I work in the commercial construction field, and I've seen a lot of cabinets. The differences between IKEA cabinets and custom cabinets are very minor, and most of them are in the finishes, not the construction of the cabinets. Custom cabinets are made from MDF and particleboard with a finish veneer, just like IKEA. The biggest difference will be in the cabinet thickness. All Akurum and SEKTION cabinets are 3/4" thick, most custom cabinets are 3/4" thick, whereas Home Depot and Lowe's off the shelf cabinets are 1/2" thick. I installed a SEKTION kitchen in my mom's house this past week. I was skeptical of the quality beforehand, but I was blown away by the engineering that has gone into the design of the cabinets. Assembling them is very slick and made me feel like I was putting LEGO sets together. Everything from drawer glides to hinges is high quality (I took a hinge into Lowe's to discuss it with their cabinet maker and he was blown away by the design. They use a tension design instead of screws so you can easily swap out doors if you want to upgrade.). In contrast, I installed a Home Depot cabinet kitchen in my dad's rental house last December, and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Parts came damaged or broken, thinner cabinet frames, and lower quality hardware. IKEA was definitely worth the money. Having said this, my only gripe was with the SEKTION suspension rail. The holes for the rail are located at 12" on center. Almost zero houses were designed with 12" on center studs. You will be drilling holes in the rail to install. It's not a big hassle, but it seems odd to use a 12" spacing pattern. More on reddit.com

I was wondering if anyone who has had a kitchen remodel from IKEA will share their cost and experience. We have a small L-Shaped 10x15 kitchen and need all new cabinets and countertops. We were looking at doing quartz. We are comparing several different sources such as Home Depot and Lowes. More on reddit.com

The in-store planners are crucial and extremely helpful. No way we could have designed it on our own and have it look right. We did IKEA cabinets and their quartz countertops and we paid an unaffiliated local contractor to do the demo of the existing kitchen, build and install the cabinets, counters were installed by the IKEA countertop people, and our contractor is finishing backsplash, etc. kitchen is on the small side and no changes to the footprint. we took out a home loan for $15,000 that we’re paying back over five years. When all is said and done the total cost will probably be closer to $17,000. We were quoted $50,000-$60,000 minimum by a design build company so this certainly seems like a bargain and the new kitchen is beautiful. More on reddit.com

We did ours in early 2021, (prices may be higher now) our IKEA order was about $5,500 , 13 cabinets , drawers and doors, and we bought a freestanding island for cost savings. Didn't get under cabinet lighting and tbh it is the one thing I regret not including. Quartz top at Lowe's was around $3,000 installed, (about 30 sq. ft., because no island). Installation (we used IKEA ) was about $1800.00. More on reddit.com