ASICS Novablast 6 vs Brooks Ghost 18: Which Daily Trainer?

The short answer

Walk into any running store and these two are on the same wall, at roughly the same price, both described as “neutral daily trainers.” The category label is doing a lot of hiding. One of them is a 41.9 mm high-stack shoe built to feel springy; the other is a 36.6 mm shoe built to feel the same on mile 1 and mile 12. The question is not which is better — it is which of those two sensations you want under you four or five mornings a week.

If this is your first pair of running shoes, both work, and our best running shoes for beginners page explains the trade-off at that level. If you already run most days, the deciding question is whether this shoe is the only shoe you own (Novablast) or the reliable base of a rotation (Ghost).

The same-lab numbers

Comparing figures across reviewers is mostly noise, because labs disagree with each other and with the brands. RTINGS measured both of these shoes in one lab on one protocol, which makes this comparison unusually clean. Every figure below is theirs, not ours — this site does not test shoes.

Source: RTINGS ASICS Novablast 6 and RTINGS Brooks Ghost 18, both checked 2026-10-19. RTINGS did not publish a forefoot stack or a breathability score for the Ghost 18, so those rows are omitted rather than filled in from another source.

Stack: 41.9 mm vs 36.6 mm

The single biggest difference between these shoes is height. RTINGS measured the Novablast 6 at 41.9 mm under the heel and the Ghost 18 at 36.6 mm — a 5.3 mm gap, which is more than the whole heel-to-toe drop difference between a 10 mm shoe and a 4 mm shoe. Stand in both and you can feel it immediately.

Height buys two things and costs one. It buys foam between you and the road, and it buys the leverage a tall midsole needs to compress and spring back. It costs ground feel and, all else equal, a little side-to-side steadiness, because your foot is further from the pavement. That is the whole trade in one sentence, and it is why the Novablast scored 8.5 for cushioning and 7.1 for stability while the Ghost scored 7.7 at the heel and 8.1 for stability.

The forefoot numbers tell the same story from the other end. Per the figures in our registry entries, both taken from the same RTINGS reviews, the Novablast carries 33.1 mm of forefoot stack against the Ghost's 25.8 mm. That is a 7.3 mm difference under the ball of your foot — the part that hits the ground last and hardest when you speed up. For more on what those numbers actually do, read heel drop and stack height explained.

Weight, bounce and energy return

The Novablast 6 came in at 247.7 g (8.74 oz) against the Ghost 18's 283.3 g (9.99 oz). A 35.6 g difference per shoe sounds trivial written down and is not trivial at mile 10 — you lift each shoe somewhere around 900 times per mile, so the Novablast asks your legs to move about 64 kg less total mass over a ten-mile run.

Energy return is where the gap gets wide. RTINGS scored the Novablast 7.2 overall, with 7.6 at the forefoot and 6.4 at the heel; the Ghost scored 4.8 at the forefoot and 3.0 at the heel. Bounciness followed: 6.9 against 4.6. In plain terms, the Novablast gives more of your landing energy back to you and the Ghost absorbs more of it. Neither is wrong. Absorbing energy is literally what a cushioned trainer is for on an easy day; returning it is what you want on a progression run.

Snappiness is the one place they are level: 6.6 for the Novablast and 6.7 for the Ghost. Snappiness in RTINGS' scoring is about how the forefoot bends and releases, and neither shoe has a plate, so neither is going to feel like a race shoe. If you want that sensation, our tempo shoe vs race shoe page explains what actually delivers it.

Stability: 7.1 vs 8.1

Both of these are neutral shoes. Neither has a medial post, GuideRails or any other correction device. The full point difference in RTINGS' stability score comes from geometry: the Ghost sits lower, on firmer foam, with a broader and less rounded platform.

That matters most in three situations: when you are tired at the end of a long run, when you are running on a cambered road or a rough sidewalk, and when you are new enough to running that your ankles and feet have not caught up with your enthusiasm yet. In all three, a steadier shoe feels like less work. If you have been told you overpronate or you have had a history of rolling ankles, neither shoe is really the answer — neutral vs stability running shoes walks through what is.

The flip side is honest too: 7.1 is not an unstable score. The Novablast is a high-stack shoe that measures reasonably steady for its height, which is the whole reason it works as a do-everything trainer rather than just a cruiser.

