Let’s get the bias out of the way first: we manufacture perforated aluminium pool fencing. We are not a neutral party. What follows is our honest attempt at a fair comparison anyway, including the places where glass is genuinely the better choice.

Where glass genuinely wins

Transparency. Nothing beats glass for an uninterrupted view. A perforated panel with 63% open area is remarkably clear - far more than people expect - but it is not invisible. If your pool overlooks something spectacular and you want absolutely nothing between you and it, glass does that better.

The premium look, on day one. Frameless glass in good condition, freshly cleaned, in the right setting, looks superb. We’re not going to pretend otherwise.

Familiarity. Every pool builder knows glass. Every council inspector has seen a thousand glass barriers. There is a comfort in the conventional choice.

Sound. A solid glass panel blocks outside noise better than an open panel can. PoolPerf®’s 63% open area is what lets the breeze through - it lets more sound through too.

Where glass costs you

The cleaning is relentless

This is the complaint we hear most, and it is the reason PoolPerf® exists. Glass shows everything: splash marks, handprints, sunscreen, dog noses, and hard-water spotting that etches in if you leave it. Around a pool, glass is wet constantly. Every drop that dries leaves a mark.

Perforated aluminium simply doesn’t hold marks the same way. There is no continuous flat surface to show them, and the textured powder coat doesn’t spot. Hose it down occasionally and that is genuinely it.

It blocks the breeze

A glass barrier is a wall. On a still summer evening, that matters more than you’d think - the air that would have moved across your pool area is stopped at the fence line. In high-wind areas it matters structurally: a solid panel catches wind loads that an open panel lets straight through.

It can break

Toughened glass is strong, but it can fail - sometimes from edge damage sustained during installation and only failing months later. When it goes, it goes all at once. Around children, that is a consideration.

Aluminium doesn’t shatter. It can be dented by something heavy enough, but it fails gradually and visibly rather than instantly.

Sloping ground is awkward

Glass panels are rectangles. On falling ground you step them down, which leaves either an uneven top line or gaps at the bottom that then need addressing for compliance. Perforated panels can be raked - manufactured with an angled top edge that follows the slope - giving a continuous line down the fall.

You get one look

Glass is glass. Perforated aluminium can be Pure Perf®’s near-invisible pattern, or gum leaves, palm fronds, kookaburras, waves or geometrics, in endless colours, or your own artwork lasercut into it.

What about cost?

Broadly: quality perforated aluminium sits below quality glass on day one, and well below it over the life of the fence once you account for cleaning products, time, and the occasional panel replacement. Cheap imported perforated fencing sits below both - and behaves like it.

We don’t publish prices because they depend on metres, gates, design, colour and ground conditions. Any figure we put here would be wrong for most people reading it.

The honest summary

Choose glass if maximum transparency is the single thing that matters most, you have a genuinely spectacular view, and you are at peace with cleaning it regularly.

Choose perforated aluminium if you want most of that view with none of the maintenance, you’d like the breeze to come through, your ground isn’t perfectly level, or you want the fence to look like a design decision rather than a legal obligation.

And if you’re still unsure - go and stand next to both. Photographs flatten the difference between them, and between good and bad perforated fencing. Our display centres are listed here.

Written by the PoolPerf® team. We manufacture perforated aluminium pool fencing in Australia, so we have an obvious interest here - we’ve tried to be straight with you anyway.