system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do some people snore and some people don't?

I know snoring is caused by relaxed muscles but why doesn't this happen to everyone? And why are some peoples' snoring worse than others?

EDIT: I post this late at night, I go to bed, and I wake up with more upvotes than I imagined. Thanks for all the answers!
gpt
The basics of snoring is that the pipes (airways) are not fully open. does the same thing as when you let air out of a balloon and the opening makes a noise by hitting against itself. If you hold the mouth of the balloon fully open the air comes our very quickly and quietly.

Usually the muscles of the throat are strong enough even when asleep to hold the airways completely open, but there are various reasons that they might not be strong enough.

A common cause of snoring is being overweight. The extra fat around the throat presses on the air passages and pushes them partly closed so they vibrate when air passes through. This is the same mechanism as obstructive sleep apnea, which is when the airways are pushed completely closed and the person stops breathing temporarily.

Other causes may include nasal congestion/ other causes of excessive mucous production, enlarged tonsils (or adenoids in children), sleeping your back (tongue falls back in the throat, causing partial blockage), excessive relaxation caused by sleeping medications or alcohol, or anatomical variations which change the position of parts of the airways in relation to each other.

I hope this helps!

Source: medical student, with some help form wikipedia.