HomeChef's Kiss7 Best Pizza Ovens (2023): Outdoor, Indoor, Gas, and Wood

7 Best Pizza Ovens (2023): Outdoor, Indoor, Gas, and Wood

June 25, 2023

7 Best Pizza Ovens (2023): Outdoor, Indoor, Gas, and Wood

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The Best Pizza Oven

Solo Stove Pi

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$600 at Amazon (Wood and Gas)

Runner-Up

Ooni Karu 16

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$799 at Amazon

Best for Beginners

Ooni Koda Pizza Oven

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$399 at Ooni

Most Versatile Oven

Cuisinart 3-in-1 Pizza Oven Plus

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$200 at Amazon
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4 / 11

There’s a reason why pizza is the menu choice of picky preschoolers, hungry teenagers, and discerning foodies alike. With enough cheese, tomato sauce, and arugula, homemade pizzas are a complete meal. They’re irresistible, easy to make, and customizable for a wide range of dietary preferences.

Until recently, an aspiring pizzaiolo had no choice but to crank up their kitchen oven to the standard 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, the best outdoor pizza ovens can heat up as high as 900 degrees—the perfect temperature for making a crisp Neapolitan pizza in minutes. For the past few years, I’ve memorized recipes, perfected my dough-tossing technique, and made hundreds of pizzas. You don’t have to limit yourself to pizza, either; I’ve seared steaks and pan-fried broccoli in ’em. Here are my—and my waistline’s—favorites. For those with limited access to outdoor spaces, I’ve included an indoor option and an oven that fits on a small deck, balcony, or patio.

Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, including the Best Portable Grills, Best Grills, and Best Camping Stoves.

Updated June 2023: We added the Ooni Volt and the Yoder Smoker Oven, added an honorable mentions slide, and added some toppings we like.

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  • Photograph: Solo Stove

    The Best Pizza Oven

    Solo Stove Pi

    If you've heard of Solo Stove, it's because of its smokeless, stainless steel fire pits. This makes the company's transition to high-heat pizza ovens a seamless one. Instead of the conventional elongated design, the Pi oven's fuel attachments are long and slim and hug the back of the oven. This allows Solo Stove to keep its signature round, symmetrical design.

    I love how compact the oven is. The cooking surface is large enough to accommodate my biggest Lodge cast-iron pan, but I can leave the handle sticking out—a boon to anyone who has ever burned their hands through heat-resistant gloves. The top's flat surface is a convenient storage space. And the stove doesn't sacrifice any of its heating capabilities for these details. Only two pieces of chopped wood from my hardware store fit in the hopper at a time, but it still heated up from cold to 500 degrees in a matter of minutes.

    Bakes with wood or gas

    $600 at Amazon (Wood and Gas)
    $520 at Solo Stove (Wood Only)

  • Photograph: Ooni

    Runner-Up

    Ooni Karu 16

    Ooni makes pizza ovens in a variety of sizes and styles, but its Karu 16 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the most versatile and easy-to-use oven I've tried. You can buy a separate gas attachment, but it's designed to be used with charcoal or wood. Lighting the oven is fast and easy—simply drop a lit fire starter and a few oak sticks on the fuel tray and it'll get hot within 10 minutes. Unlike previous iterations, the Karu 16 has a door that hooks closed to retain heat and an integrated digital thermometer to measure the temperature.

    Like all of Ooni's ovens, the Karu is attractive, light, portable, and easy to clean. You have to constantly add fuel to maintain the temperature, but not any more so than other ovens I've tried. The best indicator that it's a great pizza oven? I can't stop using it, and everyone who has seen me use it wants one too.

    Bakes with wood or charcoal

    $799 at Amazon
    $799 at Ooni

  • Photograph: Ooni

    Best for Beginners

    Ooni Koda Pizza Oven

    Does fiddling about with attachments, chimneys, and griddles sound stressful and off-putting? This is another one from Ooni that might be for you (8/10, WIRED Recommends). At around 21 pounds, the Koda is light and portable. The thin, powder-coated steel shell insulates well enough that it remains cool to the touch, even when the fire is burning. Just slide in the baking stone, screw on the propane tank, and you're ready to go. The door fits 12-inch pizza peels and 10-inch cast-iron skillets. However, unlike the Pro, you should not store it outside.

