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A dedicated pizza oven can really revolutionize your pizza game. Takeout and delivery ’za is expensive. Frozen slices are tragic. While investing in a pizza maker sounds like an excessive “solution,” it’s actually essential if you want to upgrade meals instantly while saving money in the long run. Say bye-bye to soggy bottoms and freezer burn. Plus, baking pizza is fun! On a night at home, making a pizza together as a family is a great boredom buster, bonding activity, and time filler. And when you’re done, you have a delish meal to share that you all made together (which automatically makes it taste better). The best pizza oven is a small kitchen appliance worth adding to your cooking arsenal ASAP.
- Best overall: Ooni Karu 12
- Best pro-grade: Gozney Dome
- Most versatile: Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven
- Best for beginners: Nexgrill Ora
- Best large: ALFA 4 Pizze Outdoor Stainless Steel Oven
- Best countertop: Professional Series Pizza Oven Baker
How we chose the best pizza ovens
There’s nothing like a piping-hot slice with all your favorite toppings. And there’s really nothing like making one of those picture-perfect pies all by yourself. Whether you like deep dish, thin crust, or a classic New York slice, it’s possible to find the best pizza oven for you once you know what you’re looking for. The trick is to know your budget and then go from there. Pizza makers can range anywhere from 40 bucks to thousands of smackeroos, so narrow down your options by price, then decide what features are non-negotiable: Do you want something that rotates on its own, so you don’t have to stand sentry and turn the pie every few minutes? Would you like to be able to pop the machine in the dishwasher when you’re done? Are you looking for something that can make multiple pies at once to satisfy both the pineapple-and-ham lover and the pepperoni-only lover in your group? The world of cooking appliances is vast and potentially overwhelming, so this list of the best pizza ovens is where to start.
The best pizza ovens: Reviews & Recommendations
There are lots of options on this list because pizza comes in lots of different forms. Sure, some smart ovens have a pizza option, but there’s nothing quite like a dedicated device that’s finely tuned for its pizza purpose. Be sure to check out all of the models before deciding to make sure you get the model that works best for you.
Best overall: Ooni Karu 12
Ooni Karu 12
Specs
- Temperature range: Up to 900 degrees F
- Fuel: Wood, charcoal, or gas (with the optional adapter, which we recommend)
- Price: $299
Pros
- Heats up in just 15 minutes
- High maximum temperature
- Relatively compact for its level of sophistication
- Maintains heat nicely
- Easy to clean
Cons
- Requires an optional adapter for gas power
Use the Ooni Karu 12 to level up your homemade pizza game. It can reach up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit and is ready to use within 15 minutes. To get it going, you can pick your preference between wood or charcoal. The specially designed fuel tray maximizes airflow to bolster the flames while leaving it with no excess ash to clean out after cooking. Weighing in at just over 26 pounds, you can bring this oven anywhere, from your backyard to a park BBQ. If you want to use the oven for other food—like steak, fish, or vegetables—Ooni has add-ons and other cast iron cookware to make the Ooni Karu 12 super multifunctional.
This portable, patio-sized artisan pizza oven is ready to cook with charcoal or wood right out of the box. The optional gas adapter allows it to cook with liquid propane, which is even easier than the other methods. The double-layer ceiling, ceramic pizza stone, and micro-adjust flame controls achieve heating dynamics like a wood-fired brick oven, perfect if you want to bake bread, roast meats, or just make a perfect artisan pie. And a built-in temperature gauge monitors your slices.
Prefer cooking indoors? The Ooni Volt is our best overall pick for indoor pizza ovens.
Best upgrade: Gozney Dome
Gozney Dome
Specs
- Temperature range: Up to 950 degrees F
- Fuel: Wood, charcoal, or gas
- Price: $1,999 and up
Pros
- Beautiful design
- Maximum temp goes over 900 degrees
- Sturdy cart and side tables
- Easy electric start
- Simple temperature control
- Steam injector prevents dry bread
Cons
- Requires some trial and error
- Expensive
At first glance, you know this is a pizza oven. The elegant dome shape and visible flame licking the insides of the cooking chamber give it away right away. Our test unit sits on the optional stand, which holds the oven at the ideal working height. It also adds a pair of handy side tables for basic prep and setting down tools.
