Maple lumber is sold as hard maple or soft maple. Hard maple is mainly sugar maple (and black maple); soft maple is mainly red maple and silver maple, with bigleaf maple in the West. “Soft” is relative: soft maple is still harder than cherry or walnut in some cases. This page compares sugar maple with red and silver maple using Wood Handbook data.
Hard Maple vs Soft Maple: the numbers
| Property | Sugar maple | Red maple | Silver maple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janka side hardness, 12% MC | 1,450 lbf | 950 lbf | 700 lbf |
| Density at 12% MC | 44.1 lb/ft³ | 37.8 lb/ft³ | 32.9 lb/ft³ |
| Weight per board foot | 3.67 lb | 3.15 lb | 2.74 lb |
| Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC | 15,800 psi | 13,400 psi | 8,900 psi |
| Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC | 1.83 million psi | 1.64 million psi | 1.14 million psi |
| Crushing strength parallel to grain | 7,830 psi | 6,540 psi | 5,220 psi |
| Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential | 9.9% | 8.2% | 7.2% |
| Shrinkage, radial | 4.8% | 4.0% | 3.0% |
| Shrinkage, volumetric | 14.7% | 12.6% | 12.0% |
| Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency) | 2.06 | 2.05 | 2.4 |
| Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5) | 0.353% | 0.289% | 0.252% |
| Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1) | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant |
What the numbers mean
- Hardness: Sugar maple is 53% harder than Red maple (1,450 against 950 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
- Weight: Sugar maple is 17% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 14.7 lb in sugar maple and 12.6 lb in red maple at 12% moisture content.
- Strength and stiffness: Sugar maple is 18% stronger in bending and 12% 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 0.212 in (7/32 in) in sugar maple and 0.173 in (3/16 in) in red 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: Sugar maple: slightly or nonresistant; Red maple: slightly or nonresistant; Silver maple: slightly or nonresistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
- The percentages above compare the first two columns; the table also lists Silver maple for comparison.
Appearance, working and what to watch for
The two look very similar in a board, both pale with fine, even texture. Soft maple is often slightly greyer or has more mineral streaks, and is usually cheaper. The reliable difference is in the numbers: sugar maple is about half again as hard as red maple and much harder than silver maple.
Hard maple is the right wood where hardness and wear count: floors, butcher block, workbenches, cutting boards, bowling lanes. Soft maple machines more easily, burns less, and is a good, economical wood for cabinets, painted furniture, and anything that will be stained or dyed. Both blotch under some stains. Hard maple moves a little more across the grain.
How to tell them apart when buying
Dealers sort maple before it is sold, so the grade on the invoice is the most reliable guide. On the bench, hard maple is noticeably heavier for the same board and harder to dent with a fingernail; its colour is usually more uniform. Soft maple is more likely to show grey or brown mineral streaks. If in doubt, weigh a board of known size: at 12% moisture content a board foot of sugar maple weighs about 3.67 lb, red maple about 3.15 lb and silver maple about 2.74 lb.
Which to choose: verdict by use
| Use | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hardwood flooring and butcher block | Hard maple | Much harder and more wear resistant. |
| Cabinet boxes, doors and painted furniture | Soft maple | Cheaper, easier to machine, paints well. |
| Cutting boards | Hard maple | The standard cutting board wood. |
| Stained furniture | Soft maple | Similar blotching risk, lower cost; test the stain. |
| Workbench tops | Hard maple | Hard, heavy and stiff. |
Frequently asked questions
How much harder is hard maple than soft maple?
Sugar maple has 1,450 lbf of Janka hardness, red maple 950 lbf and silver maple 700 lbf (Wood Handbook, 12% moisture content).
Is soft maple good for cabinets?
Yes. It is hard enough for doors and boxes, machines easily and is usually cheaper than hard maple.
Is soft maple a softwood?
No. All maples are hardwoods (broadleaf trees). “Soft” only means softer than hard maple.
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.