I recommend Saucony Grid Stabil 6 daily for narrow feet needing a lot of support. This year Grid Stabil was replaced with Progrid Stabil as Saucony’s ultimate support shoe. Unfortunately, Progrid Stabil is nothing like Grid Stabil and if you wear this shoe, you may be headed for injury if these differences matter to your foot type. Here are the major differences.
- As the image shows below, ProGrid Stabil is flexible whereas the Grid Stabil is not. Rigidity is important if you pronate excessively or have forefoot pain.
- Medial Midsole – The Grid Stabil has a firm medial midsole whereas the ProGrid Stabil has a less firm (softer EVA) midsole. If you are a heavy pronator, you need a firm medial midsole.
- Deeper Upper – The ProGrid Stabil has more more mesh, is wider and has a deeper uppr than the Grid Stabil, making the shoe much wider overall. This is not good if you have a narrow foot and will cause your forefoot to move side to side motion more, which may cause pain.
- Flex Grooves – The Progrid Stabil has an additional flex groove which create more forefoot flexiblity. One of the reasons I like the Grid Stabil isthat it doesn’t flex in the forefoot. The same cannot be said of the Progrid Stabil. The Grid Stabil is also narrower overall than the Progrid Stabil.
In summary, the Progrid Stabil is not the same as the Grid Stabil. It’s wider, deeper and less stable. If you have a narrow foot and you need firm medial support and an inflexible forefoot, then the Brooks Addiction is a better choice than the new ProGrid Stabil. If you have a medium foot, then Saucony Guide is a much more stable shoe.
Dr. Jenny Sanders Shoe Blog 
Hey, this is a great review! I wish I’d stumbled on it before i bought the progrid cs recently. I’ve been wearing Saucony stability shoes forever and when i went into the running store and tried on the progrid stabil i thought it felt pretty good. But when i started running longer distances with them, they started to feel less comfortable, and I started feeling pain in my left IT band. Not 100% sure it’s these shoes that are the culprit, since I’d done a half marathon in my old Sacony Omni 6, but I went ahead and got a pair of the Stabil 6 off the internet b/c I’d run in those before and didn’t have problems. So weird they’d make it so drastically different! Thanks for the review.
Nice review. Now I know I made the right choice in the new ProGrid. I couldn’t wear the Grid Stabil 6. I wore all the previous Grid Stabil shoes but the Stabil 6 felt like running with plywood strapped to my feet. I liked the Grid Stabil 5 and the Resolve but the Stabil 6 hurt to run in them – too rigid. So I switched over to the Omni 6/7 Ultimate and this seemed to work. I went to the Saucony booth at Boston Expo talked to someone there and he convinced me to try the new ProGrid Stabil CS. I did – I walked around in them – liked the flexibility and the toe box and grabbed them. I’m looking forward to a run in them. I suspect they will provide slightly more support than the Omni Ultimate.
Thanks for the update! I LOVE my Stabil 6 shoes and I didn’t know Saucony had changed their “formula”. Thanks for saving us from a wrong purchase!
Thanks for the review, I’ve found knee and ankle problems with the change from the Grid Stabil 6 to Progrid Stabil Cs. I’m an orthotics wearer who overpronates a lot.
Just researching on the internet now and came across your article which reflects my experience. I would have liked the Progrid Stabil Cs to work out as it’s a nice shoe and it feels nice to have more stability – but run for a while and I find out unfortunately I’m not permitted to – not without suffering injury.
Back to Brooks Beast or Grid Stabil 6 for me, this really didn’t work out well at all.
Thank you so much for helping us understand the difference.