The 5 Best Pizza Ovens, Tested and Reviewed by Our Editors
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You and your local pizza joint go way back. But do you ever wish you could whip up a drool-worthy pie at home? If so, you need a lightning-fast, top-tier pizza oven that’s up for the task. (Sure, you could use a conventional oven and pizza stone, but it’ll take you much longer and the pizza won’t taste as close to the real deal.) To find the best pizza oven on the market, PureWow editors tested some of the most popular models available to tell you what’s worth the spend. Read on for their honest reviews and photos.
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The Best Pizza Ovens, at a Glance
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How We Tested the Best Pizza Ovens
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After scouring the internet for popular, well-reviewed brands and models, I rounded up a team of editors to test a handful of must-try pizza ovens. Our editors assembled the ovens according to manufacturer instructions, then cooked multiple pizzas with them to properly rank them based on the following five factors:
1. Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo
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TOTAL: 94/100
Want an oven that gives you brag-worthy results every damn time? Take it from senior director of special projects Rachel Bowie: The Breville model is totally dependable and foolproof. “You can pop a pie in, set the type of pizza you want (New York-style, thin and crispy, pan, etc.) and know exactly what you’re going to get,” she explains. “We tried it with homemade dough the first time, then store-bought dough from a local Italian purveyor in our neighborhood. We got consistent results every single time. Everyone was negotiating for the last slice—no leftovers!”
Depending on the style of pie, you’ll have dinner on the table in 1½ to 7 minutes. You don’t need to be an expert to work the oven’s magic either. “The directions are clear; there’s even a photo-heavy tutorial included so that you have a visual to understand each step. A newbie can absolutely figure it out, just don’t expect to set up and have a pie within minutes on the first use…The oven needs to be left on for a bit on the first use to burn off any kind of vapors left over from the manufacturing process. Just a precaution and only 30 minutes.”
Once you get to your second and third pies, the easy-to-understand dials (“You can adjust the lightness and darkness, as if you were using a toaster oven,” Bowie adds) and temperature magnet all but guarantee primo results. Even better, its low-profile, sleek design makes it look modern on any countertop or kitchen island.
The TL;DR? “This pizza oven is low-profile, gets hot quick, cooks pizzas efficiently and has an easy set-up. It almost feels plug-and-play, but there was some experimentation required to understand the bells and whistles and trial and error to get the perfect pie. All worth it, though.”
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Rachel Bowie
2. Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven
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TOTAL: 93/100
Do you live and breathe by your weekly (OK, daily) pizza night? Then this appliance is a must. “It’s a powerhouse pizza oven for serious cooks,” asserts VP of editorial Candace Davison. “Given the price point, it may be a bit steep for occasional pizza makers, but if you love a crispy, bubbly crust and you want something fairly portable, this appliance truly delivers. The quality and craftsmanship are much better than other pizza ovens I’ve tried.”
Ambitious beginners may still find the Gozney oven worth the splurge, since the set-up is a breeze, and the instructions are more pictures than words. (The most intimidating part for Davison was hooking up the propane and seeing the flames lick the top of the oven.) No matter your experience level though, this tripod gem takes up minimal space, can be easily toted around and guarantees an impeccable bake.
“I’ve tried other ovens that failed to get hot enough for a bubbly, crisp-on-the-bottom crust, but this one excelled at heating up and doing so quickly,” raves Davison. “It seemed to evenly heat each pie we tested, so any issues we had were more user error (our early pies, for example, were a bit too thick, resulting in a doughy center). We had to learn to roll the dough out thinner and rotate it quickly during its brief stint in the Roccbox.”
Pies cook in 1 to 4 minutes flat, but it’ll likely take you a few tries to cook them evenly without burning. “There's a bit of a learning curve to rotating the pizza and cooking it evenly,” says Davison. “My pies were fugly but delicious.”
If you like to cook outdoors, this pick may be the one, since it’s super portable and easy to carry. (You can also spring for a cover to protect it from the elements.) That said, it’s certainly an investment. “I don’t think I bake pizzas enough to justify the cost, though after trying it a few times, my husband begs to differ. Mastering a great pie involves a learning curve. But still, even my too-thick, doughy pies tasted better than half the ones I can order locally—and I live in New York!”