The oven itself operates on either gas or traditional wood fire. To cook in gas mode, this Dome works a lot like a propane grill. You simply turn on the gas, press the electric starter, and watch the fire woosh across the top of the chamber. The flame resides on one side of the oven, so you can control cook times by adjusting the pizza’s proximity to it. It really closely emulates the process of cooking with a wood fire. In gas mode, the oven reached more than 930 degrees Fahrenheit in under 20 minutes. It didn’t require any tending or finesse. It’s a wonderfully simple process.
The wood cooking process is relatively similar. You build your fire on the other side of the chamber. An air intake below the wood area allows a built-in fan to blow a consistent and controllable breeze across the wood to get it lit and keep it glowing. It offers just enough help to make the process accessible without taking out the artistry of it.
Cooking on this grill requires some practice. You’ll need to figure out just how high you want your temperature, where to put the pie when you first slide it into the cooking chamber, and how to move it so the whole thing cooks evenly. It took us three or four test pies before we really dialed in our settings for a classic Neapolitan pie. But once we had it figured out, it was easy to replicate.
This is obviously a splurge when it comes to outdoor cooking, but the Dome also offers commercial-grade construction, so it will perform reliably for years to come. That means fewer wasted ingredients and less frequent maintenance.
Most versatile: Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven
Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven
Specs
- Temperature range: 105-700 degrees F
- Fuel: Electricity
- Price: $399
Pros
- Extremely easy to use
- Also great for a variety of other cooking situations
- Compact
- Woodfire compartment allows for adding smoke taste
- Doesn’t require propane or wood fuel
Cons
- 700-degree max temp isn’t as hot as other options
- Cooking area just big enough for one pizza
We love pizza as much as the next person, but you must eat something else occasionally. Ninja’s compact outdoor oven is ready to handle just about anything you’d ever want to scarf down. The oven itself is about the size of a microwave. It draws its power from electricity, so you simply plug it in, put in the proper accessories, racks, or pizza stone, set the temperature, and let it preheat. It’s a very simple hands-off process, unlike the other more complex models on this list.
The oven offers five different pizza settings: thin crust, pan, New York, Neapolitan, and even frozen. We tried the Neapolitan and New York modes, which cook at very high temperatures. It took about 15 minutes to get to its max temp, then we slide in the pizza and closed the door. It requires almost no real learning curve, and you don’t need to rotate or babysit it. Once you open the door, you’re left with a very well-cooked pizza. We were extremely surprised at how well it cooked without our attention.
The cooking chamber isn’t massive. Our 12-inch (roughly) pizza just barely fit and took a little nudging to make sure it wasn’t oozing over the sizes. But, with super-quick cook times, you can go through several pies in a hurry. Afterward, cleanup is relatively simple since the pizza stone comes out of the oven for simple washing. The rest of the oven chamber didn’t get dirty, so it was a quick job.
Once you’re done making pizza, you have many different cooking functions at your disposal. It can roast, broil, bake, dehydrate, and more. It can even smoke. It easily keeps a 225- to 250-degree temperature, and the pellet box on the side of the oven allows it to easily imbue smoke flavor onto whatever you’re cooking (a feature familiar to grillmasters).
This is an all-around great cooker for people who want occasional pizzas without taking up tons of space with a single-use device.
Best for beginners: Nexgrill Ora
Nexgrill Ora
Specs
- Temperature range: Up to 800 degrees F
- Fuel: Electricity
- Price: $299
Pros
- Easy setup
- Rotation knob
- Compact design
Cons
- No thermometer
Cooking homemade pizza in a 900 degree Fahrenheit oven can feel very intimidating but Nexigrill’s Ora has a feature that makes it way easier to get great results on your first try. A knob on the right side lets you rotate the oven’s central pizza stone, turning your pizza to achieve even cooking. Other pizza ovens require you to turn your pizza manually, which can feel stressful and intimidating. Pizza ovens are pretty unforgiving because of their extreme heat; 10 seconds can be the difference between a perfectly cooked pizza and a charred mess.
