Le Creuset Dutch ovens have nice wide handles, easily grippable with oven mitts, and are lighter than most other enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens available today. The 5.5-quart Dutch oven we tested from Le Creuset weighed in at a little over 11 pounds. They have a light-colored interior, which allows you to visually monitor your food as it cooks. This is most useful when using high heat or developing a fond to make sure things aren’t burning.

Staub Dutch ovens (or cocottes, as the brand prefers to call them) are slightly heavier than Le Creusets—the 5.5-quart Staub had about a pound on the Le Creuset—but are still lighter than lots of other similarly sized Dutch ovens.

The Staub cocottes feature a matte black enamel interior in contrast to Le Creuset’s glossy off-white. Both interiors are nonstick-ish (they’ll never be quite as nonstick as a well-seasoned, uncoated cast-iron skillet), but the Staub’s black interior hides stains and signs of wear in a way that the interior of a Le Creuset can’t. The drawback of the Staub’s black enamel is that it can be harder to tell when things are sticking to the bottom of your pan or burning. For people comfortable in the kitchen this isn’t a huge deal, but for beginners who haven’t honed their cooking instincts, a dark interior may be less user-friendly.

Both pots, though, have very high-quality enamel coatings that resist chipping and limited lifetime warranties. I’ve seen their durability up close in my own head-to-head tests over the years and in continual use of both Le Creuset and Staub in the Bon Appétit test kitchen. Many of the more affordable Dutch ovens—particularly models from Lodge Essentials and Amazon Basics— tend to chip after a couple of years.

Beyond the color of their interiors, the other big difference between Staub and Le Creuset is between their lids. A Le Creuset lid has a simple sloping curve that allows condensation to circulate down the inside edges of the pot. Le Creuset lids also feature a phenolic resin knob (plastic, basically) as opposed to a metal knob, which is only ovensafe up to 390°, at which point it will start to melt, and stays relatively cooler to the touch. The company also sells metal knobs that can withstand temperatures up to 500° that you can easily screw on to replace the plastic.

The Staub lid has a metal knob and looks sort of like a hubcap. It has a central impression surrounded by an upraised outer ridge. According to Staub, the unique design has a functional purpose. The shape of the lid, along with several “self-basting” bumps on the underside is supposed to create top-down circulation of moisture that will keep liquid from escaping between the seam of the lid and the pot itself. This design feature has been replicated by many new Dutch ovens, however, when I tested it, the actual impact of this design is nearly imperceptible in the final results.

So which should I get? Staub or Le Creuset?

After years of use I can say with some confidence that, in terms of performance, these two brands are more similar than they are different. So the choice between Staub and Le Creuset really comes down to personal preference around look and feel. While in our product tests we prefer Le Creuset due to its slightly lighter weight and beginner-friendly light interior, we still recommend Staub as a high-quality Dutch oven. They’re expensive pieces of cookware, but they’ll never need replacing if you take good care of them (hand-washing only, please), and they’ll never disappoint.