IMO both are a poor choice and I agree there really is very little difference except quartz uses some left over real stone in the mix. I have never used quartz in my kitchen designs and never will.

Bump

Cultured marble's competitors, back in the 1960's and onward, were tile and laminate. Quartz's competitor is natural stone. Marketing for what is called "quartz" would not have been as successful if it had been labelled something like "plastic stone" or even "cultured granite".

There were a lot of cheap looking cultured marble vanity tops manufactured during the last century which seemed to have discolored over time. Maybe this was a decent product at the time that didn't age well. I guess quartz is the next generation. Maybe in 20 years people will be hating on it, too. There is still a small but loyal group of Corian fans out there. Each to his own.

Modern engineered stone is in no way comparable to cultured marble. There is no estone with a gel coat that is easily penetrated and scratched.

There is no poo poo to cultured marble so long as you know what you are getting. It is not comparable to engineered stone at all. A simple clean top with a molded sink is nice to have and there is an ease of cleaning. There were companies out there that did do custom sizes and had a better quality of the surfacing than something you would pull off the shelf at a big box store.

I think the cost of solid surface and engineered stone and remnant stone options are what did in the cultured marble industry. And then of course, "somebody" put it out there as a bad product and that caught on.

If you don't have a big budget, it certainly is still a nice product to get.