Setting up Nexgrill’s Ora was surprisingly easy. The oven itself comes fully assembled; all we had to do was insert the five pieces of its stone inside. It felt like a giant, easy-to-complete puzzle. With the pizza stones fully in place, it was time to connect the oven to a propane tank and start cooking. The Ora is a gas-powered pizza oven, which is friendly to new pizzaiolos as you’ll get a consistent heat source without worrying about feeding wood chips or logs into a hopper. That said, a chamber on top of the Ora can be filled with wood, which will burn and impart a wood-fired smokey flavor to your pies.
Turning on the Ora was as simple as twisting its power knob to the on position (there’s a picture of a flame, you can’t miss it) and waiting a few seconds for the fire to start. The Ora’s flame is concentrated toward the back of the oven, so rotating your pie is necessary. After waiting about 10 minutes for it to heat up—our only complaint is that the Ora doesn’t have a built-in thermometer so you can check its temperature—it was time to cook.
Getting pizzas into and out of the oven worked the same way as with other ovens we’ve tested: flour your dough on a peel, top it lightly, launch it into an oven, then take it out after about 90 to 120 seconds. The difference was that we got a more even cook every time using the Ora’s rotation knob. The knob offers just enough resistance that you won’t send the pie spinning like a top while still being easy to turn. In our experience, the result was better-looking (and better-tasting) pizza every time. When we were done cooking, all we had to do was turn the Ora’s power knob to the off position; the flames stopped, and we could wait for the oven to cool down before putting it away.
Cooking homemade pizza in an outdoor oven has become a lot more popular in the last few years, and if you’re looking for a good entry point into the hobby, we highly recommend Nexgrill’s Ora.
Best large: ALFA 4 Pizze Outdoor Stainless Steel Wood-Fired Oven
ALFA 4 Pizze Outdoor Stainless Steel Wood-Fired Oven
Specs
- Temperature range: Up to 950 degrees F
- Fuel: Wood
- Price: $4,499
Pros
- Commercial grade
- Will last forever
- Heats up quickly
- Lots of space for cooking
- Excellent wood-fired flavor
Cons
- Expensive
- Requires technique
You get what you pay for. This wood-fueled cooker is a looker and super-efficient thanks to a stainless steel dome. You’ll achieve 840 degrees Fahrenheit in 30 minutes to achieve that truly wood-fired char. Additionally, this backyard pizza oven got bonus features, including shelves and utensil holders and ceramic-fiber insulation (which maintains warmth and reduces wood consumption).
Best countertop: Professional Series Pizza Oven Baker
Professional Series Pizza Oven Baker
Specs
- Temperature range: Up to 900 degrees F
- Fuel: Electricity
- Price: $75
Pros
- Fits on a countertop
- Stainless design is easy to clean
- Simple to learn
- Very affordable
Cons
- Doesn’t offer much in the way of control over the cook
This durable, stainless steel countertop pizza oven preheats in minutes, features a cool-touch handle, and cleans up quickly. Able to cook a 9-inch pizza in six minutes thanks to top and bottom heating elements, it’s perfect for the busy undergrad or grad or grown-up—basically anyone who wants something relatively affordable and simple to operate. And a 30-minute timer reminds you that food is ready. Families and groups with different tastes will definitely benefit from the adjustable heat setting.
Things to consider when picking the best backyard pizza ovens
If you’re looking for a small pizza oven for your backyard or patio, size is as important as quality. If you don’t have much space to spare, look for something highly regarded but won’t take up a huge amount of room. (Note that just because a pizza oven is small doesn’t mean it will be lightweight, so plan to use a strong, stable surface—one where you wouldn’t mind leaving the oven for a while.) The best small oven can be used for more than just ’za—you can cook fish, veggies, and other stuff al fresco when the weather’s right.
