Diamond is the most beautiful and one of the most expensive jewelry today. Or rather, jewelers and the wedding industry have done a great marketing job convincing women that diamond is a must for engagements and weddings as symbolic of true love! If your partner is not so brainwashed into this (most women are), you probably have the choice to choose diamond alternatives (and most probably also one of the luckiest man in the world). A way to get the best deal from your budget is to look at the variety of other stones as an alternative to diamond. There are at least 5 other cheaper alternatives of diamond of which 2 of them possess about 90% similarity in appearance with the diamond. A simplified table of their properties is as given below.

	Refractive Index (Brilliance)	Dispersion (Fire)	Mohs Hardness	Toughness	Specific Gravity
Cubic  Zirconia	2.17	0.062	8	Excellent	5.80
Diamond	2.42	0.044	10	Good*	3.52
Emerald	1.58	0.014	7.5	Good-Poor**	2.72
Moissanite	2.65-2.69	0.104	9.25	Excellent	3.21
Ruby	1.77	0.018	9	Excellent**	4.00
Sapphire	1.77	0.018	9	Excellent**	4.00