Generally speaking, the soft sleepers are better than hard ones. In one compartment, there are only 4 soft sleepers, two upper sleepers and two lower ones. The compartment has a door, you can lock that when you sleep. But there are 6 open hard sleepers in one compartment. You know, two upper ones, two middle ones and two lower ones. The soft one are more expensive but comfortable. The chinese people like to buy the hard sleepers as they are cheaper.