Flooring dilemma - solid pine?

[Medal]

We are having new flooring installed (plus a damp proof membrane), and have the choice between solid pine floorboards, engineered oak, or solid oak. It is a large area, 50m2, to include hallway and two reception rooms.

The latter two oak floors would be more expensive than the pine floor. The pine floorboards can be stained professionally to give an oak effect and actually come up quite nicely (although not as nice in terms of depth of colour as the oak).

If we went for the pine floor, we could put the money saved towards some furniture! Just looking for some opinions really - which would be much appreciated . Has anyone had new pine flooring?

My friends had pine fitted. It looked lovely until the houswarming party when it was badly dented by heels. I know stilettos have marked my PIL's oak floor but they were very pointy ones and may have had metal tips.

Some new pine boards were in my last house to replace original boards (by previous owners). They are soft and will mark but, over time, it just looks lived in. Depends if that bothers you or not. I like it personally.

We had our original pine floor sanded and sealed and it withstood all sorts of wear and tear for years but we had a 40th birthday party and someone at the party was wearing stilletto shoes which dented all the floors in the livingroom hall and spare room grrrr was so cross.... We replaced it with quick step laminate :( harder wearing but not the same as real wood.