Dekton gets described as the toughest worktop you can buy, and quartz as the sensible one, and both descriptions are true without being useful. The useful differences come down to one fact: quartz is held together by resin and Dekton is not. Heat, sealing, sunlight, chipping and the cost of cutting each follow from that. Worktop Worx templates, fabricates and fits both, and quartz is cheaper for us to make, so when we recommend Dekton it is because the kitchen needs it.
Key points
- Quartz suits most indoor family kitchens: non-porous, never sealed and quicker to fabricate
- Dekton suits heat, direct sun and slim mitred edges, because it has no resin at all
- Dekton is more brittle at thin or unsupported edges, so detailing and the edge profile matter more
- Dekton and Silestone are both Cosentino brands; Karexa is our own sintered stone
- Supply only, Dekton’s middle price is £260/m² against £180/m² for our quartz, and its labour costs more
01 / 09
Is Dekton better than quartz?
Not for most kitchens. Quartz is non-porous, needs no sealer, matches its sample and is quicker to cut, and in a normal indoor family kitchen with a trivet beside the hob it does everything Dekton does for less labour. Dekton earns its place in particular situations: a worktop in direct sun under a rooflight or south-facing glazing, a household that puts pans straight onto the surface, or a design built around a very thin mitred edge.
The trade the other way is brittleness. The hardest surface on the rack is less forgiving at a thin or unsupported edge, and cutting it is slower and more skilled work. Neither is better in the abstract; each is better somewhere, and the rest of this page says where. If you are still deciding between stone and the cheaper boards, start with our guide to the types of kitchen worktop instead.
02 / 09
Is Dekton more expensive than quartz?
Per square metre of slab, Dekton is generally the dearer of the two: its middle price is £260/m² against £180/m² across all our quartz, and £235/m² for Silestone. The cheapest Dekton, at £110/m², undercuts the cheapest of our own quartz at £130/m². All of these are supply prices for the slab only, before cutting, finishing, delivery and fitting.
| Compared | Colours | From | Most colours | Middle price | Top of range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dekton | 63 | £110/m² | £226 to £300/m² | £260/m² | £366/m² |
| Silestone quartz | 30 | £150/m² | £192 to £320/m² | £235/m² | £500/m² |
| Worktop Worx quartz collection | 36 | £130/m² | £140 to £180/m² | £150/m² | £280/m² |
The slab price understates the gap. Sintered material is hard on tooling and slow to machine, so openings, mitres and grooves take longer in it than in quartz, and that time lands on a quote as labour rather than in the per-metre figure. A small kitchen full of openings feels that most; a long clean run feels it least. Our guide to what affects worktop cost explains how the work is priced.
03 / 09
Can you put hot pans on Dekton and quartz?
On Dekton, yes: our spec tables put it as "Excellent (nothing in it can scorch)". It is mineral powder pressed and fired until it fuses, with no resin, cement or adhesive anywhere in it, so there is nothing organic to burn. On quartz, no: "Use a trivet (the resin scorches)". The resin can scorch a pale quartz or crack it through thermal shock, and a scorch is permanent.
That makes heat the clearest reason to choose Dekton, and also the easiest to overvalue. If your household already uses trivets without being asked, you would be paying for a property you never call on. If pans come straight off the hob onto the worktop in your house and that will not change, it removes the one rule quartz has.
04 / 09
Does Dekton chip more easily than quartz?
At a thin or unsupported edge, it can. A very hard material is a brittle one: Dekton resists scratching better than quartz and is difficult to mark with normal kitchen tools, but impact at an exposed end or the narrow strip beside an opening is how it gets damaged. Quartz is more forgiving at an edge and repairs more easily.
Most of that is settled in fabrication. The inside angles of openings are radiused rather than cut square, the top arris is eased rather than knife-sharp, anything projecting past the units is carried on steel or a bracket, and enough people carry each piece in. The front edge you choose matters too, which is why the choice of edge profile deserves more thought on Dekton than on any other surface.
