This paper presents a family of methods for comparing compact heat transfer surface configurations. It is shown how measures for the relative values of required hydraulic diameter, frontal area, total volume, pumping power, and number of transfer units for different surfaces can be derived and displayed, when any two of the above five parameters are held constant. A wide range of comparisons that are independent of the particular duty can be simply made. A further development allowing comparisons, where three of the five parameters are fixed, yields very clear and compact indications of the relative merits of different surfaces.