If you’ve got room—and dough!—to spare in your outdoor space, go big and go home! A massive restaurant-style backyard pizza oven won’t just turn out stellar pies; it’ll also give you serious bragging rights (these are very, very cool looking). In general, a larger oven will heat up to hotter temps and feature extras like a wooden handle (for easy, burn-free opening and closing), as well as a stainless steel dome.
How to pick the best electric pizza oven for your needs
There are pros and cons to an electric pizza oven. Though they might not turn out the restaurant-quality ’za of a big beautiful brick or stainless-steel oven, they do the job without taking up a huge amount of room. Plus, they’re safe to use inside. And just because they’re not as fancy as, say, a massive outdoor gas option, lots of newer options come with the bells and whistles of their bricky brethren, like quick preheating times, easy cleanup, and a built-in timer. Nestle this baby between the toaster oven and coffee maker, and you’re good to go.
Want to cook pizza like a pro but don’t know how? Pick a simple oven!
Sure, if you’re a more confident dough designer, you could splurge on something complicated, like a backyard pizza oven or professional-grade model with loads of extras. But if you’re just a hungry person with limited time and/or space, or maybe someone intimidated by overly customizable kitchen appliances, search for something small and easy to use. A simple oven will rack up many enjoyable meals.
Got more dough to cook than to spend? No worries!
Two words: Betty. Crocker. The fictional best mom in the world has been around since 1921, and though she’s known for her cookies, her pizza oven is a top choice among homemade pizza aficionados. In addition to being a legacy brand, the Betty Crocker pizza oven is versatile and a total bargain. Plus, it’s lightweight and travel-friendly, ideal if you can’t imagine traveling without your very own pizza maker.
FAQs
Every model is different, so read the instructions that come with yours to avoid any mishaps. In general, if you have a classic stainless steel or wood-fired oven, invest in a scraper brush to remove food and ash. You can also use a damp, hot rag to remove peskier residue. Some smaller electric models are dishwasher-safe (when securely removed from all electrical sources, of course). Again, when in doubt, read the user manual.
The answer depends on what kind of pizza oven you’re using, the temp you’re cooking at, and how you like your ’za. After that, it’s a bit of trial and error and requires total concentration and supervision, at least in the beginning, and plenty of rotation for an even cook. Lower temps could mean a pizza takes 20 minutes to cook; higher temps could mean piping-fresh dough in a few minutes. Again, read your user’s manual, follow directions, and don’t be afraid to trust your instincts. If you feel your pizza is ready, pull it out and check!
The answer depends on your home type, how seriously you take your pizza-making, and what kind of budget you’re working with. If you’re short on space and want to keep things simple, a standard countertop electric pizza oven will get the job done and pinch-hit on other foods like eggs and baked goods, saving you money and space. If you fashion yourself a pizza aficionado and/or aspiring chef—and you’ve got the outside space to spare—you can go for a high-end, professional-quality cooker. The good news is that there are loads of options in between for those Goldilocks-like pizza makers out there.
Related: You need somewhere to enjoy that slice, so grab the best patio furniture.
Final thoughts on choosing the best pizza ovens for your needs
- Best overall: Ooni Karu 12
- Best pro-grade: Gozney Dome
- Most versatile: Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven
- Best for beginners: Nexgrill Ora
- Best large: ALFA 4 Pizze Outdoor Stainless Steel Oven
- Best countertop: Professional Series Pizza Oven Baker
The best pizza oven for you and your family could be a massive backyard pizza oven, a countertop pizza oven, or even one of your favorite small kitchen appliances—like the Betty Crocker pizza oven, which doubles as a miracle worker on all sorts of foods. The biggest things to consider before you invest are your budget, space, and particular needs and wants from your new kitchen gadget. What’s right for you may not be right for someone else, so figure out how much you want to spend, then go looking for the right pizza oven—it’s definitely out there. Buon appetito!
