Cabinets are usually the largest line in a kitchen budget, and the material decides both what they cost and how they age. None of the options is simply better than the others.
Solid wood
The traditional choice, and still the most repairable. It can be sanded and refinished decades later. The trade-off is movement: solid timber expands and contracts with humidity, so panels need to be built to allow for it.
Plywood
Layered construction makes plywood far more dimensionally stable than solid timber while keeping real wood surfaces. It holds screws and fixings well, which matters for cabinet boxes and for anything carrying weight.
MDF
Dense, perfectly flat, and the best substrate there is for a painted finish, because it has no grain to telegraph through. Its weakness is water: once MDF takes on moisture it swells and does not recover. It belongs on doors and panels, not under a sink.
Thermofoil
A vinyl layer heat-formed over a substrate. Inexpensive, easy to wipe down, and consistent. It can delaminate near sustained heat, so it wants care next to ovens.
Wood veneer
A thin layer of real timber over plywood or MDF. You get genuine grain at a lower cost and with better stability than solid wood, though there is very little material to sand back if it is damaged.
Custom, semi-custom or stock
Stock cabinets come in fixed sizes and are the quickest and cheapest route. Semi-custom allows changes to sizes and finishes. Custom is built to your room, which is the answer when the space is awkward or when you want something specific.
Finishes and hardware
Paint, stain and glaze each protect the material differently and age differently. Hardware is worth spending on: hinges and runners are the parts you operate several times a day, and cheap ones are the first thing to fail.
If you are weighing these up for a specific room, it is usually quicker to talk it through with someone who has installed all of them.
