Maine Coon vs Savannah — Side by Side

	Maine Coon	Savannah
Lifespan	12-15 years	12-20 years
Size	Large	Large
Weight	9-25 lb	9-20 lb (early generations can run larger; some exceptional F1s reach 40 lb)
Energy	Moderate	Very high
Grooming	High	Moderate
Shedding	High	Low
With kids	Good with kids	With supervision

What actually separates them

Less hair on the sofa with the Savannah. More with the Maine Coon.
Less brushing with the Savannah. More with the Maine Coon.
Calmer of the two is the Maine Coon. The one that needs more exercise is the Savannah.
Savannah tends to live longer — 12-20 years against 12-15 years.
With young children, Maine Coon is the safer default — Savannah is listed as "With supervision".

The honest downside of each

Maine Coon

Maine Coons are marketed as a robust, 'naturally healthy' breed, but a lab analysis of thousands of samples found roughly a third of Maine Coons worldwide carry a gene mutation linked to a potentially fatal heart disease, and plenty of kittens are still sold by breeders who have never screened their breeding cats for it.

Savannah

A Savannah is a serval hybrid, and how legal it is to own one depends entirely on the generation (F1 being closest to the wild serval, F5 and later being fully domestic under TICA's standard) and on your specific state and city — some places ban the breed outright, some allow only F4/F5, and a cat that's legal to own in your state can still be banned in your city, so buyers must verify both before they buy, not after.

Read the full pages

Maine Coon · Savannah
Health problems, origin and what living with each is actually like.