those aren't your only options. we have a distressed and aged zinc hood with blackened steel straps and rivets. i've seen loads of copper hoods either natural, patina, hammered etc. then there are enamel painted hoods in any color of the rainbow-some match their funky red or blue range that sits below it and others are just random for fun. stainless with polished steel (looks like mirrored) accents... so many options.

maybe you mean you've narrowed it down to those options? in which case it's strictly a matter of personal preference. i don't think there is strong enough reason to go with one or the other for cleaning purposes.

we treated our hood purchase as the jewelry in our kitchen and wanted to break up all the pristine white. there's something to be said for tidy and uniform too though.

look at kitchens on houzz or wherever you find inspiration and determine whether you're drawn to all white or to kitchens with unique hoods.

I think it's more a matter of style than cleaning with those choices. The cabinetry covered is generally more traditional. Stainless is pretty flexible in style. Stainless and glass seems more modern to me. And I'd guess the glass would show grease and such more so it might need more frequent cleaning, but would be pretty easy to clean. Just guessing though as I haven't ever had stainless and glass.

I have stainless and I don't notice it getting dirty quickly. I don't do any frying, but I do use my grill pan often. I wipe my hood down once a month. I think natural gas today burns cleaner than it did in the past, although I do always turn my vent on when using the burners.

I'm not a fan of most range hoods as I think they look alien. Of course I'm also not into stainless so I have wood covering mine, as well as the fridge and the DW. I've seen some interesting ones from Best though.

I think the most important question is do you want your kitchen to look more contemporary? If so, then go with the stainless hood. If not, then cover it.

Hi. We do A LOT of entertaining in our kitchen which is antique white along with stainless appliances. We don't deep fry although we grill, sear, sauté, and wok fry quite a bit. I think the cleaning part would be tough if we hadn't done our hood in stainless as even the outside does get a bit oily after a few weeks - the stainless extends down the back of our range as we have the heat lamps and warming shelves. Also we made the hood a few inches wider than our 36" range and got the most powerful fan we could! With the stainless 48" fridge and the polished nickel hanging pendants over the island in our kitchen the Stainless hood strikes a nice balance. The rest of the kitchen has crackled/glazed subway tile as the backsplash. We thought about doing the panels that match the cabinets and it just seemed like too much white as well, although that concern was secondary to the cleaning. The side if the cabinets adjacent to/facing the range are hard to clean and I would imagine at some point the finish will dull due to cleaning.