Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3 vs Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 4:
Which to Choose

Ride character, geometry, and intended use are effectively the same shoe: both roll aggressively at speed, both feel lively and bouncy rather than soft, and both turn tippy and restless if you slow to a jog, because each sits on a tall, narrow, no-support platform tuned for 3:00–3:20 min/km efforts. The stacks are essentially unchanged (a touch under 40mm at the heel, high-20s at the forefoot on both) with a moderate 8–9mm drop, so you won't feel a different amount of foam or a different ramp underfoot. The headline difference is mass: the Elite 3 comes in around 204g in a men's US 9, while the Elite 4 drops to roughly 173g — a genuine ~30g cut that's a lot to shave from an already-light racer and is felt most in the back half of a marathon and in leg turnover during hard intervals. Puma also reworked the recipe: the Elite 3's Nitro Elite PEBA gives way to the Elite 4's NITRO ELITE aliphatic TPU/PEBA-type compound (returning roughly 77% energy at heel and forefoot), and the engineered mesh upper is replaced by a lighter, more locked-in ULTRAWEAVE. Responsiveness, pace ceiling, and best distances are identical on paper, so the Elite 4 isn't a different tool — it's the same tool made lighter and a little more refined, with the same low-stability caveat for runners who need structure.