Glow discs are getting better every year. Some major brands have changed their glow formula and many new brands are on the scene. In this review we’ve compared over 25 different glow discs from various brands in a head to head showdown to see which ones are the brightest and longest lasting. This test mostly factors in glow brightness and longevity, only somewhat touching on subjective characteristics such as plastic feel and consistency between runs.
These are the best glow discs as tested by Rare Discs from many major brands in 2024. If you want to play at night, these are the top glow discs to buy right now.
Top Two Premium Glow Plastics
MVP Eclipse 2.0
MVP’s Eclipse 2.0 plastic continues to dominate as the brightest and longest lasting glow plastic on the market. This is the same glow blend as Streamline and Axiom discs. The main downside is that MVP does not run many of its molds in Eclipse Glow at any time, so it can be hard to find specific discs without resorting to the expensive secondary market. In real world glow play, some players complain that MVP can be so bright that it’s almost blinding.
Lone Star Alpha Glow
Lone Star Glow continues to score well in our glowdown tests. It’s bright, long lasting and has great grip. But most importantly Lone Star produces the majority of its molds in glow and continues to make them year round. It’s significantly easier to find a wide variety of Lone Star Glow at major retailers. Lone Star recently released a host of new glow plastic blends, such as Alpha and Bravo Glow, which we have not had the chance to try yet.
B-Tier
Thought Space Athletics and Mint Discs
To be clear, B-Tier glow discs are great. Both Thought Space Athletics and Mint Discs are bright and long lasting, but not quite as bright or long lasting as the A-Tier. It’s a fairly slim difference. These glow plastics are molded by MVP and are a similar blend in terms of grip, flexibility and glow longevity. They last a decent amount of time and feel great. Similar to MVP, it can be tough to find specific TSA molds in glow due to their limited production.
Kastaplast Glow
Kastplast K1 Glow used to be in our A-Tier, but since the company released “low glow” discs at the start of 2023 without any stamp to differentiate them between the standard run, it can be a coin flip whether new Kastaplast will glow to the older standard. The low glow Kastplast discs are still bright enough to be usable and feel excellent. From a subjective standpoint, Kastaplast has in our opinion the best feeling glow plastic. We tested four different Kastplast premium glow discs and found the one prior to 2022 was the brightest, while newer glow discs were more similar to other plastics in the B-Tier.
MVP Colour Glow and R2 Glow
Most of MVP’s Total Eclipse and Colour Glow is super, but like Kastplast they have some minor consistency problems. For example, we found that the teal color glow was the brightest and longest lasting, while the purple and pink were more dim and faded quicker. These discs are super usable and look great.
R2 Glow uses color glow rims, with the green being bright but other colors are much more dim. The black flight plate really reduces overall brightness, but since it’s Neutron plastic R2 discs also fly less overstable than the other Eclipse plastics. We wish MVP would use more dramatic Glow or UV reflective foil stamps on these discs to give them that bit extra color pop during the day and at night.
Alfa Discs
We have no idea who makes Alfa Discs but they absolutely crushed it in this test, with brightness on par with TSA/Mint. The discs feel a little bit slicker than Mint/TSA. There’s only one run of Alfa discs in the shop at the moment so we cannot speak to their consistency between runs. PS: yes, I know I called them Apollo Discs in the video. The disc tested was the Alfa Discs Apllo. Oops.
Single Disc Shout Outs
Discmania P2 Canada Nationals: This Discmania Glow P2 Canada Nationals Edition is the only newer Discmania glow disc we have in stock, so we cannot speak to the entire newer Discmania glow lineup, but it stayed super bright for a long time during testing. This was one of the stand out turnarounds, as past Discmania glow has been quite average.
Discraft Buzzz 2023 Halloween Edition: The Halloween Buzzz 2023 was one of the brightest discs in the glow lineup, which is a complete 360 from previous Discraft Glow. The Buzzz 2023 Halloween Edition is a must get if you want a glow Buzzz that is up to modern glow standards as it feels great and glows super bright and long. Hopefully we’ll see future Discraft Glow in this blend.
C-Tier
Newer Discraft Color Glow: Similar to other glow blends in the c-tier, Discraft Color Glow fades pretty quickly. It’s slightly longer lasting than Innova C-Line Glow though.
Discmania Active Premium Glow: Active Premium Glow starts decently bright but fades pretty quickly. It’s one of the less expensive glow plastics, which makes it more accessible and is good enough overall.
Westside/Latitude 64 Moonshine: Moonshine is somewhere between a B- and C-tier glow plastic, depending on the mold. It has come a long way in terms of brightness and longevity, but the consistency is lacking. Some molds we’ve tested in the past, especially putter and mids, have been super bright and long lasting. This year we tested drivers and they were decidedly less bright.
Innova Champion Glow/Infinite C-Line Glow: Innova Champion Glow (and Infinite Glow) is the benchmark for average glows. It starts at mid brightness then fades rather quickly into nothingness. It works best with the UV torch pressed directly against the plastic. Considering the leaps and strides that Discraft has made in its glow performance this year, it was disappointing to see Innova has not improved as much.
RPM Glow: RPM Glow is one of the brightest discs on the market, but it’s also one of the quickest fading glows. The glow plastic is quite stiff and durable. The good news is that even though this glow plastic fades quickly, it lights up in an instant, so passing a UV torch briefly over the plastic will illuminate it enough to see when you’re inevitably hunting for this non-glowing disc minutes after throwing.
D-Tier
Older Discraft Color Glow: These discs do glow, but basically not unless the glow torch is directly against them. This is one of the lowest performance glow plastics in the lineup.
Innova Colour Glow: Not particularly bright or long lasting, Innova color glow (and by proxy Infinte Color Glow) definitely does not live up to 2024 standards.
Doomsday Discs Glow: The Doomsday Glow plastic feels really nice and is a bit softer than other glow plastics. It also looks super cool because of the splatters. However, the glow is mediocre.
X-Com/Yikun Glow: The X-Com glow is bright but it fades quickly, and there is consistency issues in brightness between runs and disc molds that keeps these discs from being in C-Tier.
Notes
This test was conducted by shining UV lights onto the discs for 5 minutes. The camera was set at the same ISO/shutter speed throughout the test. It’s not the most scientific test since the camera is less sensitive to subtle brightness than our eyes are. As well, some of the discs may have received less UV light than the discs surrounding them. Some glow discs also only really glow if the UV torch is pressed right against them. We’ve done our best to account for these factors, but it would take an unreasonable amount of time to test each disc individually and ensure that they’re getting an equal amount of UV light. This test was conducted a couple times with some molds swapped out to test for consistency between discs.
In the end even the D-Tier discs work fine for glow. I bag a handful of Innova Color Glow and even a Yikun disc. Just throw whatever disc you like best and call it a day. Even the worst glow blends illuminate fairly quickly or stand out under a UV torch, so while looking for those discs in the dark they’ll be visible.
There are also glow stickers which provide excellent brightness, even if not PDGA legal.
Base Plastics
Most base glow plastics don’t glow very well compared to premium, but they have superior grip. Stand outs this year was the new Discmania FD in D-Line Flex 2, Kastaplast K3 Glow Berg and the Base Glow Moonshine.
What glow plastics are your favourites? Do you have any glow disc you can’t let go of? Let us know in the comments.
