The 5 Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens: Wood-Fired, Gas, Propane (2026)

Pizza is Universal. It is America’s favorite food—the thin sliver of Venn occupied by both preschoolers and sophisticates. But until recently, the best pizza ovens for home use required compromise or an expensive, backyard-filling obsession. A Neapolitan-style pie asks for a blistering 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Most home ovens are lucky to crest 500, too low even for a New York slice without a good pizza stone to absorb and retain heat.

This has rapidly changed in the past decade since Ooni (then called Uuni) pioneered the modern, affordable backyard pizza oven. Since then, I and fellow reviewers Adrienne So, Martin Cizmar, and Kat Merck have made more than a thousand pizzas in the quest for the best backyard pizza ovens. A decade later, an Ooni remains the top outdoor pizza oven pick for most people. The Ooni Karu 2 ($449) is both attractive and versatile, letting you swap between wood-fired rusticity and the convenience of cooking with gas.

But others have caught up a bit. The All-Clad Gas-Powered Pizza Oven ($800) is an excellent propane oven with an accurate temperature gauge that will rotate your pizza for you to ensure even heat. As of early April, it’s available for a steep discount right now if you buy directly from All-Clad. For those who simply must have blistering temperature stability at 950 degrees needed for real Neapolitan pies, the Gozney Dome Gen 2 ($2,300) with a Neapolitan arch ($60) is your best bet.

But we’ve also included indoor pizza ovens, a good budget pizza oven, and an excellent portable pizza oven for those who want to make pizza at base camp or a cabin. Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, including the Best Griddles, Best Cast Iron Pans, Best Smokeless Fire Pits, and Best Grills. Thirsty? Here are the Best Slushie Machines.

The 5 Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens

Best Pizza Oven Overall

Ooni Karu 2

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$449

Ooni

Best Gas Pizza Oven (With Rotating Stone)

All-Clad Gas Pizza Oven

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$1,000 $500 (50% off)

All-Clad

Best Upgrade Pizza Oven for Neapolitan Pizza

Gozney Dome Gen 2 Pizza Oven

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$2,300

Gozney (Oven Only)

Best Large Pizza Oven for Families

Ooni Koda 2 Max

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$1,300

Ooni

April 2026: I’ve added the Gozney Dome Gen 2, our top upgrade pick for Neapolitan pizza. We also tested and added the Gozney Arc Lite to our honorable mentions, and the Ooni Volt 2 to our roundup of indoor electric pizza ovens. I have updated prices and descriptions throughout, and added information on new oven models.

The Karu 2 from Ooni remains the most gorgeous, versatile, portable backyard pizza oven for your money. It’s also among the easiest wood-burners to use. The original innovation behind Ooni’s ovens is still what has kept them atop this list of the best pizza ovens: They have managed to make a wood-burning backyard pizza oven portable, functional, and kinda lovable—while still also allowing for the convenience of propane cooking.

The Karu 2 is the updated version of Ooni’s best-selling multifuel Karu 16, and the new version has kept the original’s virtues intact. The Karu 2 is still light and portable (a mere 33.7 pounds), which makes it easy to move around your backyard and assemble. The powder-coated finish over a stainless steel shell manages to concentrate heat without heavy, dense insulation. You can still use either charcoal or wood, or buy an optional gas burner for $120 more.

But the upgrades are important. The fuel tray is 45 percent bigger than the original, allowing fuel sticks beyond Ooni’s proprietary ones. Bigger pieces of wood—like the cherry and pecan my colleague Adrienne So found at a local hardware store—remove the need to stoke flames to maintain heat “like a coal shoveler on a WW II–era steamship,” as she put it. The larger fuel tray heats the pizza stone faster and more evenly, up to 750 degrees within 20 minutes. The temperature varied only a few degrees from edge to edge, a rare achievement among backyard ovens.

