Below are the main types and styles of European (concealed) hinges show to help you identify them visually.
Compact Concealed Hinges - These are the simplest concealed hinge you can find and also the most affordable. They are small and light. Typically they are fine for the average cabinet door in the kitchen, but heavy doors may need three of these instead of two, or just a heavier duty hinge in the first place. The cup goes in the mortise as seen on our installation tutorial and the plate on the right screws directly into the face frame.
Full Overlay Concealed Hinge - This hinge has more to it and requires a plate for mounting on the inside of frameless cabinet. This hinge does the same thing as the above hinge, but allows for the overlay to be done on a frameless cabinet. By their nature, these will be stronger than the single compact euro hinges.
Various Openings of Euro Hinges - The wider the cabinet door needs to open the more specific a concealed hinge has to be. To open as far as the old style of cabinet hinge they need a few joints to move around. Typical openings measured in degrees are 45, 110, 160-170. The very wide opening hinges have to be quite bulky and start to be costly given that their mechanism begins to create a lot of downward stress on the hinge. Below you can see the progression of degrees from 45 degrees for a corner cabinet, then to 110, then to the complicated mechanism necessary to open 165 degrees and still hide away when closed.
Base Plates - Base plates range from 0mm to 4mm. The plates serve the purpose of adding a little bit of extra clearance on overlay applications as well as of course being the way the hinges are secured to the cabinets. Many people choose concealed hinges with mounting plates for the practical reason that the cabinet doors can be removed without removing the screws, as the hinge pops on and off of the plates.
