You need to see them in person. The smooth does show imperfections, but the textured has such a strong grain. If you are doing a cabin type house that would have had rough cedar siding the textured is fine, if your house is more traditional definitely get the smooth

I am going the opposite direction from Ellsworth-Hallett (and I have great respect for their advice here on Houzz). I very much dislike the smooth hardie as it seems artificial and too smooth. Here is a cedar mill hardie on a 3-car garage addition that is part of a 1950's whole house remodel. I don't even see the grain unless I get right up within a couple of feet to it, and it is not overly fake looking.

Thank you both - seems like both have their advantages, I've ordered samples but will try to find some houses with smooth actually applied. Ours is a "modern farmhouse", all white with painted brick and board&batten combo.

With modern farmhouse and board & batten, the smooth may look better.

We have smooth on our modern Prairie and I love it. We installed unpainted and painted onsite. Hope the pic helps.
Good luck.

wanjess what a beautiful home, thank you!

We also used smooth Hardie plank siding for our mountain vacation house. Our builder indicated that the prepainted planks generally require so much touchup after installation that site painting is preferable. We have been very happy with it.

Awesome, thank you - pretty sure I'm going to disagree with my builder and go with all smooth!

Definitely agree that site painting is the best. ColorPlus is a waste of money, in my experience.

We have chosen smooth bedause we dont like the fake grain o cedarmill bit every builder tries to talk you jnto cedarmill because that‘s what is readily available. We specified smooth and now they just told us it is back ordered for 5 weeks and tried to get us to go with Cedarmill. We told them we will wait to grt what we specified

What size plank did everyone go with for the smooth and modern look?