Sliding vs. French Patio Doors: Ultimate 2026 Buying Guide

Sliding doors versus French doors. What's the best option for you in 2026? Let's talk about it. I love both sliding doors and French doors. Now sliding doors are simplicity, usually cost half the price of a French door. But there's cool things about sliding doors that are automatic versus with a French door. And the biggest thing I'd like to start with is the screen. People ask, well, when I'm getting my French door, does it come with screens? And the answer is no, not really. It typically does not. That's going to be some kind of rollaway screen or snap on screen after the French door has been installed and it's not done by the manufacturers, right? Or the installers. With a sliding patio door, you will get that. It's automatic. It comes with the package of the door. And it's neat. With Anlin and Milgaard, you're going to get an extruded screen frame. And these are really, really strong, super durable, and they last a very, very long time. Bug screen is normally going to be Pfeiffer BetterView, but you can also upgrade this to Pet Mesh if you need the extra security. You have a dog that's rambunctious and claws on the door, a cat, same situation. And you can upgrade these to have that style of protection and screen. So with these and with Anlin, you get massive rollers underneath these patio doors. It doesn't matter if it's a five foot wide patio door or if it's a 16 foot patio door, doesn't matter. You're going to get massive rollers and they glide so, so nicely. They lock ever so nicely as well. The cool thing about these is that you're going to, this is standard, is going to be a two-prong mortise. Anlin also offers this in a four-prong where you'd have one of these up here and then one of these guys down at the bottom. And then you'll have an extra strike plate at the top and bottom here. And that just offers you extra protection. Honestly, I don't think you need it. Just the standard mortise lock is plenty strong. So this is an amazing feature. The other thing that I love about Anlin is this pet door that you can get as an upgrade in your patio doors. So in the showroom here, we like to have this so we can showcase to people and voila. And what Anlin has done is they've done a two flaps. So you have two flaps that are actually inside this opening and it's to help protect against like wind infiltration because when you get this, you have to assume that there's not going to be quite the wind resistance as just glass only because there is this flap here. But it's actually really, really awesome. As you can see, it just snaps right back into place. Pet runs out, boom, it's right back to place. And at night or you're going out of town or whatever, they come with a steel plate that goes right into the opening here and then locks into place. You can also get this on the French door as well. So many options that you can get with your handles. You can do this, you know, the traditional style. I can show you that as well as the contemporary style. You can do different colors. There's really, I mean, endless amount. It's awesome what you can get. The other thing that's really great about these is if you live by the coast like I do, you can get the rollers, the screen door rollers, everything in stainless steel. So it's going to help prevent corrosion over time. It doesn't stop it completely because salt air is salt air. It helps slow the progress down to a crawl. So with these sliding patio doors, there's different applications. You could do a retro style because it is vinyl. So a lot of customers prefer to do the retro flange. And on this particular door right now, we have what they call brick mold. So this is a brick mold retro flange. They offer this, you know, in brick mold. And then also in flush bin, flush bins, a little bit smoother. This has more of the contours to it and give us a little bit more, more of a, I don't know, more of a look a little more or neat. I would say if you're like, I already have a slider. I want to do something cool. I want to go French door. Well, cool. Because we have a French door to option here. Now this is an eight foot wide French door. And with this, we opted for the show room to have operable side lights, meaning that not only do these open, but the sides do as well. And that is the one time you will get screens with your French door. If you have operable side lights, let's say you have a six foot French door and you want the side lights, what you've reduced it to is one single door. And imagine that side light over here to take up a six foot opening. So you can maximize how big this is to 36 inches. And then you can have your side lights on either end. Then you can have screens come with a French door, but you're only going to get 36 inch open with this style. If eight foot patio door, and there's a lot of eight foot patio doors out there already. And you just fill it up with this. This has bronze hardware, traditional style, always comes with a key. The thing about a slider door is you can option to have a key on the outside, but it's not standard. It is standard with a French door. Okay. And these things operate amazing. What's awesome about these French doors is, is you have adjustable hinges. All right. So the top and bottom are going to allow the sash to teeter sort of like this in the opening. The middle one, there's a plunger here at the bottom that you can put a three sixteenths Allen in and you twist it to the right and it'll lift the sash up a little bit or the opposite. You turn it the other way. It'll drop the sash down a little bit. And it's not like huge amounts of movements because you know, the door needs to go in square. But if there's ever a situation where something shifted in the house, you still have the ability to make sure that the doors are still opening and closing properly. The one thing I love about Anlin's French door is number one, your corners are mitered. No butt joints, right? It's a, it's a welded fusion, welded miter. And it looks really, really awesome. Okay. A lot of vinyl doors. I mean, especially fiberglass is going to have a butt joint. I'm not too thrilled about a butt joint on a vinyl door. Should be fusion welded in my opinion. What's also great about this is the ease of operation for the non-operable side. Call it non-operable because it is the fixed pen, right? This is the one that we're typically closing and opening throughout the day. Great. But let's say you want to open this up and you need to move something through, or you just want the space. So you just unlock it and open it. Look at how easy that is. A lot of other doors you would see that are French have these little tabs. You have to push up, go down to the bottom, push down, and it feeds into the track and it feeds into the header. Well, not with Anlin. You just have the handle. You lift up to set your deadbolts, twist, and you're locked. But how easy that was, right? Unlock it, open, and there you go. Now you have all this room. So what is best for your house is really going to be determined up to you. French doors typically cost double what a sliding door would cost. But with these, you have some pretty cool features, right? That you're not going to get with a sliding patio door like this here. So this is that operable side that I was telling you about. And you can go to this side and open this guy up as well. And all you're doing is just twisting a little lock. It opens up and oh, by the way, guess what? You're getting these hinges that are adjustable again. So on this particular door, all of the hinges are operable. Look at how much airflow would actually be coming through your house right now. And there are some places that can do roll-away canisters on this particular door. It would be on the outside and then they just close together. And now you have everything screened off. But that's a separate cost, right? But we do know of people who get those installed after the door has been installed. But this is a really neat feature. And again, with this, you can do so many different styles of handles. Here's your French door contemporary style. This is what you're going to get. Now you can get them in all these colors down here, right? And the same thing for the traditional style. You can do either one on your French door and you can pick which color it is, you know, and go from there. Now on the sliding patio doors, you have the contemporary style and then you have the traditional style. So again, it just comes down to what is, what do you like? And again, it comes in all these colors. So you can do this and this, or you can do this and this. This here is a foot bolt that goes on the sliding patio door as an option. And that just allows the door to have an extra locking mechanism. And then also, you can open your door a few inches, plunge this down into the track and it locks your sash, open a few inches. That way it's pretty locked. And then also you're getting some airflow. So you can walk away from the door, do whatever it is that you're doing. This is Anland's approach. As you guys know, I really, really love Anland. You know, people ask, well, do I have to get the grid in between the panes of glass? And the answer is no, you don't have to get the grid. It's just because we want to show options. And you know, in this case, this is going to be a traditional French style, you know, grid. And that's it. We're locking up for the night, right? Getting everything closed. There's that. So top and bottom locks there. And voila, we're ready. Completely locked. How cool is that? So anyways, really, it just depends on your style. There you have it. I hope that helps. Make it a great day. Before you click off this video, if you live in the Ventura, LA or Dallas-Fort Worth area, and you are interested in a free in-home estimate, go to the website, click on the request. The link is down below in the description. I will reach out to you. Thank you guys so much.