Compact CampingFramed or frameless backpack?
This is a different question from pack size. Litres decide what fits inside; a frame decides where the weight of what's inside actually goes — onto your hips, or onto your shoulders.
What a frame actually does
A light internal frame — usually an aluminium stay or a stiffened foam panel — gives the pack a rigid spine that transfers load down to a hip belt sitting on your hip bones, instead of the weight hanging entirely off your shoulders. That single mechanism is why a well-fitted framed pack can carry a heavier load in more comfort than a frameless one, even though the frame itself adds weight. Most of this site's picks, from the Osprey Exos 58 at ~1.3 kg to the Granite Gear Crown3 at ~1 kg with a removable frame, use exactly this approach.
Where the crossover point is
Below roughly 9 kg of total load, a frame is doing very little useful work — a soft, frameless pack rides close to your back and feels fine at that weight, and skipping the frame saves real grams. Once your load passes about 9 kg, the maths flips: the shoulders alone start to fatigue on a frameless pack, and the frame's weight penalty is repaid many times over in comfort across a full day. For most compact kits — tent, pad, quilt, stove, food, water — 9 kg is not a rare threshold, it is close to typical, which is why most compact campers end up happiest with a light framed pack around 1–1.3 kg rather than going fully frameless.
When frameless genuinely works
A frameless pack earns its place when the whole kit is already dialled in to be light and the pack itself is packed carefully — a rolled sleeping pad against the back panel can substitute for a frame's rigidity if the load is light and well-organised. It suits short trips, warm-weather kits with less bulk, and campers who have already cut base weight aggressively elsewhere. It does not suit a first compact kit, car-supported trips with more food and water, or anyone still dialling in what they actually need to carry.
Removable frames: the middle path
Some packs, including the Granite Gear Crown3 in this site's picks, use a removable frame stay — you get the load-transfer benefit of a frame on trips that need it, and can pull the stay out to shave weight on trips that don't. It is a genuine third option, not just a compromise, for campers whose load varies a lot between trips.
Verdict
If your total load is likely to sit above 9 kg on a typical trip — which it usually is once food and water are in — buy a light framed pack and expect it to carry noticeably better than the frame's weight suggests it should. Save frameless for genuinely light, dialled-in kits. Once you've settled on frame type, get the fit itself right — see our backpack sizing guide for torso length and hip-belt fit.