What Is The Difference Between Porcelain and Sintered Stone?
With the recent ban on engineered stone around Australia, savvy designers are now looking towards alternate benchtop materials to take their designs to a new, safer level without sacrificing quality.
Colours in this article
Here at Asetica, we get a lot of questions about the differences between porcelain benchtops and our Sintered stone range, so we thought we'd clear up the confusion and help you better understand the differences between the two,
While porcelain and sintered stone share some similarities, there are a few major differences between them.
1. Porcelain Benchtops
Porcelain is a fine-grained ceramic material made primarily from something called Kaolin Clay. This is combined with other raw materials and heated at an extremely high temperature (around 1200 - 1400 degrees Celsius) and pressed under pressure to produce what we know as a porcelain tile.
The benefits of using porcelain for your benchtops?
Well, just like your tiled splashback, wall tiles and flooring it's a very durable surface. Easy to maintain and highly resistant to stains, scratches and heat, its the next step above engineered stone for someone looking for durability and high resistant to everyday life.
The drawbacks of a porcelain benchtop?
While technologies are evolving and fabricators become more used to working with porcelain, there are still a few major pitfalls of porcelain benchtops that have given it a bad wrap in the industry.
The biggest drawback of using porcelain for your benchtops is the susceptibility to chipping and cracking due to what is called tension. This tension can cause pressure build up and a "tightness" in the material, that when cut by a stonemason can release this tension, causing these cracks and chips.
Both porcelain and sintered stone handle heat and everyday temperature changes well — in practice there is very little difference between them here.
2. Sintered Stone Benchtops
While some of the earlier brands in the market (Like our Asetica Collection) have been in the global marketplace since 2007, sintered stone in comparison to engineered stone is still relatively unknown in Australia.
In 2025 and moving into 2026, all of that is changing with more of Australia's best designers and builders turning to our Asetica collection.
Our Taj Mahal was recently featured on Dream Home Revealed.
What is Asetica Sintered Stone?
The best way to explain Sintered Stone is this: Sintered Stone combines natural stone with extreme temperatures and immense pressure to produce a wildly durable and tough stone surface that's as close to natural stone as you can get, without the natural stone pitfalls (stains, scratches etc).
Read our in depth Sintered Stone guide here
Sintered stone production replicates in hours, what takes mother nature millions of years to produce.. pretty incredible stuff.
- No staining
- No scratching
- Natural-mineral base, no resin binder
- Up to 95% recyclable
- Completely UV / Sun resistant
- Ultra low maintenance
- Requires no sealing or ongoing treatment
- Flooring, walls, benchtops, splashbacks, alfresco... you name it.
Sintered stone is excluded from Australia's engineered stone ban. Safe Work Australia confirms the ban covers resin-bound engineered stone only, and sintered stone contains no resin binder.
This means sintered stone was excluded from the engineered stone ban, thanks to its natural-mineral base with no resin binder. It contains crystalline silica, but is excluded from the ban because it uses no resin.
If you do want a legal engineered option, the current alternative on the Australian market is a mineral surface such as Caesarstone ICON. It is made from roughly 80% recycled glass with a resin binder and under 1% crystalline silica. Because it is still resin-bound, it is more limited on heat and UV exposure than sintered stone.
Featured: Quartzite Stone
3. Porcelain Benchtop and Sintered Stone Comparisons.
Choosing the right surface material for your project could make it, or break it, so choose wisely. Here, we take a look at the major differences between porcelain benchtops and sintered stone.
Maintenance
Both porcelain benchtops and sintered stone require next to no maintenance. This is thanks in part to a non-porous surface, which makes it really easy to clean up any spills or marks left by stray drops of red wine, sauces or spices.
Cost of Sintered Stone and Porcelain Compared
The big factor that separates good and bad is usually down to where either your porcelain or sintered stone is produced.
Originally produced in Europe back in the early 2000's, sintered stone has always seen the best quality coming directly from Spain and Italy.
These two pioneer countries created the popular porcelain and sintered culture, thanks to rich history working with natural stones, which then evolved into sintered stone as the new evolution of surface design,
That being said, quality and manufacturing consistency vary significantly between suppliers, and that variation is usually reflected in price. Asetica's sintered stone is produced with our European manufacturing partner, giving it consistent quality control and a price point that reflects that consistency.
Exact per-square-metre pricing varies by slab origin, thickness and edge profile — see our benchtop cost guide for what drives the price, or request trade pricing from Asetica for an accurate quote.
With natural stone, you will also be looking at the additional costs of regular sealing and any ongoing maintenance thanks to it's softer and more porous surface, which is prone to chipping, staining and scratching.
Sintered Stone benchtops require next to no maintenance.
Environmental Impact Of Porcelain & Sintered Stone
While both porcelain and sintered stone share a sustainable focus, there is a notable difference on why sintered stone is a more eco-friendly, sustainable material.
This comes down to one major element, how it's produced.
As sintered stone has a natural-mineral base with no resin binder (as appose to Porcelain which can use a mixture of natural materials + chemical binders), it lends itself to a more sustainable product.
The production practices for sintered stone out of Europe as some of the best in the world, namely our Asetica range, which is.
- Produced using 100% renewable energy
- 100% recycled water
- Zero emissions
- Zero toxic binders and chemical
- natural-mineral, no resin binder
- Ethically sourced materials from all over Europe
- Greenguard certified
- ISO 14001 certified
- Zero waste certified
- Less energy used in production than other surfaces
These are sustainable production practices that aren't guaranteed with every supplier, and not every factory publishes this level of detail about its production methods.
Quality of the design
One of the major complaints we get here at Asetica in regards to porcelain brands is the lack of quality in the surface print.
Both sintered stone and porcelain have a printed surface top. This means you can replicate any surface design available today and simply have it printed on your porcelain or sintered stone surface, pretty neat.
However, the major drawback of some porcelain brands is the quality of the printed surface. Look close enough and you will see a pixelated design, that from far away looks great, but close up, looks very poor.
This comes down to the quality of the production machines the supplier is using — a key reason Asetica works with an experienced European manufacturing partner.
Our designs feature global quality, not found anywhere else.
In Conclusion
While both porcelain and sintered stone are great options for your next project, consider the major differences above to really understand your final choice and how that will impact your overall designs.
Consider the sustainable, natural composition of sintered stone and the consistency of a trusted manufacturing partner before choosing on price alone.
Your future self will thank you for it.
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