All carports are not created equal.
All metal is not created equal.
All lumber is not created equal.
See a trend. 
FarmTek has some great fabric buildings, trainer neighbour has one which has stood for years (we live in hurricane land, FYI). My hay lives in a ShelterLogic fabric shed. I love it. It saw 2 Tropical Storms this winter on the top of a hill, unsheltered (I didn’t want things to fall on it), plus a year of Carolina humidity. My hay is still perfect.
My runin is indeed a metal carport (& whoever said metal sides are more dangerous for horses…have you ever looked at those fancy stall kits??? Horses are survival idiots, ask mine who poked his eye…with a blade of grass).
It is a 24 x 26’ open-sided carport with metal roofing (half is the horses’ run-in, half is my cross-ties, work area). It has 8’ sidewalls (the top is wayyy higher) with heavy duty 3’ bolted ground anchors. Literally, the DAY after it was installed, we had 80 mph winds. I’d call that a field test, LOL.
However, if you want it to last, you can’t do it cheap. If you want a temporary shelter, that will bend pretty quickly & probably experience sheet metal tearing (saw this at last boarding facility), the $600 6’ 14-gauge ones will do ok.
I did my usual perhaps slightly over-obsessive research (hey, my dad was a perfectionist engineer, & my fiance was a materials engineer, I can’t help it). So when I ordered from Carolina Carports (great company btw) –
Mine is 12-gauge (small number = thicker-walled, heavier duty) galvanized steel, wind-engineered & certified to 120 mph (and some snow rating, but I better not ever have to find that out here, I HATE winter). The uprights are designed primarily to support vertical force, and I knew within 12 seconds, someone would be itching their butt or neck on it…so even though sales guy thought I was overzealous, he got it when he saw my 1400 lb TB eventer learning on it to scratch a fly bite.
Additionally, I poured concrete into cinder blocks around the ground anchors. The cost was about $2100.
Plus side was that INCLUDED delivery & setup, I didn’t have to lift a finger (I looked into constructing myself), which took about 2 hours. Poor guys did it in freezing cold drizzle too, but I was out there with them.
When 50 mph gusts of snow were hitting this past March…it was worth every penny & continues to be every. single. day. I love it, love the flexibility of design. This is how mine is currently set up:
http://www.teamflyingsolo.com/2014/04/im-not-dead.html
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