    Bakes with gas

    $399 at Ooni
    $400 at Best Buy
    $400 at Williams-Sonoma

  • Photograph: CuisinArt

    Most Versatile Oven

    Cuisinart 3-in-1 Pizza Oven Plus

    My fondness for the Cuisinart 3-in-1 is not wholly justified. It doesn't get as hot as our other picks. In my testing, it topped out at around 600 degrees. The door to the pizza oven is only 13 inches wide, so I can't use my bigger pizza peels. It's just not as attractive as our other picks. The handle feels cheap. The legs don't fold down. What can I say, pizza chefs are sensitive to aesthetics.

    But this is the oven my family uses the most often. Open the door to use it as a pizza oven! When people come over for unexpected burgers or hot dogs, flip up the lid and use it as a gas grill. Do kids want pancakes for breakfast? No problem, let me pop on the griddle top. It even has a space underneath the cooking surface to store the attachments. This is the best oven if you have limited outdoor space or aren’t sure you want a dedicated pizza oven. That it's cheaper than most of our other picks doesn't hurt.

    Bakes with gas

    $200 at Amazon
    $200 at Target
    $200 at Best Buy

  • Photograph: Ooni

    Best Electric Oven

    Ooni Volt 12

    Our previous pick in this category was the Breville Pizzaiolo, but aside from the fact that it's slightly smaller to fit on a countertop, Ooni's first electric oven (8/10, WIRED Recommends) has objectively better specs. The door is triple-paned glass, while the Pizzaiolo's is double-pane; it gets to 850 degrees instead of 750.

    The main difference is philosophical. With the Pizzaiolo, you can put on a setting and walk away. Even though the Volt has dials that let you shift the source of the heat, it requires you to keep an eye on your quick-cooking crust. It also takes a lot of electrical energy to keep an oven this hot; every time I opened the door, the temperature dropped by about 50 degrees. That said, if you want a safe, convenient, and compact oven that can work equally well indoors and outdoors without having to refill a propane tank or buy wood, this is your best bet.

    Bakes with electricity

    $999 at Ooni
    $999 at Best Buy
    $1,000 at Williams-Sonoma

  • Photograph: Gozney

    Best for Pros and Parties

    Gozney Dome

    If we thought Gozney’s Roccbox was “nearly a commercial-grade oven,” the new Dome most definitely is, and then some. At 128 pounds, it is nearly three times the weight of its smaller sibling and is in no way portable (two people are required to lift it). Also, it’s 26 inches high and 28.8 inches across, so you’re going to need to carve out a dedicated place for it. Underneath the UV and weatherproof ceramic-bonded outer coating sits a 30-mm double-layer stone floor with “dense cavity insulation.” It gets hotter faster (the Dome zipped up to 400 degrees and beyond quite nicely) and retains this heat longer. Thanks to a capacious oven mouth that is 5.1 inches tall and a shade over 16 inches wide, you can get most burnable things inside.

    The Dome will pump out pizzas almost as fast as you can slam them inside it. The hybrid fuel system means you can also cheat, relying on the convenience of gas but the added ability to shove in a couple of mini logs and, bingo, you’ve got that wood-fired taste. I have used old authentic bread and pizza ovens built into barns in Tuscany. This was easier. The built-in digital thermometer allowed for precise temperature readings, which meant that I didn’t even need the integrated meat probes when I cooked the best rib joint of beef I have ever managed. —Jeremy White

    Bakes with gas and wood

    $1,999 at Gozney
    $1,999 at Crate & Barrel

  • Photograph: Ooni

    Best Oven for Camping

    Ooni Fyra

    Like Isak Dinesen, my favorite thing to do is drag the trappings of civilization deep into the wilderness, where they do not belong. If you ever want to make wood-fired pizza deep in the backcountry, Ooni's Fyra is the perfect pick. The legs fold down, and the chimney packs perfectly into the cooking space for travel. It even has its own carry cover with handles!

    Wood pellets are a lot easier and lighter to transport than an enormous propane tank, so my family and I put the Fyra and some pellets on a paddleboard to camp in the middle of the lake, as it weighs only 22 pounds. The hopper is tall and thin; it doesn't have a diffuse tray that lets the heat out quickly, and the loading chute doesn't have a bend in it, making it easy to load. You may come across videos that purport to be instructional, telling you to load the hopper up to the brim. Do not do this. It might be annoying to have to continuously feed pellets into the fire, but it will keep it burning more consistently and hotter than constantly peering in the back and wondering why the flames have gone out.

    Bakes with wood

    $329 at Amazon
    $349 at Ooni
    $350 at Williams Sonoma
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  • Photograph: Ooni

    Make Your Own Oven

    Can’t Take the Heat?

