There is no contest between the two. If it were Grass as the second choice, maybe. You vet what you pay for in spades on the moving parts. Functional parts are far more important than an exotic granite that just lays there looking impressive. Go laminate counters if you have to. Function over form.

They are not in the same category at all. Blum. Blum. Blum. They're like buttah!

I've been wondering the same thing. In fact, I'm considering going super cheap and using the house brand slides from CSH. Has anyone used these?

Here is a link that might be useful: Soft Close, Full Ext, Under-Mount

8 years, no problems.

Thanks everyone. We have Salice runners now (going well on 20 years) and they are excellent. Full extension but not soft close hence why we are looking at Blum / Hettich.

ajc71 - May I ask if yours are soft close or the regular ones?

Blum as others have said. The soft close I have are the original which are a bit different than now mine are something like ten yrs. I will not carry a cabinet brand that doesn't have either Blum or Grass.
If trying to economize you could use soft close selectively only on heaviest drawers. I only have them on 4 mostly because I prefer the standard non soft close.

We installed our own when we built the cabinets. We studied all of them and whittled it down to Blum & Quadro (Hettich). We honestly couldn't tell the difference between the two, except for the price. Installation is the same, -there is no issue there to speak of. So price is all there is, and Blum is so much more famous than Quadro that my feeling was, all that fame comes at a price. We love our Hettich slides and they function perfectly.

I think you should try again asking about the Hettich.

Also ask how easy they are to adjust, if they have a wearing in time, and how easy it is to remove and replace drawers.

I've had Blum for about 5 years. They also have the expanding hinges (go past 90ð), which are very dear, but I wouldn't have anything else for my doors.

Some people don't like how stiff the drawers are when they're first installed and remove the closers before they wear in or can be adjusted.

There's nothing I hate more than losing stuff behind a drawer. Blum are so easy to remove and replace. You just pull the orange part on the bottom to the side to unlatch them, and pull the slides out and set the box in place to put them back.

On advice from GW/KF I put a Roll Out Tray Shelf (also with the Blum slides) on the bottom of my big sink cabinet, which makes it really easy to get to the back, and especially easy to just lift out when the plumber needs access, with all the bottles and sponges still in place.

Blum is excellent. So ask again about the Hettich and see if people are as pleased.

Blum for over 6 years and they're as smooth today as the day they were installed. We didn't have any issues with them being stiff when they were new - ours have always been so easy to use! As others have said, they're easy to take out/put back in.

"ajc71 - May I ask if yours are soft close or the regular ones?"

I have only ever used soft close...I am a small developer and do 8-10 houses a year, each house has a approx 60 drawers between kitchen/pantry/built-in/closets etc.

Have used only blum during the last 15 years...slides (both wood drawers and the steel drawer system), hinges, aventos opening systems (since they were introduced to the US market several years ago) and every job gets a full compliment of blum internal inserts

Have had a handful of callbacks due to a blum product over the 15 years....all had to do with servodrive, never anything about hinges or slides

Maybe grass or hettich are just as good, but I am not taking the chance...going to stick with the orange, which I know is a good product.

I would most certainly not use the chinese slides that were posted above, the savings of $5-$6 per slide is simply not worth it to me...

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Pillog - brilliant suggestion reg Hettich. :-)

I'm sorry, but you asked for advice, and it was universal to go with the better product. Why do you feel the need to keep asking the same question? The dollars involved for the difference cannot be more than 1K, which I realize isn't peanuts, but in the scheme of things in a total kitchen redo, isn't that much either. Surely there are other areas in which you can economize if the budget cannot support that extra cost. The bones of any project are the most important part, and the glides and hinges are what make a kitchen work

I have the Blum hardware that comes with my new IKEA cabinets. Really a pleasure to use. I feel good about my decision to use less expensive cabinets with better hardware :)

What a great topic! It sounds like Blum hardware is worth the extra cost.

Just an FYI...for drawers, get them with your cabinets b/c it's not that easy to DIY drawer glides (of any kind) - unless of course you're a cabinet maker or similar!

For doors, buy them elsewhere. Our KD wanted $50/door for soft close. We bought Blum dampers for $3/door and installed them ourselves in about an hour on all our cabinets - kitchen and bathroom.

It's possible the soft-close function from the cabinetmaker would have been incorporated into the hinges instead of dampers, but the dampers work just as well IMHO. In fact, our KD suggested it to us (as she also told us not to get glass shelves and doors from her - it is far less expensive to go to a glass shop.)

$50!!?? I'm used to $9 when not standard. Advantage of integral to the hinge is easier to adjust but more importantly you can then also use an integral limiter to restrict the opening. That is for Blum face frame hinges only though.

Acj- I first ran into Grass glides on QCCI, very nice. They have had full adjustment in all directions (that Blum recently added,) for a long while, great on inset.

I've had mine for nine years - they work today as they did on day one.