“Pine” covers two very different kinds of wood. Eastern white pine and the other soft pines are light, soft and easy to work; southern yellow pine, the framing and pressure-treated lumber of the US South, is much heavier and harder. This page compares red oak, the most common oak in stores, with both. Oak is a hardwood and pine a softwood, but those names are botanical: southern yellow pine is not far below oak in bending strength.
Oak vs Pine: the numbers
| Property | Northern red oak | Eastern white pine | Loblolly pine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janka side hardness, 12% MC | 1,290 lbf | 380 lbf | 690 lbf |
| Density at 12% MC | 44.1 lb/ft³ | 24.5 lb/ft³ | 35.7 lb/ft³ |
| Weight per board foot | 3.67 lb | 2.04 lb | 2.97 lb |
| Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC | 14,300 psi | 8,600 psi | 12,800 psi |
| Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC | 1.82 million psi | 1.24 million psi | 1.79 million psi |
| Crushing strength parallel to grain | 6,760 psi | 4,800 psi | 7,130 psi |
| Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential | 8.6% | 6.1% | 7.4% |
| Shrinkage, radial | 4.0% | 2.1% | 4.8% |
| Shrinkage, volumetric | 13.7% | 8.2% | 12.3% |
| Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency) | 2.15 | 2.9 | 1.54 |
| Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5) | 0.369% | 0.212% | 0.259% |
| Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1) | slightly or nonresistant | moderately resistant (old growth only); otherwise slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant |
What the numbers mean
- Hardness: Northern red oak is 239% harder than Eastern white pine (1,290 against 380 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
- Weight: Northern red oak is 80% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 14.7 lb in northern red oak and 8.2 lb in eastern white pine at 12% moisture content.
- Strength and stiffness: Northern red oak is 66% stronger in bending and 47% 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 0.221 in (7/32 in) in northern red oak and 0.127 in (1/8 in) in eastern white pine, 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: Northern red oak: slightly or nonresistant; Eastern white pine: moderately resistant (old growth only); otherwise slightly or nonresistant; Loblolly pine: slightly or nonresistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
- The percentages above compare the first two columns; the table also lists Loblolly pine for comparison.
Appearance, working and what to watch for
Oak is heavy, hard and coarse-grained with large pores. Eastern white pine is pale, soft and even-textured, carves and planes beautifully and takes nails without splitting, but dents with a fingernail. Southern pine has strong contrast between soft, light earlywood and hard, dark latewood in each ring; it is strong and stiff but resinous, and the hard latewood can make it hard to plane and stain evenly. Knots are normal in common pine grades, while oak is mostly sold clear in furniture grades.
Pine is usually the cheaper wood and comes in standard dimension sizes at every home centre. Oak costs more but wears far longer on a floor, table top or stair tread. For painted work pine is often the sensible choice; for anything that takes hard knocks and will be clear-finished, oak is the better buy over the life of the piece.
Which to choose: verdict by use
| Use | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Floors and stair treads | Oak | Several times harder than white pine; pine floors are soft and dent quickly, which some people like as patina. |
| Framing, joists and rafters | Southern yellow pine (or other graded softwood) | Sold as graded structural lumber with code design values; oak is not normally used for framing. |
| Painted trim, shelving and beginner projects | Pine | Cheaper, light and easy to cut, nail and sand. |
| Hand carving and patterns | Eastern white pine | Soft, even texture with little grain contrast. |
| Dining tables and desks with a clear finish | Oak | Resists dents and wear; white pine marks easily. |
| Outdoor projects | Pressure-treated southern pine | Both untreated woods rot; southern pine takes preservative treatment well and is the usual treated lumber. |
Frequently asked questions
How much harder is oak than pine?
Northern red oak is 1,290 lbf of Janka hardness against 380 lbf for eastern white pine and 690 lbf for loblolly pine (Wood Handbook, 12% moisture content).
Is pine strong enough for furniture?
Yes, for most furniture. Even soft eastern white pine has a bending strength of 8,600 psi; what it lacks is hardness, so table tops and chair seats show dents.
Why is pine cheaper than oak?
Pines grow faster, are cut in large volumes for construction, and are sold in common grades with knots. Oak grows slowly and furniture grades are sorted for clear wood.
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.