Granite vs. quartz: an honest comparison

These two cover the majority of kitchens we build. Both are excellent. The right pick comes down to how you use your kitchen and how you feel about maintenance.

Granite

Natural stone, quarried in slabs. Every piece is one of a kind, with movement and depth an engineered surface can't fully copy.

• Heat: excellent — set a hot pan on it.
• Durability: very hard; chips are rare and repairable.
• Maintenance: seal it once a year (a ten-minute job). An unsealed granite can absorb an oil stain.
• Look: dramatic, varied, warm. You're choosing an actual slab, not a sample.

Quartz

Engineered from roughly 90% ground natural quartz bound with resin. Consistent, non-porous, and available in marble-look patterns that stay put.

• Heat: good, but the resin can scorch — use a trivet for anything straight off the burner.
• Durability: very hard and non-porous; essentially stain-proof.
• Maintenance: none. No sealing, ever. Soap and water.
• Look: uniform and predictable. If you want a specific marble look across a big island with no surprises, quartz delivers it.

Cost

They overlap heavily. Entry granite and entry quartz land in the same installed range (roughly $55–$80/sq ft in our market). Premium quartz and exotic granite both climb from there. Material choice within a tier matters more than granite-vs-quartz for the bottom line.

Which we'd pick for you

For a busy household that wants to not think about it — kids, spills, someone who'll never reseal anything — we lean quartz. For someone who wants maximum heat tolerance, a one-of-a-kind surface, and doesn't mind a yearly ten-minute chore, granite. Neither is a wrong answer.

See them side by side

Photos flatten both materials. Full slabs are on the racks at our Keene showroom, next to the cabinet doors you're considering, in real light. That comparison takes ten minutes and settles the question.