Mahogany vs Cherry: Colour, Hardness, Uses

Mahogany and cherry are the two classic reddish-brown furniture woods, and buyers often have to choose between them for a dining table or a set of cabinets. This page compares genuine (bigleaf) mahogany, Swietenia macrophylla, and African mahogany (Khaya) with American black cherry, using Wood Handbook data, and covers how each one changes colour over time.

Mahogany vs Cherry: the numbers

Property	Genuine mahogany (Honduran / big-leaf)	Black cherry	African mahogany (khaya)
Janka side hardness, 12% MC	800 lbf	950 lbf	830 lbf
Density at 12% MC	33.0 lb/ft³*	35.0 lb/ft³	31.0 lb/ft³*
Weight per board foot	2.75 lb*	2.91 lb	2.58 lb*
Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC	11,500 psi	12,300 psi	10,700 psi
Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC	1.5 million psi	1.49 million psi	1.4 million psi
Crushing strength parallel to grain	6,780 psi	7,110 psi	6,460 psi
Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential	4.1%	7.1%	4.5%
Shrinkage, radial	3.0%	3.7%	2.5%
Shrinkage, volumetric	7.8%	11.5%	8.8%
Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency)	1.37	1.92	1.8
Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5)	not tabulated	0.248%	0.201%
Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1)	resistant	moderately resistant	moderately resistant

USDA Wood Handbook FPL-GTR-190: hardness and strength Tables 5-3b and 5-5b (12% moisture content), shrinkage Tables 4-3 and 4-4, dimensional change coefficients Table 13-5, decay resistance Table 14-1. * density estimated with Handbook Eq. 4-9. Averages for small clear specimens, not design values.

What the numbers mean

Hardness: Black cherry is 19% harder than Genuine mahogany (Honduran / big-leaf) (950 against 800 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
Weight: Black cherry is 6% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 11.6 lb in black cherry and 11.0 lb in genuine mahogany (honduran / big-leaf) at 12% moisture content.
Strength and stiffness: Black cherry is 7% stronger in bending, but Genuine mahogany (Honduran / big-leaf) is 1% stiffer, and stiffness is what decides how much a shelf of the same size sags under the same load.
Movement: tangential shrinkage from green to ovendry is 4.1% for genuine mahogany (honduran / big-leaf) and 7.1% for black cherry; the lower figure means less seasonal movement across the width of a flatsawn board.
Decay resistance of the heartwood: Genuine mahogany (Honduran / big-leaf): resistant; Black cherry: moderately resistant; African mahogany (khaya): moderately resistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
The percentages above compare the first two columns; the table also lists African mahogany (khaya) for comparison.

Appearance, working and what to watch for

Colour is usually the deciding factor. Cherry heartwood ranges from light to dark reddish brown with a distinctive lustre, and it darkens markedly with exposure to light: a new piece looks pinkish tan and deepens to a rich red-brown over months. Mahogany heartwood is reddish or pinkish brown when cut and darkens to a deeper red-brown or brown; it often shows a ribbon figure on quartersawn faces from interlocked grain. Cherry has a finer, more uniform texture, while mahogany has visible open pores that are usually filled for a glass-smooth finish.

Cherry is a little harder and heavier than either mahogany. Mahogany is the more stable wood: its shrinkage is among the lowest of any commercial species, and the Handbook describes cherry as having moderately high shrinkage but being very dimensionally stable after drying. For exterior doors, boats and outdoor furniture, mahogany heartwood is the more decay resistant. Genuine mahogany is CITES listed and costs more; African mahogany and sapele are the usual substitutes.

Getting the colour you want

With cherry, the simplest route to a deep colour is patience: an oil finish and a few weeks in a sunny room. Staining young cherry dark tends to look muddy once the wood underneath darkens. Mahogany is traditionally finished with a reddish dye or stain and a grain filler, then shellac or lacquer, for the classic deep, glossy look. If you mix the two in one piece, expect the cherry to keep changing colour for months while the mahogany stays closer to where it started.

Which to choose: verdict by use

Use	Better choice	Why
Fine indoor furniture with a clear finish	Either	Choose by colour: cherry darkens to red-brown, mahogany stays browner.
Exterior doors and boat work	Mahogany	Heartwood rated more decay resistant; very stable.
Table tops that take wear	Cherry	Somewhat harder than either mahogany.
Carving	Mahogany	Soft, even and stable; a traditional carving wood.
Cabinets in a North American kitchen	Cherry	Domestic, widely stocked, fine texture.
Ribbon-figured panels	Mahogany	Interlocked grain gives ribbon stripe when quartersawn.

Frequently asked questions

Is cherry harder than mahogany?

Yes, slightly. Black cherry has 950 lbf of Janka hardness against 800 lbf for genuine mahogany and 830 lbf for African mahogany (Wood Handbook).

Does cherry turn darker than mahogany?

Cherry changes more. It starts pinkish tan and darkens noticeably within months in daylight. Mahogany also darkens, but from a deeper starting colour, so the change is less dramatic.

Which is more stable, mahogany or cherry?

Mahogany. Its volumetric shrinkage is 7.8% against 11.5% for cherry, green to ovendry.

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.

Last reviewed: 24 October 2026. How we build and check our data: methodology and corrections. Spotted an error? Please let us know.