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Candace Davison
3. Ninja Woodfire 8-in-1 Outdoor Oven
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TOTAL: 91/100
Senior editor Dana Dickey asserts that the Ninja Woodfire is approachable enough for newbies to master. “The optional stand requires a few screws, but the oven is already good to go,” she explains. “The only swerve is the wood smoke pellets you put in a little door on the side to impart flavor to the food, but that’s the only vaguely complicated part. The front dial clicks to a handful of options—Pizza, Max Roast, Specialty Roast, Broil, Bake, Smoker, Dehydrate and Keep Warm—and you can choose pizza styles such as Neapolitan, thin crust, pan, New York, frozen or custom.”
The baking process requires a 20-minute preheat, but once the pie is inside, it’ll only take 3 to 5 minutes to cook. If you leave it in long enough for the oven to do its thing, the pizza won’t disappoint. But the appliance can do much more than an impeccable pie, like casseroles, pork shoulder, prime rib, sheet pan meals and a whole turkey. “I love that this is useful as an actual oven, though you need to make sure that the muffin tin or roasting pan will fit in the 12-by-13-inch interior,” she notes. “I’m looking forward to using this over our long, hot summer so not to heat up the kitchen when we have the air on.”
She was in love with the matte red aesthetic and stainless door, which she says, “look like something at a cool Euro country house.” The oven’s squat, little legs are also sturdy yet unobtrusive. The one design flaw? You can’t watch the pie as it bakes. “The door is solid, so you can’t tell how your pizza is cooking without opening the door,” Dickey explains. “Not ideal in a low-area, high-heat situation like this, since opening the door dissipates the heat.”
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Dana Dickey
4. Ooni Koda 16
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TOTAL: 96/100
You can trust director of special projects Rachel Gulmi that this workhorse is worth every penny. “This oven is definitely costly, but performs well and is very nice quality,” she says. “It heats up pretty fast and cooks the pizza even faster. The materials are sturdy (not cheap), and you can tell the oven will last for a long time with proper care.”
The Ooni is arguably the easiest pizza oven to use on this list since it’s ready to go straight out of the box and the heat is controlled by a dial. “All you have to do is pull the three legs out, put the stone in and hook it up to the propane tank—essentially zero assembly required.” That said, cooking your perfect pie (which only takes a few minutes) requires some trial and error. “It does have hot spots and it can be hard to find where to place the pizza so that it cooks without burning too quickly around the edges and still cooks the middle,” she explains. “I think once you figure out the sweet spot, the pizzas would cook consistently every time, but that’s all part of the fun. Even if it doesn’t look restaurant quality, the pizza always tastes great.”
Its sleek, simple design is frill-free, but dependable. It’s not the smallest pizza oven out there, but it’s not the clunkiest either. “We put ours on this stainless steel cart we already had and it fits perfectly, so it makes for a great little cooking station. I also love that the opening of the oven is wide and there’s a pretty big cooking surface, so it doesn’t feel cramped when cooking,” adds Gulmi.
Hot tip: Spring for the turning peel to make your life easier. “I didn’t realize how often you need to turn pizza in an oven like this,” says Gulmi, “and without it, I honestly don’t know how you would even make a pizza without it burning or cooking unevenly. It takes a bit of practice to get into a flow, but turning the pizza is essential.”
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Rachel Gulmi
5. Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven
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Senior food editor Katherine Gillen was able to set up this pick with minimal fuss and found that it only takes 5 to 6 minutes to bake a pizza directly on the stone. Her main complaint about the cooking process was that the Cuisinart oven takes 30 minutes to fully preheat. “It probably evens out in the end, but it felt like a lot of time for preheating. I don’t think [the oven] shaves off any time, but the pizza was definitely better than in my regular oven.” If you rotate the pie as it bakes, it’ll brown more evenly. (Gillen noted that the back of the oven seemed hotter than the front.)
That said, the biggest con about the oven is its size. “I suppose in theory it would be easy to store if you had ample storage space in a garage or basement,” Gillen explains. “It’s definitely too big to store in a cabinet and weighs 25 pounds, so it’s not something I would really want to be hauling back and forth.” She says its aesthetics are “sleek-adjacent,” but its size makes it a no-go for small kitchens with limited counter space. Her favorite part about its design is the internal light that stays on while the pizza cooks—so you can watch your pie come to bubbly fruition—and the included pizza peel, stone and pan.
If you have room for another one-trick-pony in your kitchen, this indoor pick may be worth the buy. But if not, you may want to reconsider, says Gillen. “It’s pretty good quality and performs well but it’s still a lot of money for something single use. You’d have to love making pizza on a weekly basis to justify it.”
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Katherine Gillen
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