my spouse did a complete ugrade of an old garage at the vacat house. I got all bent out of shape because he used IKEA kitchen cabinets w their cheaper butcher block top for a long row of storage..[ lots of tools and weird heavy duty stuff] I thought for sure they would get all banged up etc and why not use their basement/garage system ??? To this day the cabinets are holding up well /glides handling LOTS of weight . the fronts are one of the wood ones [ abt 10 yrs ago ] so maybe there are a couple scratches...I dont know......but stuff gets thrown around out there etc and its all good...still.... There is 20 feet w drawers and cabinets and a corner and a tall hinged door cabinet on the adjacent side..probably 25 feet or more total.....Name what line/brand you have in mind besides IKEA for more feedback. Ikea has installers now.

Id also factor in what the charges are going to be for assembling the cabinets. most rtas the savings come from homeowners building them, but you indicate you are having them assembled

I rebuilt my son's house on a tight budget, we couldn't find a set of recycled cabinets that would fit his space (my first choice, and what we used in our own house) so bought Asian origin no-name RTA cabinets from a local shop. The shop did the assembly for a very modest upcharge ($10-20 each as I recall). They were surprisingly well made using plywood and solid wood elements (no particle board or MDF) with hardware and glides that work well and have held up fine for five years now-- they would be easy to swap out for real Blum glides and hinges if/when they break, as they are clones. The finishing job wasn't great, but most people wouldn't notice the problems, and I saw exactly the same kinds of issues (some orange peel, splatter from insufficiently atomized stain, shadow lines where they didn't get into the corners) on US-made cabinets costing 3X as much.

We also saw a lot of complete junk while cabinet shopping, so it's important to pay attention!

I've had IKEA cabs in my garage for extra stroag for 20 years. They have been subjected to dry winters and hit / humid NC summers. They are in perfect condition.

I decided to put IKEA in my new (high end) custom build due to the modular nature, warranty, interior fitments, drawer and HW quality and the fact that so many folks do door replacement for IKEA - I can change my entire kitchen look in a couple of days. I also just have several straight runs, no corners and easy measurements (no need for custom sizes or much filler (more on that in next paragraph)

So far I have assembled 65 cabinets. They are straight, strong and square. They are easy to install with the hanging rail system. My only quibble is that a 30" wide cab is 30 1/16" - so eveything is running just so slightly larger. Ihave room in my plan for 1/16" of course - but multiply that by 11 and it starts to get real..... grrrrr

Agree the only RTA I'd consider is Ikea.

But as others said, the savings is in you assembling them yourselves which is actually very easy to do.

I disagree that you have to assemble yourself to save money. The savings if you get all drawers alone is huge over the upcharge of other cabinets. We remodeled in 2019, an average size kitchen. Cost $2500 to have Ikea assemble and install and that included modifying several cabinets. Money well spent.

I think I had a quote a couple years ago for $100/box. For a standard cab that's high. For a cab with drawers it's low!

I suspect that if you do installations for a living you get rerally good at some assembly and also effecient at installation (although the rail system is fairly idiot proof)

If I was smarter, I'd probably have contracted it out. ;-)

I installed IKEA Akrum* kitchen cabinets in 2005. They don't look any different today than they did in 2005. Yes, you have to assemble them but the rail system (now for base cabinets as well) makes them reasonably easy to install. Simplify your kitchen remodel by using a range, freestanding refrigerator, OTR/countertop microwave, and drop-in sink; and installing the dishwasher before the countertop.

*Discontinued series, replaced by Sektion.

We looked at Ikea, they were neither as well made nor did they use the same quality materials as the no-name ones we ended up buying. Not sure that "not being willing to consider anything other than Ikea" is necessarily a wise course.

Did your no name cabinets come with a 25 year guarantee like Ikea cabinets do?

We are looking at cabinets from Cabinets To Go. They were chosen because they have a showroom near us and we were able to look at the products in person. Their cabinets also have a warranty similar to IKEA. IKEA was ruled out because we wanted solid wood drawers and boxes (I know plywood it is not great but we were trying to avoid MDF and did not want white interiors. Cabinet installation is already built into our remodel bid from our contractor. He will assemble and install RTA cabinets. I am open to other brands of RTA but, want to see them in person. My biggest concern with RTA is them holding up OK over time and not looking really cheap when finished.

"My biggest concern with RTA is them holding up OK over time and not looking really cheap when finished."

Nobody is going to be able to tell you that because with the exception of IKEA, nobody is going to have cabinets from a product line that extends back decades and whose durability is therefore known.

"IKEA was ruled out because we wanted solid wood drawers and boxes (I know plywood it is not great but we were trying to avoid MDF and did not want white interiors."

IKEA Maximera drawers are steel with particleboard bottoms. You only see a drawer's interior for the minute it's open. What difference does the color make? (Rhetorical question.)

-EOM-

I put some Cabinets to Go cabinets in a rental property about ten years ago. They matched up well to the preexisting IKEA cabinets. At the time, they had a local store which was doing a warehouse clean out and I got them for an absolute steal. I got two eight foot tall pantry cabinets which we cut down to 12 inches deep for a storage wall in a hallway. Solid plywood sides and shelves were easy to cut and we just glued and nailed the backs since we cut off the fasteners. 

Assembly was trivial because doors come already attached to the face frame. Lay the doors face down, slide side pieces in a groove then click cam lock fasteners into place. Top and bottom slid into grooves and the back was notched. It took longer to read the directions and unpack the materials than to actually assemble the cabinets. Ten years and several tenants later, the cabinets are holding up well. 

I priced their cabinets later for another project but ultimately found a set of reclaimed cabinets instead

Conestoga is RTA and is not low end. I’m not sure there would be much savings after paying someone to assemble, though.

"Did your no name cabinets come with a 25 year guarantee like Ikea cabinets do?"

Nope. No warranty at all that I know of, never even occurred to me to ask. It's a wooden box, what's going to fail that's not pretty trivially repairable?

Do you really believe Ikea (or any other manufacturer) will be stocking replacement parts for today's models in 20 years? Giving you a new cabinet that doesn't match the other 20 in your kitchen isn't much of a remedy.

I have to admit that experience has taught me to put little trust in or value on warranties that are longer than a couple years, they are almost uniformly impossible to collect on and have terms that remeder tham valueless. I've not read the Ikea warranty, so have no idea what they promise, nor how i works out in practice.

Anyway, my only point is that there appear to be some manufacturers that make a pretty decent product for the price point, better than the name brand in this case, and that one should evaluate the actual object rather than make a blanket presumption that anything without the brand name is junk.