Porcelain is ceramic. What you want to avoid is porous tiles. Most glazed tiles are suitable for wet areas. More glossy is slippery but that can happen with porcelain, also. Standard wall tile is a bisque body -porous- but is glazed before firing so fine for wet areas. Modern tile bodies are less porous probably, but unless you’re installing outside, no worries. Proper porcelain -and there is improper porcelain- is very low porosity. The body material is fired at a very high heat so it fuses into a glass like state, so suitable for exterior use. There are a number of attractive properties to porcelain; glazed or unglazed, cleft or rough face, matte face, or glossy like marble. It’s also as tough a nails, as in being less vulnerable to scratching. But lower fired, glazed products can look great, too. And unglazed quarry tile has its applications. The original Saltillo tile was one of my fave looks. Answer from jimyjami on reddit.com