    Is your patio already occupied by a giant Traeger? Your grill or smoker probably has a pizza attachment that you can buy for less than a new oven. WIRED commerce director and reviewer Martin Cizmar's favorite is the Yoder Smoker wood-fired oven attachment ($499), which has saved him from many a night of pellet fire flameouts. It sits under the smoker’s hood, atop a steel sheet that sits over the firebox. The sheet is a diffuser and has holes of increasing size as you move away from the fire so that the section furthest from the flame gets more exposure. The design provides a consistent temperature along the oven’s floor, and it works well, with the farthest corners of the oven still cresting 650 degrees Fahrenheit.

    The floor of the oven is what Yoder describes as a proprietary stone blend, and it offers impressive temperature consistency and crusts that are crispier than any I’ve had from an Ooni. The convenience is the best feature, though, as you can fill your grill with pellets, push one button and come back 15 minutes later to a roaring wood-fired pizza oven.

    Several of our favorite grill and pizza oven manufacturers make ceramic pizza stones, like Kamado and Weber. Check out our guide to the Best Portable Grills and Grill Accessories for more.

  • Photograph: Alfa

    Honorable Mentions

    Other Pizza Ovens We Like

    We've tried a lot of pizza ovens. Here are a few that we liked that didn't quite make the cut.

    • Alfa Nano for $1,399: This is a beautiful, classic-looking pizza oven that will fit well with your Tuscan-themed decor. However, it's extremely bulky and, even after an hour, the built-in thermometer regularly reads temperatures 100 degrees or so hotter than my handheld instant-read. It's hard to recommend over our less-pricey picks.
    • Pizzacraft Pizzaque for $200: This oven is adorable and affordable, and you can stand it in your driveway and cook a pizza while squatting in your camp chair. However, it just doesn't get as hot or cook as evenly as a better-insulated oven does, or even the Cuisinart with its door.
  • Photograph: New Star

    Other Stuff You’ll Want

    Our Favorite Pizza Accessories

    Many pizza ovens, like the Ooni, provide you with proprietary accessories to set you on your pizza path. But I've also found a few extras to be helpful along the way:

    • A handheld infrared thermometer for $23: Even if the oven has a built-in thermometer, I usually use a handheld to check the temperature on different areas of the pizza stone. It's also important to make sure the stone has time to reheat after each pizza.
    • A wooden pizza peel for $29: If you own multiple peels, it's quick and easy to prep one pizza while another is baking. I own several, including this useful small turning peel, but the dough is much less likely to stick on a wooden peel, especially if you first sprinkle on some semolina or flour.
    • A cast-iron skillet for $20: You can also use a cast-iron pan in your pizza oven to sear steaks or pan-roast broccoli. Lodge's pans work just as well as much more expensive options.
    • Heat-resistant gloves for $20: That cast-iron gets extremely hot, so you'll also need a good pair of mitts. (Even these won't protect your hands for long, so you'll need a place near the oven to set the pan down.)
    • Fire starters for $20: If you've ever been intimidated by the idea of cooking with wood, don't be! These fire starters make it quick and simple. I just light the end with a match, drop it in the fuel tray, and line up a few oak sticks on top. Be sure to keep your wood dry if you don't want to create a smoke stack in your backyard.
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  • Photograph: Getty Images

    Pizza Baking Tips

    We Believe in You

    Baking a Neapolitan-style pie looks easy in a restaurant. But the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the world authority on Neapolitan pizzas, has very strict standards! (The Karu is the only oven here that the AVPN recommends.)

    If you're not up for sourcing all your ingredients from Naples, a few tips can help you make your first pie taste as authentic as possible. When you're making your own dough, reach for 00 flour, which is milled specifically for pizza and pasta. If you've refrigerated your dough, bring it to room temperature first. Torn mozzarella will make your pizza damp; mix in shredded, low-moisture cheese for the cheesiest, meltiest pie. Sprinkle flour or cornmeal generously on the peel before you assemble your pizza, and make sure the dough isn’t stuck to the peel before you head out to the oven.

    If you're not sticking to a strictly Neopolitan recipe, we also have a few favorite pies we'd like to recommend. Cizmar and I like a good Buffalo pie with Frank's Red Hot and pickles. I also recently tried Brightland's Pizza Oil in a squeeze bottle; while it's good as a finishing sauce to drizzle over pies, you could make your own flavor for much cheaper by putting olive oil and herbs in a squeeze bottle.

    Pizza ovens are more versatile than you might think: I cook everything from salmon to steak to chicken thighs in mine by preheating a cast iron pan in a hot oven and popping the food right in. For more guidance, Ooni has a cookbook; chef Francis Mallman's books are also a good source of inspiration.

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