IMO on their sides seems better but really taled up aton of space so I stack mine I have 2 wide cabinets with 2 deep drawers and sxs shallow drawers for gadgets . The cabinets ar eon each side of my range and they hold a ton of pots and pans since I run a catering biz from my home I do like the seperators between fry pnas for sure and I store the lids on top of the other pans BTW I realy dislike fake drawer fronts as you show in the top pic.

I would go with the two drawer option regardless. You can try storing pans on their sides, or you can stack them, and use the drawer divider to store the lids on their sides.

If you know the size of your pans and know you'll never buy or get a new one, the side is fine. Stacking allows you to add a new pan of any size.

I stack mine like your second picture. I use flower shaped felt pads between each to keep them from scratching each other. Storing them on their side takes up so much space. You can fit a lot more pans in a drawer by stacking.

On their sides, if you have the room. I hate stacking more than 3, as it makes them difficult to remove ones near the bottom of the stack, so stacking doesn't save me that much room. Pans on their side could be store more compactly than that picture. You could nest 2-3 pans between dividers. Or get extra dividers and don't have so much empty space. I don't understand Sigrid's comment about never changing pans. Moveable dividers should give you room to add pans.

Consider vertical storage in a cabinet for the really large pans. My largest skillets and griddle are stored vertically in a base cabinet, along with baking sheets and cooling racks.

I have mine "stacked", but I have plenty of wide drawer space in this kitchen, so hardly any of them actually have to be stacked.

When I remodeled our kitchen, I put in a 4-drawer stack, with three shallow drawers and one deep one. Big pots in the bottom, shallow pans in the shallow drawers, requiring less stacking.

I have another deep drawer for cake pans and pie plates, stored vertically.

I dislike digging for things that are stacked. Some of my skillets are stored on their sides using a peg board organizer, in a lower drawer with my biggest pot. Others are stored flat but not stacked. I have 2 deep drawers in the stack, but the top drawer has a pullout drawer for utensils, hot pads, etc. so it's basically 3 drawers. Be sure to measure your largest pot and skillet to figure out what depth you need.

This is what I mean about the top drawer pullout:

Some people love their drawer within a drawer, but I really dislike that design and the required two steps to access the top drawer, so I didn't do any in the 2 kitchens I designed. Make sure you test this design first at a showroom before committing to it.

side, as I get older,

I like to see and lift out what I need, without having to lift or shuffle through the stack. My first suggestion would be to edit out what you really don't use or need.

I have a pantry closet designated for the one off's, pans I generally only use a couple times a year.

chicagoans said " Be sure to measure your largest pot and skillet to figure out what depth you need."

In my opinion, this is the MOST important step in kitchen design! Figure out what will be stored where - that will inform so many design decisions.

In our first kitchen remodel, I specified the height of the bottom drawer two 3-stacks, to accommodate cake pans on their sides in one stack, and canisters of sugar, flour, etc. in the other. When installed, the bottom two drawers in those stacks were the same height - which was not deep enough for my needs. Luckily our cabinet maker (who kept telling me he just wanted me to be happy) immediately acknowledged the mistake and corrected it quickly.

Yes measure your stuff not matter which way you decide to go. I have a 6 Qt All Clad saute pan that would not fit sideways the way you show in your first picture. It is 25.2 inches long to end of handle.

I Dont have a lot of space in cabinet so mine are stacked.

I stack mine, but I must say that storing them on their sides does look awesome.