REASONS TO BUY
Highly versatile gym shoe
Stiffer flex under the toes
Covered in sticky rubber
REASONS TO AVOID
Lacks mid-foot support
Expensive
La Sportiva Ondra Comp Review
A highly specialized gym climbing shoe that also performs well on outdoor boulders
Good enough for the Olympic stage, the La Sportiva Ondra Comp may just be the key to unlocking your next gym or bouldering project.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
By Dom Rickicki ⋅ Review Editor ⋅ November 24, 2025
RELATED: The Best Climbing Shoes for Men
Our Verdict
The Ondra Comp is a new shoe from La Sportiva, designed in partnership with Adam Ondra specifically for performance-oriented gym and competition climbing. Even if you're like us and don't climb as hard as Ondra, the Ondra Comp might just be your new secret weapon for taking down your gym projects. Gym climbing tends to favor softer, more downturned shoes, and this shoe certainly fits that mold. Compared to other popular models, it offers a touch of extra support under your toes, which is a nice touch for powering tiny jibs and toeing in on the board. If you're looking for a competitive edge, the Ondra Comp could be the shoe for you.
Our Analysis and Test Results
We didn't get to put any time on the Olympic stage with this shoe, unfortunately, but we don't think that's necessary to experience the performance benefits it offers. For projecting in the gym or even outdoors, the new La Sportiva Ondra Comp is a fresh take on what a bouldering shoe can be. It is still soft for smearing and pulling on holds, but with a bit of added support, you'll be able to use these shoes on a variety of climbs.
The Ondra Comp is on the softer side, but don't pigeonhole it just for bouldering. This shoe offers solid performance for any type of steep climbing.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Comfort
The Ondra Comp is a thin, lightweight shoe, but its soft upper and wider toe box make it comfortable for long gym sessions. The heel is narrower and the toe box is taller than in other La Sportiva models, giving it a glove-like feel when it's sized so your big toe is crimped up at the end. Having your toes curled up like this often makes a shoe much less comfortable, but the soft uppers make this fit a bit more bearable. By foregoing a bit of asymmetry, the Ondra Comp is a surprisingly comfortable high-performance shoe.
While it feels good once it's on, getting into the Ondra Comp can be a bit challenging. A thick band of tight elastic that encompasses the top of the foot makes it a bit of a chore to open. Often, this elastic would roll and bunch on top of our foot, so we had to fix it before tightening the power strap. For someone with high arches, our lead tester loved that this design sucked up any dead space. However, friends who tested this shoe felt like it actually hurt their arches. Like most high-performance shoes we've tested, if you can hack the fit, then the Ondra Comp will deliver a stellar performance.
A Note on Sizing
Given its narrower heel pocket, it worked best to size up a half size from La Sportiva's normal sizing. For an aggressive, performance fit, our lead tester wears a 42.5 in Solutions, Skwama's, and Otakis, and felt that the Ondra Comp fit similarly in a size 43.
Given its narrower heel pocket, it worked best to size up a half size from La Sportiva's normal sizing. For an aggressive, performance fit, our lead tester wears a 42.5 in Solutions, Skwama's, and Otakis, and felt that the Ondra Comp fit similarly in a size 43.
This is a soft, comfortable shoe with a generous toe box (relative to other high-performance shoes). But the tight elastic makes it tough to pull it on.
Smearing
Even with some additional support under the toes, make no mistake: the Ondra Comp is still a soft, smeary climbing shoe. Aside from the toes, the rest of the shoe's flex is still quite soft. Coupled with sticky Vibram XS Grip2 rubber on the outsole, you'll get plenty of purchase on sloping footholds. The stiffer section under the toes decreases sensitivity a touch compared to similar shoes, which inhibits performance on the most technical of smears. But after a short break-in period, sensitivity generally improved.
For sustained smearing efforts on outdoor routes, you will be far better served by a flatter, more supportive shoe. But for the kind of technical smearing found on modern gym routes or outdoor boulders, this shoe performs at a high level. Its slightly stiffer flex made standing taller a bit easier, and small footholds hurt a bit less, which was key for our lead tester to send an indoor slab project.
This is generally a soft shoe with just a touch of stiffness under the toes.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Edging
The Ondra Comp's added support under the toes helps you put more power into small footholds, but this shoe is far from other specialty edging shoes we've tested. There is a definite advantage for eeking out a bit more power while climbing gym projects, but we would never choose this shoe for technical face climbs on rock. The level of added stiffness is marginal compared to a true edging shoe, and it's worth noting the toe isn't quite as precise as more asymmetric models.
