I find in Canada the frost goes very deep and seems to affect the patio stones yearly as to being unlevel with frost heaves we had just above ground deck in our almost whole back yard in Calgary never had an issue we poured a concrete pad for the hot tub but that was th only concrete .

People keep telling us to stay away from concretes it will crack and wear down faster than stone or composite.

I live in Toronto and we have a composite wheelchair ramp that looks the same as the day it was put in 20 years ago. It has the look of slightly weathered wood, not plastic looking at all. Zero maintenance and it tolerates show shoveling just fine. I feel that my main wood decks "warm up" faster in the spring than a patio.

A lot of my neighbors have interlock driveways. They all seem to need weeding maintenance, and the older ones seem to have shifted a bit. My father (Niagara area) has a concrete driveway that is still in great shape after 50 years. No cracks. But the expansion joints do get weedy.

Concrete is forever if done correctly for the climate. The Colosseum in Rome is 2,000 years old.

The excavation depth, size of bed gravel (washed - no sand), and heavy compaction of same.

Your choice of; basic rebar, or vinyl dipped rebar ( both are tied 12 inch on center), or a post tensioned slab (monolithic pour - no joints). No "sheet wire" please.

Bag mix and air entrainment for your climate when selecting the actual truck mix.

Brief article for explanation.

https://www.chicagolandconcrete.com/what-is-5-bag-mix-6-bag-mix-3000-psi-3500-psi-4000-psi-ect

If you have large dogs, the decking can be noisy if they run on it.

Really I never noticed that and we have 3 huge dogs I also like the look of wood better than concrete

I'm sure there are many factors involved in why one deck will echo more than others but I sure don't know what they are!

My neighbors have a boardwalk-type walkway and until I saw their German shepherds running on it, I had no idea what that repeating runaway train sound was. :)

Thanks everyone for your input! We are still going back and forth between large pavers and concrete! It sounds like if we get the right people to do the concrete we should be ok but we don't have any contacts here for concrete so hiring someone would essentially be a shot in the dark. The pavers we feel at least could be fixed quickly if they were to move a bit. It's such a tough decision because we just don't know what we will really end up with in both scenarios.