Cherry and maple are the two classic choices for fine cabinets, and maple is often stained to look like cherry. This page compares black cherry with hard (sugar) maple and with red maple, the soft maple most often sold as “cherry-stained maple”. All values are from the Wood Handbook.
Cherry vs Maple: the numbers
| Property | Black cherry | Sugar maple | Red maple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janka side hardness, 12% MC | 950 lbf | 1,450 lbf | 950 lbf |
| Density at 12% MC | 35.0 lb/ft³ | 44.1 lb/ft³ | 37.8 lb/ft³ |
| Weight per board foot | 2.91 lb | 3.67 lb | 3.15 lb |
| Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC | 12,300 psi | 15,800 psi | 13,400 psi |
| Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC | 1.49 million psi | 1.83 million psi | 1.64 million psi |
| Crushing strength parallel to grain | 7,110 psi | 7,830 psi | 6,540 psi |
| Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential | 7.1% | 9.9% | 8.2% |
| Shrinkage, radial | 3.7% | 4.8% | 4.0% |
| Shrinkage, volumetric | 11.5% | 14.7% | 12.6% |
| Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency) | 1.92 | 2.06 | 2.05 |
| Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5) | 0.248% | 0.353% | 0.289% |
| Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1) | moderately resistant | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant |
What the numbers mean
- Hardness: Sugar maple is 53% harder than Black cherry (1,450 against 950 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
- Weight: Sugar maple is 26% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 14.7 lb in sugar maple and 11.6 lb in black cherry at 12% moisture content.
- Strength and stiffness: Sugar maple is 28% stronger in bending and 23% stiffer. Stiffness is what decides how much a shelf of the same size sags under the same load.
- Movement: a flatsawn board 10 in wide that goes from 6% to 12% moisture content (a dry winter to a humid summer indoors) swells about 0.149 in (5/32 in) in black cherry and 0.212 in (7/32 in) in sugar maple, from Handbook Eq. 13-2 and the Table 13-5 coefficients. Allow for this in table tops, panels and floors.
- Decay resistance of the heartwood: Black cherry: moderately resistant; Sugar maple: slightly or nonresistant; Red maple: slightly or nonresistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
- The percentages above compare the first two columns; the table also lists Red maple for comparison.
Appearance, working and what to watch for
Black cherry heartwood starts a light pinkish brown and darkens to a deep reddish brown with exposure to light over the first months: a fresh cherry cabinet looks very different a year later. It has a fine, satiny texture, machines and sands easily and takes oil finishes well, but it is prone to blotching under stain and burns readily on the router. Maple is paler and does not darken nearly as much, so stained maple stays the colour it was stained.
Hard maple is clearly harder than cherry and wears better on floors and counters. Soft maple is about as hard as cherry, cheaper than both, and machines easily; it is a common substitute in painted and stained cabinets. Cherry is the more stable wood across the grain: its tangential shrinkage is well below hard maple’s. Note that both cherry and maple can blotch, so test any stain on offcuts.
Finishing tips
For cherry, the simplest approach is often no stain at all: an oil finish followed by a few weeks in a sunny room gives the colour most people want, and stain on young cherry tends to look muddy once the wood darkens underneath it. If you must even out sapwood or speed things up, a light dye works better than a pigment stain. For maple, decide early whether you want it pale; a water-based finish keeps it nearly white, while oil-based finishes add an amber tone. Both woods show glue squeeze-out under stain, so clean joints carefully.
Which to choose: verdict by use
| Use | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fine furniture with a natural finish | Black cherry | Rich colour that deepens with age, fine texture and easy to work. |
| Cabinets on a budget | Soft maple | Similar hardness to cherry for less money; paints and dyes well. |
| Kitchen counters, cutting boards, floors | Hard maple | The hardest of the three. |
| Cabinets that must stay one colour | Maple | Cherry darkens noticeably with light; maple changes much less. |
| Doors and wide panels | Black cherry | Less tangential shrinkage than hard maple. |
| Painted cabinetry | Soft maple | Smooth, closed grain and lower cost. |
Frequently asked questions
Is cherry harder than maple?
Black cherry (950 lbf Janka) is softer than hard maple (1,450 lbf) and the same as red maple (950 lbf) in the Wood Handbook.
Does cherry darken over time?
Yes. Cherry heartwood darkens to a deep reddish brown with exposure to light, fastest in the first months. Maple yellows slightly but stays much lighter.
Can maple be stained to look like cherry?
It can be coloured, but maple blotches with many oil stains; use a gel stain, dye or a pre-stain washcoat and test first. The figure will still be maple’s, and it will not darken as real cherry does.
Sources and method
All property values are read from our parsed copy of the USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material (FPL-GTR-190, 2010), a US Government publication in the public domain, the same data as the wood species database. The percentages and the board examples above are our arithmetic on those values. The values describe small, clear, straight-grained specimens: real boards with knots or sloping grain differ, and structural lumber is sized from graded design values in your local building code, not from this table.
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material. General Technical Report FPL-GTR-190, 2010. Chapter 2 (species descriptions), Chapter 4 (Tables 4-3, 4-4 shrinkage; Eq. 4-7, 4-9, 4-12 density), Chapter 5 (Tables 5-3b, 5-5b strength and hardness), Chapter 13 (Table 13-5 dimensional change coefficients), Chapter 14 (Table 14-1 decay resistance)
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook, 2021 edition (FPL-GTR-282)
Last reviewed: 24 October 2026. How we build and check our data: methodology and corrections. Spotted an error? Please let us know.