Specs side by side

The foam names matter more than they usually do here. The Novablast 6 runs ASICS' FF BLAST MAX with an FF TURBO² layer in the forefoot — the same family of foam ASICS puts in its faster shoes, placed exactly where you push off. The Ghost 18 uses nitrogen-infused DNA LOFT v3 throughout, tuned for consistency rather than return. Both of those descriptions come from Running Warehouse's Novablast 6 and Ghost 18 product pages, not from us.

Fit, widths and toebox

Both shoes scored 9.4 for true-to-size and 10 for length fit in RTINGS' testing, and both scored 9.3 for forefoot width. So in your normal size, both should fit the length and the width of your foot the same way.

Two differences do show up. Forefoot height scored 6.0 for the Novablast and 6.8 for the Ghost, so there is slightly more vertical room over the top of the toes in the Brooks — relevant if you have a high instep or bunions. And the width ranges are not close: Brooks sells the Ghost 18 in Narrow, Medium, Wide and Extra Wide, while ASICS offers the Novablast 6 in Regular and Wide for both men and women.

If your feet are at either end of the width range, that single fact decides this comparison before any lab number does. Our pages on running shoes for wide feet and running shoes for narrow feet cover the rest of the field.

Level by level

This site picks shoes by pace and weekly mileage rather than by category, so here is how the two land at each tier.

• Couch to 5K. The NHS Couch to 5K plan is nine weeks of run/walk intervals three times a week, on tired legs that are not used to impact. The Ghost 18 is the safer answer: steadier, lower, available in four widths, and forgiving of a form that is still being built. The Novablast works too and is more fun, but it is more shoe than the plan needs.
• First 10K. Either. This is the level where the Novablast starts earning its keep, because a 10K plan has you doing a faster day most weeks and the Novablast can take it. See best running shoes for 5K and 10K.
• Half marathon. Hal Higdon's Novice 1 Half builds to a 10-mile long run on four running days a week. If this is your only pair, the Novablast's lower weight and higher return are worth real minutes of comfort by the end of those long runs.
• Marathon. Novice 1 Marathon runs to a 20-mile long run and 18 weeks of accumulated mileage, which is where most runners own two pairs anyway. Our best marathon training shoes page sets out the full rotation.

Can you own both?

Yes, and it is a genuinely good two-shoe rotation — better than most pairings of two shoes from the same category, because these two do not overlap. The Ghost takes the easy days, the recovery days and the runs where your legs are already beaten up. The Novablast takes the long run and the day with some pace in it. Rotating also spreads the mileage, which is the one maintenance habit that reliably extends how long both pairs last.

If you are only buying one pair this year, buy the Novablast — it covers more of the week. If you are buying two, buy the Ghost first and add the Novablast when you start doing a faster day. Our running shoe rotation guide explains the order and the mileage split, and when to replace running shoes covers what rotation does to shoe life.

The two alternatives

Plenty of runners read this comparison and find that neither shoe is quite the answer. Two obvious adjustments, both already in our registry:

• The Novablast is too lively. If you want the stack without the bounce, the ASICS Gel-Nimbus 28 is ASICS' max-cushion trainer: more foam, calmer ride, aimed at easy and long days rather than at pace. It also sits at the center of our best max-cushion running shoes page.
• The Ghost is right but you want support. The Brooks Adrenaline GTS 25 is the Ghost's stablemate with GuideRails, in the same wide size range. Brooks Ghost vs Adrenaline compares those two directly.

And if you are weighing the brands rather than the models, best ASICS running shoes and best Brooks running shoes lay out each line-up level by level.

Who should buy which

Buy the Novablast 6 if: you want one shoe for the whole week; you notice weight; you like a soft, springy ride; you sometimes run fast; you are training for a half or a marathon and the long run is the session that hurts.

Buy the Ghost 18 if: you want predictable over exciting; you need Narrow or Extra Wide; you are new to running and your legs are still adapting; you run on cambered roads or broken sidewalks; this shoe is going to be the easy-day half of a rotation.

Buy neither if: you need built-in support, in which case look at the Adrenaline GTS 25 or our best stability running shoes page. Both of these are neutral shoes and no amount of stack height changes that.