A nakiri and a thin Chinese cleaver are both flat-edged rectangles made for a straight up-and-down chop, and people often ask which of the two to buy for vegetables. Japanese makers and shops sell both, and their own pages treat them quite differently. The nakiri is presented as a second knife for vegetables. The Chinese knife is presented as the only knife a cook needs. I also compared the listed weights at one shop, because the gap is larger than the photos suggest.
If you only want my pick: the Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri 180mm, $109.99 and in stock when I checked on 20 October 2026. It suits someone who already owns a santoku or a gyuto and wants a vegetable knife beside it.
What Japanese sources say the nakiri is for
Tojiro, a knife maker in Niigata, has a long Japanese guide to the nakiri. Its main point is the straight edge. A santoku has a slight curve, so the tip tends to lift off the board, and that small gap is why shredded cabbage comes out still joined together. A nakiri edge sits flat on the board along its whole length and cuts all the way through.
The guide is plain about what the knife is not. It says the santoku is the all-round knife for meat, fish and vegetables, and the nakiri is a knife for chopping vegetables comfortably. It recommends the nakiri as a second knife that makes cooking easier, and says it is not a substitute for the santoku.
The writer also describes using one for a month. The writer normally uses a light, small gyuto and at first found the nakiri a little heavy. After about a week that view changed, and the guide says a nakiri is easier to use when it has some weight, because the cut is a straight drop onto the board and the blade falls on its own. The four Tojiro nakiri listed in that guide weigh between about 140g and 200g at 165mm.
What they say the Chinese knife is for
Tojiro describes the Chinese knife in its guide to specialty knives. It says professional ones are classed by weight more than by length, and that Chinese cooking is done almost entirely with this one knife, so it has to cover everything between bone-in meat and fine vegetable work.
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, a knife shop in Sakai, says much the same on its Chinese knife page: a very wide rectangular knife, and Chinese cooks work with this one knife alone. It adds that the knives come in many weights, thicknesses and shapes to suit the user. On its product pages, the same shop describes its Chinese knives as general-purpose knives for vegetables, boneless meat and fish.
So in the Japanese descriptions the Chinese knife is closer to a gyuto than to a nakiri in what it is asked to do. It happens to be shaped like a very tall nakiri. I put it next to a gyuto in Chinese cleaver vs chef knife.
The weights
I took these on 8 October 2026.
At Hocho-Knife, the Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri at 180mm is listed at 180g, and the INOX PRO nakiri at the same length is 185g.
The thinnest of the Sugimoto white steel Chinese knives the shop carries, No. 1, is 220mm long and 95mm tall and weighs 370g. Sugimoto, a Tokyo maker, labels No. 1 as thin on its own product index. The medium No. 2 is 460g and the thick No. 3 is 555g at the same blade size.
So the thin Chinese knife is about twice the weight of a nakiri. Ichimonji lists smaller ones in Japan. Its home-use Chinese knife is 220g at 170mm and 280g at 190mm, and its small thin one in white steel is 350g at 190mm. Even the lightest of those is heavier than the nakiri above.
Tojiro said a nakiri works better with some weight behind it. A Chinese knife takes that idea a good deal further, and whether 370g feels helpful or tiring over a pile of vegetables depends on the cook. That is my comment, and none of the sources compares the two directly.
Height and what it changes
The Sugimoto listing gives the blade height, 95mm, and the larger Chinese knives at the shop are 110mm. The nakiri listings I checked do not state a height, so I cannot give a measured comparison here.
Tojiro makes one point about width that applies to both. It says a wide rectangular blade works as a scraper for moving cut vegetables, and that the squared tip makes it easy to slide food onto the blade. It also asks cooks not to scoop with the edge itself, since that damages it. A Chinese knife has more of that surface than a nakiri.
Price
The nakiri was $107.99. The Sugimoto No. 1 was $304.99. The lowest-priced Chinese knife in stock at Hocho-Knife on 8 October was a Brieto in stainless steel at $182.99.
Chinese knives are not always the expensive choice in Japan. The home-use one at Ichimonji is 7,400 yen. But at the shop I link to, a nakiri costs a good deal less than any Chinese knife on the shelf.
Which one to buy
If you already have a santoku or a gyuto and want something better for cabbage, onions and herbs, buy the nakiri. This is the use Tojiro describes, the knife is light enough for anyone, and it costs the least. I compared it with the santoku in nakiri vs santoku.
Buy the thin Chinese knife if you want one tall blade for vegetables, boneless meat and fish together and you like a heavy knife. It is a different way of working, with one knife doing the work of three.
Neither is for chopping through bone. Ichimonji says its Chinese knives can crack simple bones with the spine, and tells buyers not to use them on frozen food. Heavier knives for bone are in deba vs cleaver.
One more thing to check is the edge. The nakiri and these Chinese knives are double-edged and work in either hand. The usuba, which looks like a nakiri, is sharpened on one side, and that comparison is in usuba vs nakiri.
Three knives, checked on 8 October 2026
The nakiri: the Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri 180mm at $109.99. 180g, stainless, double-edged, in stock.
A stainless Chinese knife: the Brieto M11PRO Chinese knife, 220mm by 95mm, at $182.99. Molybdenum vanadium stainless with a stainless handle, in stock. The listing does not give a weight. The shop says this line needs 5 to 10 business days before shipping because each edge is finished by hand.
The thin carbon steel one: the Sugimoto white steel Chinese knife No. 1, 220mm by 95mm, at $304.99. 370g, double-edged, in stock. White steel is carbon steel and rusts if left wet, so dry it after use.
Disclosure
I have four approved affiliate partnerships: two with knife retailers, Hocho-Knife and SharpEdge, and two with Japanese language-learning companies unrelated to knives. This page carries four tracked links, all to Hocho-Knife: three knives, and a second link to the nakiri near the top. At about 10 percent, that is roughly 11 dollars for the nakiri, 18 dollars for the Brieto and 30 dollars for the Sugimoto. The knife I suggest for most readers is the one that pays me least. Tojiro is quoted here as a source, and this page does not link to any Tojiro product. My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources: the Japanese guides to the nakiri and to specialty knives published by Tojiro, the product index on the Sugimoto site, the Chinese knife pages of Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, and the Hocho-Knife product pages for the knives named above, all checked on 8 October 2026.