Ooni says the material on its glass door helps repel soot and smudge, often endemic to high-heat doors. This claim is hard to verify, except to say that the door remained smudge-free after weeks of testing and baking. Other front-doored pizza ovens I have used cannot boast this. But note that you’ll struggle to maintain a stable temperature at the Karu’s top advertised temp of 950 degrees while using wood fuel, and will have to switch to propane. If you need a little more space for paella cooks or larger pies, this oven also comes in a 16-inch Karu 2 Pro size.

This propane-powered All-Clad Pizza Oven is the company’s first entrant in the pizza world. It’s also a contender for the best oven out there—the gas oven upgrade I’d choose if cost were no object. And after entering the market at a much higher price, this beauty has been on offer mostly in the $500 to $800 range these days. At this price, it’s the propane-only oven I’d recommend over all others.

The big sell, aside from a generous 16-inch maw that can cook a family-size pie, is a rotating pizza stone that takes a lot of the fuss out of cooking pizza evenly. It heats remarkably quickly—faster than a smaller Gozney Roccbox heated at the same time—and gets quite hot, above 900 degrees if you let it. The temperature gauge comes installed and is reasonably accurate. I have happily used this All-Clad to make New York and Neapolitan-ish pies, seared a handsome rib-eye steak on a lovely Field Co. cast-iron, and charred broccoli and asparagus.

But the thing that really sets this oven apart is that rotating stone, powered by four AA batteries. Press the button, and the pizza stone will rotate at one revolution every 40 seconds or so. In general, this means it’s a lot easier to get even pizza bakes without constantly spinning your pie manually. Start the rotation during preheat, and your pizza stone will also heat more evenly. Round pies yield the best results, and you’ll need to launch pretty close to the middle of the stone. Otherwise, you may still need to adjust the pizza’s positioning mid-cook. My editor had concerns about the durability of the motor that spins the pies (if it breaks, you’d just have a regular pizza oven), but my colleague Martin Cizmar reports that it’s still working after wintering outdoors.

The powerful peak heat also means you’ll need to adjust the analog dial carefully to get the perfect temp—don’t be shy about dialing it down a bit if your pies are burning. Note that you also may want to spring for the oven cover despite its pricey $170 price tag. The black exterior gets grubby-looking over time.

The Gozney Dome Gen 2 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) looks like the backyard pizza oven you’d dream up while trying to imagine the archetypal form of the modern outdoor pizza oven. With a chimney-topped rotunda silhouette and ceramic exterior available in cream or black, it is the apotheosis of backyard chill. Or, as my colleague Kat Merck put it, the Gozney Dome is almost “more lifestyle than appliance,” as represented by founder and tattooed lifestyle avatar Tom Gozney himself in countless YouTube videos.

The Dome is big. It’s not portable, practical, or inexpensive. It accepts the romance of wood, or the brute power of propane or natural gas. Its height makes it versatile enough for steaks, fish, or other skillet meals. This pizza oven is designed to be a fixture in your life and backyard, bolstered by an ever-expanding accessory set. And it also more than earns its place there, once you buy a snap-on Neapolitan arch accessory ($60) to bolster its insulation.

The Gozney makes truly excellent high-temperature pizza. Most backyard ovens, even our other favorites on this list, tend to struggle to reach and maintain the 900-degree temps needed for proper Neapolitan crust. The Dome Gen 2 gets there in 20 minutes, it heats admirably evenly, and it’s responsible for the best pizzas that my colleague Kat Merck says she’s made in her entire life. This is worth noting, given that she was editor and recipe tester for pizzaiolo Ken Forkish’s iconic pizza book The Elements of Pizza. (For what it’s worth, Forkish also uses a Dome Gen 2 at home, while enjoying his retirement. He likes using dough at 67 percent hydration, while cooking at 900 degrees in the Dome.)

