Stonesetting is the art of securely setting or attaching gemstones into jewelry.

There are two general types of gemstone cutting: cabochon and facet. Cabochons are smooth, often domed, with flat backs. Agates and turquoise are usually cut this way, but precious stones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires may also be. Many stones like star sapphires and moonstones must be cut this way in order to properly display their unusual appearance.

A faceted shape resembles that of the modern diamond. It has a flat, polished surface, typically with a transparent surface that refracts light inside the gemstone and reflects light on the outside. In the case of a cabochon stone, the side of the stone is usually cut at a shallow angle, so that when the bezel is pushed over the stone, the angle permits it to hold the stone tightly in place. In the case of faceted stones, a shallow groove is cut into the side of the bezel into which the girdle of the stone is placed, with metal prongs then pushed over the face of the stone, holding it in place; cabochons may also be set into prong settings. In both cases, the pressure and the angle of the prongs holds the stone in place.

Just as the angle of the sides of a cabochon creates the pressure to hold the stone in place, so there is an overlying principle in setting faceted stones. If one looks at a side view of a round diamond, for example, one will see that there is an outer edge, called the girdle, and the top angles up from there, and the bottom angles down from there. Faceted stones are set by "pinching" that angle with metal. All of the styles of faceted stone setting use this concept in one way or another.

There are thousands of variations of setting styles, but there are several fundamental types:

The earliest known technique of attaching stones to jewelry was bezel setting. A bezel is a strip of metal bent into the shape and size of the stone and then soldered to the piece of jewelry. The stone is then inserted into the bezel, and the metal edge of the bezel pressed over the edge of the stone, holding it in place. This method works well for either cabochons or faceted stones.

A prong setting is the simplest and most common type of setting, largely because it uses the least amount of metal to hold the stone in place, displaying most of the stone and forming a secure setting. Generally, a prong setting is formed of a number of short, thin strips of metal, called prongs, which are arranged in a shape and size to hold the given stone, and are fixed at the base. Then a burr of the proper size is used to cut what is known as a "bearing", which is a notch that corresponds to the angles of the stone. The burr most often used is called a "hart bur", and is angled and sized for the job of setting diamonds. The bearing is cut equally into all of the prongs and at the same height above the base. The stone is then inserted, and pliers or a pusher are used to bend the prongs gently over the crown of the stone, with the tops of the prongs are clipped off with snips, filed to an even height above the stone, and finished. Usually a "cup burr" is used to give the prong a nice round tip. A cup burr is in the shape of a hemisphere with teeth on the inside, for making rounded tips on wires and prongs.

There are many variations of prong settings including just two prongs, the more common four prong setting or up to 24 or more, with many variations involving decoration, size and shapes of the prongs themselves, and how they are fixed or used in jewelry. The method of setting is generally the same for all, no matter how many prongs are present.