One more difference shows only when something goes wrong. Where a sintered slab’s pattern is applied to the surface rather than running through the body, a chip can show as a paler mark rather than disappearing into the design. Ask which of your shortlist is patterned through and which is decorated on the surface, and where each piece will go.
05 / 09
Do Dekton or quartz worktops need sealing?
Neither. Dekton has "effectively zero porosity" and quartz is "non-porous", so both are sealed by their own construction and neither can absorb a sealer. Anyone selling you a sealer for either is selling you a bottle of nothing. Day to day, both clean with warm water, a little washing-up liquid and a soft cloth.
Where they differ in care is finish rather than material. Dark matt and textured finishes, common in sintered ranges, show fingerprints and cleaning residue more readily than a polished surface, which a bright showroom hides completely. On quartz the equivalent is a plain polished black, which shows water marks first. If the household is not careful, a vein or a fleck forgives more than any plain finish.
06 / 09
Is Dekton made by Cosentino, and is Silestone?
Yes, both. Dekton is Cosentino’s sintered surface and Silestone is the same company’s quartz, so a quote that offers "Cosentino" has not yet told you which material you are buying. Dekton is a brand of sintered stone in the way Hoover is a brand of vacuum cleaner, and other companies make sintered and ultra-compact slabs in the same broad family.
The sintered range on this site is Cosentino’s Dekton and our Karexa range, our own sintered stone, each on its own page. They are the same kind of material and they are not the same product, so we never call one by the other’s name. The point applies to any two quotes: neither is comparable until each names the brand, the shade, the finish and the thickness.
07 / 09
Which copes better with sunlight, Dekton or quartz?
Indoors, the question matters far less than the internet suggests. Daylight through a normal kitchen window will not change the look of a quartz worktop, and choosing Dekton on that basis is choosing for the wrong reason.
It becomes a genuine question under strong sun year after year: a rooflight or a south-facing glazed wall that puts one end of a worktop in direct afternoon sun. Dekton’s pigment is mineral and fired into the body, with no organic component for ultraviolet light to degrade, which is why sintered slabs are also used on building facades. In those places it is the safe specification.
08 / 09
How do Dekton and quartz compare, side by side?
| Compared | Dekton | Quartz |
|---|---|---|
| What holds it together | Nothing: fused mineral | Polymer resin |
| Hot pan straight on it | Excellent (nothing in it can scorch) | Use a trivet (the resin scorches) |
| Porosity | Effectively zero porosity | Non-porous |
| Sealing | Never needs sealing | Never needs sealing |
| Scratch resistance | Excellent | Good |
| Chip risk at an edge | Needs careful detailing | Low |
| Thin formats | Yes | Standard thicknesses |
| Direct sun indoors | What we would specify | Has a resin binder, so not the safer choice |
| Where the cost sits | Fabrication labour | Slab price |
| Free samples | Judged from the slab | Our own collection, posted |
If the natural option is on your list too, our guide with all three compared adds it to this table, and our guide to what quartz is made of covers the engineered side in more depth.
09 / 09
Should you choose Dekton or quartz?
Choose Dekton when
- One end of the worktop sits in direct sun under a rooflight or glazing
- Pans go straight from the hob to the worktop in your house
- The design depends on a very thin top or a fine mitred apron
- There are long clean runs where the hardness pays its way
Choose quartz when
- It is a normal indoor family kitchen and a trivet is no hardship
- The kitchen is small and full of openings, so labour would dominate
- There are exposed walk-past edges and nobody in the house is careful
- You want to hold a sample in your own kitchen before you commit
For the closer call between quartz and the natural option, quartz vs granite covers heat and upkeep; and if the look you want is veined, marble-effect Dekton and marble-effect quartz are both worth seeing from the slab rather than the screen. The cheapest sintered quote is rarely the one to take, because on this material the fabricator matters as much as the slab.