A couple caveats, however: Gozney often markets the Dome as being able to cook two pizzas at the same time. This is a silly thing to do at the temperatures you’re cooking at. Cook one pizza. If you use the Neapolitan Arch, it’ll make the oven’s aperture narrow enough that you’ll need to limit yourself to a 12-inch peel anyway. The price of a Gozney Dome also rises considerably once you start delving into the accessories. With the stand, cover, Neapolitan arch, wood fire control kit, turning peel, and 15 pounds of Gozney-brand kiln-dried hardwood, the final price for the Dome Gen 2 can rack up as high as $3,270.

Photograph: Adrienne So

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Ooni

Koda 2 Max

$1,300

Ooni

$1,300

Williams-Sonoma

Ooni’s large oven is for everyone who is sick of feeding their families with multiple teeny-tiny 12-inch pies and just wants to make a massive 20-inch cheese pizza for all the kids at once. You can either attach a propane tank or hook it to your natural gas line. If this is a possibility for you, then I recommend the latter. Ooni has a new gas management technology that keeps the temperature consistent across the huge surface. But big, powerful ovens use a lot of fuel: Its 35,000 BTUs put this Koda Max nearly on par with a 3-burner Traeger griddle. That heat will also come pouring out the open front of the oven, which means the Max is not ideal for small patios.

However, the temperatures are remarkably consistent across the cooking surface, and the new digital temperature hub checks the heat at multiple points throughout the oven. You can even connect it to Ooni’s new app (iOS, Android) to monitor the heat remotely, although I get a little nervous stepping away from an oven that is burning at 900 degrees Fahrenheit. You can control each side independently, so you can either cook multiple pizzas at a time or just push some broccoli in next to your steak. The price includes two food probes, but oddly enough, no pizza peel. WIRED is also testing a new rotating pizza stone for the Koda Max, which Ooni debuted in March. —Adrienne So

Photograph: Chris Haslam

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Gozney

Tread Portable Pizza Oven

$500

Amazon

$500

Gozney

$500

Crate & Barrel

WIRED/TIRED

AccordionItemContainerButton

WIRED

• Fantastic build quality and high, controllable heat.
• Ingenious tripod stand
• Compact footprint

TIRED

• “Portable still means 30 pounds
• Accessories are expensive

Every one of these ovens could be considered portable. I know because I drop most of the ovens I test into the back of my car to haul them to friends’ and family’s houses for marathon pizza feeds. My colleague Adrienne So may never stop telling the story of the time she put her Ooni Karu onto a paddleboard and floated it across a lake. But Gozney has sincerely nailed portability with the Tread, while still performing admirably.

Gozney’s Tread has the smallest dimensions among our top picks, and is lighter than any other gas oven among our top picks. It has handles, bless it, and a very well-engineered Venture Stand ($300). with four telescoping legs so you can position it outside securely, in almost any place that’s even vaguely level. The stone can also be secured, so it doesn’t jostle or fall out. And only the original Koda 12 ($450) weighs less than the Tread, among ovens WIRED has tested and liked. But this Gozney has better recovery time and good enough insulation to hit an even and stable temperature at just shy of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes maybe 20 to 30 minutes to get up to 850 degrees, depending on the day, according to testing by WIRED reviewer Chris Haslam.

So sure, you can buy this hoping to impress your buddies at a tailgate party or overlanding trip. Most of the marketing photos from Gozney show it on a forested vista or a clifftop or some other impossibly pretty and usually pizza-less place. But honestly? It’s mostly the oven I might use if I regularly had to haul a pizza oven out of a garage into the backyard, or carry it over to the neighbor’s.

Some pizza ovens provide you with proprietary accessories to set you on your pizza path. But we’ve also found a few extras to be helpful along the way:

Gozney infrared thermometer for $50: Even if the oven has a built-in thermometer, a handheld infrared thermometer is a great way to check the temperature on different areas of the pizza stone. Indeed, the stone temperature is probably the single most important data point, especially because you’ll need to track whether the stone has recovered temperature after cooking a pizza. You can buy a cheap Amazon model for less, but the temperature range stretching above 1,000 Fahrenheit on this Gozney makes it helpful in pizza cooks. Plus for whatever reason, I just like the aesthetics and grip: I have like five infrared thermometers now, and I usually reach for this one.

