Kallax alternatives: 6 design storage systems that outclass it (+ a smart upgrade)

"Kallax alternative", "Kallax equivalent", "Kallax usato": everyone has owned a Kallax, and everyone eventually wants better. IKEA's square cube is honest and indestructible — but it reads "first flat". Here is when to keep it, how to move it up a grade, and what to replace it with.

Why it is everywhere

Launched as the Expedit, then renamed Kallax, it is the cheapest modular storage on the market: a grid of square compartments that swallows books, vinyl and bins. Its strength — neutrality — is also its limit: you recognise it at a glance.

Upgrade it rather than bin it

Three moves transform it: legs (in turned wood or brass) to lift it off the floor, fronts or doors (several third-party makers produce them to measure), and a solid wood top laid across it. For the price of a dinner, the Kallax stops looking like a Kallax.

6 alternatives, from budget to design

Vitsœ 606 (Dieter Rams)

The ultimate wall-mounted storage, drawn in 1960, indestructible and endlessly extendable. It is the "grown-up Kallax": you buy it once and recompose it for ever.

String

The airy Swedish system: light wall shelves, infinitely reconfigurable. More graphic, less bulky.

USM Haller

The investment: the Swiss modular grid in steel and chromed balls. The opposite of disposable.

Montana

Danish modular in colour — warmth on top of system logic.

Tylko

Parametric made-to-measure storage: you draw your dimensions online, solid fronts, wood.

Vintage

A Scandinavian sideboard or a 1960s modular bookcase found second-hand sometimes costs the price of a new Kallax — and looks like nothing else.

Spotted a piece of storage you like? Scan it on Beyit: the equivalent at your budget, from second-hand to design.