We measured hydrogen storage on five well-known commercial carbon materials (CCMs) and we compared their performances to those obtained on our lab-made activated carbons (ACs). H(2) uptake of our lab-made ACs was always higher than that of CCMs of similar SBET, our best AC reached 6 wt.% H(2) excess adsorption at 77 K and 4 MPa. We calculated the contribution of four ranges of pores (<0.5 nm; 0.5-0.7 nm, 0.7-2 nm and >2 nm) to the H(2) excess adsorption for the 14 carbon materials considered in this study. We clearly demonstrated that: (i) the superiority in H(2) excess adsorption of lab-made ACs over the CCMs is related to their pore size distribution; (ii) H(2) uptakes higher than 3 wt.% are due to pores with diameter wider than 0.7 nm. Copyright (C) 2011, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.