A wooden pizza peel for $34: If you own multiple peels, it’s quick and easy to prep one pizza while another is baking. WIRED reviewers Adrienne So and Matthew Korfhage each own several peels, including a useful small turning peel. But for launching, 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 $25: 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. I often like a Field No. 8 skillet for being lightweight, however.

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. 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.

A good pizza recipe book: I have always favored The Elements of Pizza, from Beard Award–winning author and pizza chef Ken Forkish. This was true even before I began my tenure at WIRED. This disclosure notice is necessary because my colleague and fellow pizza tester, Kat Merck, was an editor and recipe tester on Forkish’s book.

We’ve tried a lot of pizza ovens. Here are some we liked that didn’t quite make our top picks.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Ooni Koda 2 for $499: Ooni’s second-generation Koda oven is as easy and as simple as it gets. Indeed, it was previously my pick as the best entry-level oven. Just hook in the propane, open the valve, click the auto-igniter, and heat the oven for about 30 minutes, which generally gets you well above 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The Koda 2 is portable at 35 pounds, while offering a nice 14-inch cooking surface and decent recovery time between pies. But note you’ll need to keep the Koda 2’s rear flames low while cooking to avoid charring, and a good turning peel will still be your friend. It also has no temperature gauge. I like this model especially for people who want to store it in their garage or closet, and haul it out for pizza: The simplicity makes it quite portable. But I’m also currently testing a new rotating stone add-on that’ll make for much easier cooks.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Gozney Arc Lite for $399: The Arc Lite, released in March, is now Gozney’s most petite pizza oven, even smaller than the portable Tread ($499) I recommend as WIRED’s favorite portable oven. It’s also the lowest-cost option in Gozney’s portfolio. But it remains a bit of an odd duck in the lineup. Perhaps it was designed to aim squarely at the svelte, easy, simple, no-frills Koda line from Ooni? Either way, you can make good pizza on it, but it attains and holds temperature less easily than the Tread and sports no handles, temperature gauge, nor electric igniter. Its small cooktop and interior space, combined with the powerful side propane flame jets, can also make it a bit finicky to cook evenly without continual attention to your turning peel. It’s a good oven, in the grand scheme. But I would pretty much always spring for the extra $100 to get the Tread.

Courtesy of Solo Stove

Solo Stove Pi Prime for $410: The Solo Stove Pi Prime remains a tight contender as our top gas oven pick. If you’ve heard of Solo Stove, it’s because of its smokeless, stainless steel fire pits. This made the company’s transition to high-heat pizza ovens more or less seamless. Instead of the conventional elongated design, the Pi Prime 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. This really is a great design, and this remarkably compact propane pizza oven has previously been among WIRED’s top picks. The cooking surface is large enough to accommodate a large Lodge cast-iron pan. If you have a small backyard, the top’s flat surface is a convenient storage space, and the stove doesn’t sacrifice any of its heating capabilities for these details. So why is the Koda 2 better than Solo Stove Pi Prime in our books? The Koda 2 allows for bigger 14-inch pies, and the broader opening makes launching a bit easier. (But note, if you live in a windy area, the Pi Prime offers better wind shielding than the Koda.)

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Halo Versa 16 for $499: At first blush, the Halo Versa 16 appears to offer much the same specs as the All-Clad gas-powered pizza oven, but for half the price. It’s got a rotating pizza stone, room for a 16-inch pie, and a clever extra feature: a little heater under the pizza stone. This said, the built-in thermometer isn’t accurate (at all!), and insulation isn’t the best, leading to a hot exterior. The oven doesn’t reach its advertised top temp of 950 degrees Fahrenheit, though it can generally heat the stone to about 800 degrees. Consider this a better oven for New York–style pies, at a quite affordable price when you take into account the rotating stone.

