saving — it is cheap because the wall is thinner, the plate is thinner, and nobody has tested it. When a listing does not tell you the wall thickness, that is the answer.

What a certification report actually means

ICC-ES and Intertek reports are not paperwork. The maker hands a finished section to an independent lab, which pushes 500 lb into the top rail and again into the post and holds it, then checks for cracks or anything pulling loose. Passing means a physical assembly survived, not that a calculation said it would.

We are candid about where we stand: we do not yet hold one of these reports. What we do instead is build to more metal than the posts that passed — our steel post carries more section than the commercially certified one, our aluminium post matches the certified one wall for wall, and both sit on a thicker base plate than any product in the table above.

Three things worth knowing before you compare prices

Most sellers publish no wall thickness at all. Of about twenty posts on the large marketplaces, four state one. A post is a tube, and the wall is most of what you are buying.
“Marine” and “coastal” are not regulated words. One seller markets T316 cable hardware for highly corrosive coastal conditions while its own post pages say not recommended for coastal use. Another sells a 6063 aluminium post at more than a genuine 316 one costs.
A code report has a number. ESR-4798, CCRR-0530, CCRR-0248. If a listing says “code compliant” without one, it is describing an intention. We do not have one either, and this page is where we say so.