What Is the Main Difference Between Cellular Shades and Solar Shades?
Cellular shades are insulating fabric shades. Their pleated honeycomb construction creates pockets of air between the room and the window. They are available in different fabrics, cell sizes, opacities and control styles.
Solar shades are view-preserving sun-control shades. They use woven screen fabric with small openings. The percentage of open space in that weave is called the openness factor.
Insulation + Privacy
Best compared when the homeowner wants an insulating layer, stronger privacy, light-filtering or room-darkening fabrics and minimal interest in seeing through the lowered shade.
Glare + View Control
Best compared when the homeowner wants to reduce strong sunlight and glare while retaining some daylight and an outward view.
The biggest conceptual difference
When a typical cellular shade is fully lowered, you generally look at the shade fabric rather than through it. The opacity selected determines how much light passes through the material.
When a solar shade is lowered, the open weave is intentionally designed to permit some view-through. That is one reason solar shades are popular on large windows where covering the view with an opaque treatment would defeat the purpose of having the glass.