Families often distinguish gemstones, jades, and colored stones based on their hardness. Generally speaking, the Mohs hardness of gemstones is above 7, such as bare diamonds, emeralds, blue gemstones, and jadeite gemstones, except for Opal gemstones, which have a Mohs hardness of 5.5; The Mohs hardness of high hardness jade is 6-7.5, such as Hotan Jade, Nanyang Jade, and Jadeite; The hardness of low hardness jade ranges from 4 to 6, such as green pine and Xiuyan jade (some serpentine road stones have a lower hardness, which can be as low as 2.5). Minerals smaller than 4 are generally no longer referred to as jade, but rather as colored stones.

In addition to scratch hardness, there is also a hardness standard called compressive hardness, or indentation hardness, which refers to the ability to withstand external impact forces and is also known as ductility in the field of jade. In nature, the highest compressive hardness is Black Diamond, with the mark of 10 degrees, followed by Hotan Jade, with the compressive hardness of 9 degrees, jadeite jade, ruby and sapphire of 8 degrees, and bare diamond, amethyst and aquamarine of 7-7.5 degrees. In another way, the compressive hardness of Hotan Jade is 1000, that of jadeite is 500, that of Xiuyan Jade is 250, and that of agate is only 5. Hotan Jade has such high ductility because its crystals are woven like a blanket, and the interaction between molecular structures is very great.