Met vs MoMA: Which One Should You Actually Pick?

If you only have time for one, pick the Met. It’s bigger and broader, it covers 5,000 years instead of 150, and it’s pay what you wish if you live in New York State. For a single museum visit in New York City, it’s the better use of your time.

Pick MoMA instead if you specifically care about modern and contemporary art, you’re short on stamina, or you want to be done in two hours with a clear sense of having seen the whole thing.

That’s the answer. Here’s the reasoning, and the cases where it flips.

The honest comparison

	The Met	MoMA
Covers	5,000 years, global, everything	Roughly 1880 to now, mostly Western
Size	More than 2 million sq ft, overwhelming	Large but walkable
Time needed	3 hours minimum, could be days	2 to 3 hours and you’ve seen it
Admission	Pay what you wish for NY State residents and NY, NJ, CT students	Full price; free Friday evenings for NY State residents
Hours	Closed Wednesdays; open until 9pm Fri and Sat	Open daily; until 8:30pm on Fridays
Location	Fifth Ave at 82nd St, on Central Park	53rd St, Midtown
Crowds	The huge building absorbs them	Feels more crowded in the famous rooms
Best for	First visits, breadth, kids, one-museum trips	Modern art specifically, shorter visits

Pick the Met if

It’s your first time in New York. The Met is the fuller experience, and it’s right on Central Park, so the day works better geographically.

You want range. Egyptian temples, Greek sculpture, samurai armor, Vermeer, Islamic art, African art and American period rooms. It’s a world museum.

You’re with kids. Arms and Armor and the mummies do work for a nine-year-old that no amount of abstract painting will.

You live in New York State, or you’re a student in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. Pay what you wish means you can go for a dollar. That changes the math completely, and it means you can make repeated short visits instead of one exhausting marathon.

You want a museum that’s also a building. The Great Hall, the Temple of Dendur room, the Engelhard Court. The Met has spaces that are experiences on their own.

If you go, read how long to spend at the Met first.

Pick MoMA if

Modern and contemporary art is what you actually like. MoMA’s collection in that range is the best in the world, and it isn’t close.

You want to see specific famous paintings. Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, Monet’s Water Lilies, Warhol’s soup cans. MoMA’s greatest hits are more concentrated and more recognizable than the Met’s.

You have two hours and want to feel finished. That’s a real advantage. You can do MoMA properly in two to three hours and leave knowing you saw it. You’ll never feel that way about the Met.

You’re already in Midtown. MoMA is on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth. If you’re staying in Midtown or you’ve just come from Times Square, it’s right there.

It’s Friday evening and you live in New York State. MoMA is free for state residents from 5:30 to 8:30pm on Fridays. Reserve ahead and bring proof of residency. Free is free. Go.

You care about design, film or photography. MoMA treats industrial design, architecture, film and photography as core parts of the collection, not afterthoughts. Nobody else does it quite this way.

The case for doing both

They’re about 30 blocks apart, and they aren’t competing for the same interest. If you have three or four days in New York, do both, on separate days.

Don’t do both on the same day. You’ll be finished as a functioning person by 3pm, and you won’t remember the second one. Museum fatigue is real, and it arrives faster than you think.

If you’re determined to do both in one day anyway: MoMA in the morning, because it’s smaller, then lunch and a walk, then the Met in the afternoon, for two departments only. And accept that you’ve chosen quantity. (Not on a Wednesday: the Met is closed.)

The third option nobody mentions

If you’re choosing between the Met and MoMA because you want one great museum visit, the best museum experience in New York might be neither.

The Met Cloisters is included with your Met ticket on the same day. Medieval art in a building assembled from parts of real European monasteries, on a hill in Fort Tryon Park above the Hudson. It’s quiet, it’s strange, and people who go often call it the best museum in the city.

The Frick Collection is a mansion full of masterpieces, at a scale you can take in within 90 minutes. It’s closed on Tuesdays.

The Whitney is American art specifically, in a better building than either the Met or MoMA, with terraces over the High Line.

The American Museum of Natural History is the right answer if you have kids, over both art museums, and it isn’t a close call.

See free and pay-what-you-wish NYC museums for which of these have free hours.

Timing either one

Go at opening on a weekday. Weekday mornings are genuinely pleasant at both museums, and both are unpleasant by 2pm on a Saturday. Remember that the Met is closed on Wednesdays.

Evenings are underrated. The Met stays open until 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and MoMA until 8:30pm on Fridays. After about 6pm, both thin out considerably.

Avoid rainy days if you can. Every visitor in New York heads to a museum when it rains. If it’s pouring, that’s the day to find a smaller one.

Avoid the Friday after Thanksgiving. It’s the busiest museum day of the year here.

The short version

One museum, first trip, general interest: the Met.

Modern art specifically, two hours only, or a Friday night as a New York State resident: MoMA.

Kids: the Natural History Museum, actually.

Three days in the city: both, on different days.

Check before you go

• Current admission prices and hours for both
• The Met’s pay-what-you-wish eligibility and accepted IDs
• MoMA’s free Friday evening details, since these programs change
• Timed-entry requirements, which both use at busy times

Questions about anything in this guide? Reach MUSEENYC at museenyc.art@gmail.com or @museenyc on Instagram.

Full reviews of the city’s museums → museenyc.com