There are three basic types of cooktops— gas, electric coil, and smooth-tops. The old coil burner, normally the least expensive way to go, is still a fine choice. The coils should be about the same size as the bottoms of the pots, although some coils offer dual element options, which means the coil senses how big your pot is and only heats as much as is in contact with it.

Standard gas burners allow drips and crumbs to go beneath the surface of the cooktop — making for a messy cleanup job every so often. Gas-sealed burners eliminate this problem with burners connected to the cooktop, so there’s no place for crumbs to hide.

Professional chefs, and most home cooks, choose gas over electric because of the amount of control available. With the twist of a dial, you can increase the heat dramatically or turn the flame down, providing more immediate results than can be achieved by an electric cooktop.

Today’s high-tech gas cooktops offer lots of extra features, like simmer settings that allow delicate sauces to cook for hours without burning and reigniting burners that restore the flame to the original level if it accidentally goes out.

Electric options cost around $250 for the basic four-burner electric coil cooktop, and from $400 to $1,200 for the smooth ceramic tops. The four- burner gas cooktops with sealed burners range from $300 to $1,500 for a model with high-powered, professional-style burners.

The last category of burners is the smooth-top; these have a layer of ceramic glass on top of a heating element. The smooth surface means the cooktop is particularly easy to clean, and the non-porous glass won’t stain. Safety issues associated with early smooth-tops have been resolved with burners that glow red when hot. Now there’s no question as to whether the burners are on.

The three types of smooth-tops are radiant (electric), halogen, and induction. Radiant burners tend to be the most popular of the three.

A more unusual option is an induction cooktop. The heat is generated by a magnetic field between the pan and the cooktop. A magnet spins rapidly under the cooktop’s surface. Only metal that will stick to a magnet will get hot when placed on the burner. So, as long as you don’t have any iron-based jewelry on, you can touch the burner without feeling the heat.

However, the need for iron or steel-alloy pans has made induction cooktops relatively unpopular, because, as we all know, hardly anyone uses only one kind of cookware. Many people don’t like the idea of buying a new collection of pots just so they can use induction burners that are already fairly expensive.