Where the Ondra Comp does add a competitive advantage is for board climbing. Compared to our usual soft gym shoes, the added support makes a difference for the kind of tiny footholds we use on boards. This makes for a shoe that can go from climbing set problems during one part of your session to the board on another, reducing the need to carry a quiver of shoes to the gym.
The extra stiffness this shoe provides makes standing on small plastic holds more secure.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Adam Ondra describes this shoe as a master of the art of “smedging,” a word climbers have long used to describe the technique of smearing over a small edge rather than purely edging. Often considered a technique for technical outdoor climbs, it is also quite useful in the gym when pressing into tiny screw-on jibs. The added support under the toes was indeed an advantage for smedging, especially because the support meant we didn't feel the jib digging into our feet as much as we do with softer shoes.
The extra stiffness also makes holding tension on tiny footholds easier.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Pulling
Pulling and grabbing with our feet in steep terrain is what gym climbing is all about, and the Ondra Comp excels as a shoe that can hook and claw in on the most challenging holds. This shoe is literally covered in sticky rubber – the entire upper is wrapped in it, and even the power strap has a textured rubber coating. This provides distinct advantages for toe hooking: you can rotate your foot into any position and know that sticky rubber is helping you gain purchase. This also means that, to some extent, you can be less precise while toe hooking because you don't need to hit the toe patch perfectly. The narrower heel also provides a more precise platform for heel hooking. With no dead air space in our heel, the heel cup never rolled around while we were pulling hard.
The shoe's soft flex makes it easy to use your toes to curl and pull into holds. The only caveat was trying to pull on less positive holds, where the stiffer toe seemed to limit the purchase we could get compared to softer shoes. At the same time, when we needed to toe in on small incut footholds, the stiffness was an advantage. We think the overall advantages of the Ondra Comp for pulling outweigh the disadvantages, but it's worth noting the tradeoff.
Despite the additional stiffness, the toe box is soft enough to pull into the wall on overhangs.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
We keep referring to this shoe for gym climbing, but the same advantages are also obvious on rock. It's not uncommon to see people bouldering and gym climbing in the same shoes, and the Ondra Comp's additional support makes it an even better contender for bouldering outdoors than some of the super-soft shoes we've tested. For climbing at the Thug Roof in Wild Basin, the Ondra Comp offered us a significant advantage for pulling with our feet on the well-featured horizontal roof of that boulder.
We really enjoyed the narrower heel on the Ondra Comp for heel hooking.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Crack Climbing
The attributes that make a shoe really good at gym climbing and steep bouldering are often antithetical to what makes a shoe a good crack climbing shoe – the Ondra Comp is no different.
The high angle of the toe box was painful when jamming cracks, and the lack of support quickly fatigued our feet. If you're looking for a crack-climbing shoe, look elsewhere; that's not what the Ondra Comp was trying to accomplish.
This shoe is simply too thin and too aggressive to reasonably use it for crack climbing.
Credit: Dom Rickicki
Should You Buy the La Sportiva Ondra Comp?
With climbing now an Olympic sport and gym climbing growing across the country, it is no surprise that La Sportiva released a shoe specifically marketed for comp-style gym climbing. More than just marketing hype, the Ondra Comp is truly a new and unique offering in the gym climbing space. The slightly more supportive flex and full rubber coverage make this shoe great for everything from the bouldering cave to the slab wall, and it's versatile enough to be a great choice on the board as well. While many might not find the price worth it for a dedicated gym shoe, if you're trying to up your game for your next comp or gym project, the Ondra Comp is a shoe worth considering.
What Other Rock Climbing Shoes Should You Consider?
The Ocun Bullit is a reasonable alternative to the expensive Ondra Comp. It offers a premium feel and surprisingly similar performance, but for significantly less money. For a more direct comparison among high-performance shoes, the Scarpa Drago has long been the go-to gym shoe for many climbers. It's slightly softer than the Ondra Comp, but offers a more precise toe and increased sensitivity. Entry-level climbers looking for a utilitarian gym shoe should check out the Scarpa Arpia V or La Sportiva Kubo.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Compare La Sportiva Ondra Comp versus top competing products:
—Dom Rickicki
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