How hard are you on your cabinetry and furniture? How do you feel about having a ubiquitous "look" that will be labeled by others as "dated" before too long?

Ikea is fine for what it is, cheap, servicable cabinetry that is meant to be thrown away in a decade or two. In that it's not different to a vast amount of the cabinetry sold in the US, often at much higher prices.

If in general your furniture lasts a long time, so will the Ikea cabinets. I wouldn't epect it to stand up well to the kinds of abuse that a house full of rambunctious kids and teenagers who spill a lot of stuff and aren't paying attention to what happens when they lean on drawers and wrench doors around.

There are a vast number of Ikea and Ikea lookalike kitchens out there now, this almost certainly guarantees that the kitchen industry will declare then to be out of style and in need of replacing with the latest and greatest.

When faced with the choice last time we chose to buy much better than average used cabinets that were being torn out because they weren't white after 6-8 years of not being used by someone who didn't cook. They were about a quarter the price estimate we had from Ikea and 5% of what similar quality new custom cabinetry would have been. I had to make a couple matching pieces for spaces where we didn't get something the right size/shape to make it work. I'm pretty happy with that choice 14 years down the road-- we traded, in part, a more fashionable kitchen for a wonderful month in Tuscany.

Would I pay more for quality Blum hinges and glides and for drawers built with structural integrity? Absolutely. Would I suggest that my cash-strapped daughter plow a fortune into cabinets that will last 100+ years? Probably not. Would I spend nearly that much on fashionable cabinets that won't last much longer than the Ikea ones? No way.

I have installed ikea bathroom & kitchen cabinets and think they are fine. They have a great price point and if it’s only the two of you then you don’t have to worry about them not lasting. IKEA is like a well oiled machine. For a price they will put together the boxed units and install them, all in one day. I have also ordered their stone countertops. They will measure

your space once the cabinets are in place and give you a delivery date. They actually keep to the delivery time! They are a pleasure to deal with.

My son has an Ikea kitchen, and when he remodels it (not because of the quality of the cabinets, but because of some poor design choices by the previous owner), he will go with Ikea.

OTOH, I had cabinets built be a local custom shop, and was very pleased with the quality of the work and the price. It was a company that had been in business for 20+ years, so I was confident they weren't going anywhere. There are certainly good local shops out there.

People think they are much better than they objectively measurably are, because they contributed to the design or the build of the end product. If they were objectively observing someone else's kitchen, didn't know it was Ikea, and had no hand in anything, then they would rate the end product much lower. IKEA effect - Wikipedia

Back when Consumers Reports rated kitchen cabinetry, IKEA was highly rated for basic cabinetry (I think they were #1 in basic, but it's been quite a few years). No, they were not the same as fully custom or even most semi-custom lines, but they were superior for their price point. They contain things like soft-close as standard that most cabinet makers charge extra for.

I know a lot of builders and similar don't like them, but I can't help but wonder if it's b/c they don't get "deals" from IKEA. IKEA cabinets are RTA and meant to be DIY, that's one of the big reasons they're so affordable. (They have a rail system that makes hanging their cabinets easier than other cabinets.)

To answer your question, I put in an IKEA kitchen 10 years ago, and I'm still just as happy with it today as when it was first installed. There was an amazing variety of design choices, both in the cabinet boxes, and in the door and drawer fronts. Others have advised you to go with the real wood doors and drawer fronts, and I'll second that advice. Mine are wood and have held up beautifully. Since the doors and drawer fronts are so affordable, (even in the wood styles), I also bought a few extra of my most-used sizes of drawers and doors in case I might ever need them. That future-cushion cost under $100 ten years ago, but I've never yet needed them.

ThePros are the cost-benefit, very wide range of sizes in cab boxes and interior fittings, quality of the hardware in hinges and closings, and easy on-the-fly changes if needed (no waiting months for a cabinet vendor if you need to adjust/change anything). The Cons are the DIY assembly component, and the possibility that your style door might be discontinued and hard to replace. I paid for the delivery service, and checked during the unloading that everything on my sales list was included.

I was not even the least bit handy when I started the cabinet assembly, but I built them just fine following the instructions, and also learned to make hacks and modifications to have custom sizes and configurations where needed, for built-in appliance panels for example.

Best of luck for a great project!

Smiling brings up a good point about modifying IKEA cabinets. Many people modify them to create custom solutions that would not be easy or even possible with traditional cabinets. There are forums that discuss the many hacks people have done. (Unfortunately, the most popular, IKEAFans, was shutdown years ago, but there are other sites still out there.)

We even have some hacks on the Forum. ("hacks" = modifications)

IKEA Hacks: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4306128/ikea-hacks-compilation-of-ikea-hacks