Courtesy of Gozney

Gozney Roccbox for $499: When Adrienne So first reviewed the dual-fuel Gozney Roccbox, she praised the fast recovery time that has made the Roccbox popular among pizza pop-up chefs, allowing her to make 10 pies in less than 30 minutes when cooking pizza with propane. That said, few home pizza makers need such throughput, and the 44-pound device is heavier than other competitors. The optional woodbox was oppressively difficult to use, for those who want the ability to cook with fire. But the Gozney’s price, previously among the most expensive entrants, now seems downright reasonable. And Matthew Korfhage’s experience using the default propane option has been good, with terrific temperature stability. And indeed, after months of bringing other ovens to his sister’s home to test, he still can’t convince his brother-in-law that anything could possibly be better than a Roccbox.

Ooni Karu, First Edition for $349: Ooni is still selling the previous-generation oven of WIRED’s top pick, the Karu 2, for about $100 less. Like other Ooni pizza ovens, OG Karu is an excellent oven—light, portable, and easy to clean—and WIRED reviewer Adrienne So couldn’t stop using the thing after first testing it. Nonetheless the newer Karu 2 heats more evenly and holds more fuel than the first-generation oven.

Ooni Koda 12 for $399: The original Ooni Koda 12 is a mere 21 pounds, making it the most light and portable Koda. Its 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, you should not store it outside.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Cuisinart 3-in-1 Propel Pizza Oven and Grill for $750: This Cuisinart Propel 3-in-1 offers an ingenious design. It’s a four-burner stand-up grill and griddle that’s perfectly good for burgers or pancakes—but with a pizza stone and mount, and a domed pizza lid. A smoked-glass door and temperature gauge lets you monitor your pie and turn your pizza without losing all the heat, while the side griddle means you can even cook toppings or sauces on the same device, without having to wander inside and outside. The extra workspace offered by the side tables is likewise truly welcome. But there are trade-offs to this versatility. You can heat your stone above 900 degrees Fahrenheit without trouble, but you won’t get reliable ambient baking temps above 750. And so there’s a bit of a learning curve. You’ll want to turn your middle burners down but leave the side burners on, to cook something between a New York pie and a Neapolitan. The build’s also a little clattery, and the poorly made burner knobs have an irritating habit of slipping on their pegs. This last flaw knocked this oven down to our honorable mentions, despite the Propel’s cleverness and versatility.

Photograph: Adrienne So

Ninja Wood-Fired Oven for $400: If you’re looking for a remarkably sturdy and versatile outdoor oven, this is a pretty good pick with a top temperature of 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The door is a little sticky, which makes baking pizza at high heat a little tricky, but if you want one device that can do everything from smoking a pork shoulder to making muffins, this is your pick.

This guide is devoted to outdoor pizza ovens, which offer by far the best experience in making pizza at home. If I’m making pizza indoors, I’d be more likely to invest in a good pizza stone, or a classic baking steel. But if you have the kitchen counter space, but not the patio, there are some electric pizza ovens suitable for indoor use that’ll attain temps your other oven only dreamed about. None quite achieved what we wanted them to, and most are more expensive than our favorite outdoor models.

Photograph: Adrienne So

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Ooni

Volt 2

$699

Amazon

Ooni Volt 2 for $698: Several years ago, Ooni released its first electric pizza oven. It was designed for indoor/outdoor use, and so was much larger. The second iteration of the Volt is designed solely for indoor use. It’s much smaller (although the cooking area is the same size), the viewing window is much larger, and it now has digital touch buttons, instead of the manual dials. Flat things like pizza and cookies came out great, according to tester Adrienne So (she used the King Arthur easy pizza dough and chewy chocolate chip cookies recipes). The oven itself heated from an interior temp of 70 degrees to the full 850 degrees in less than a half-hour, although it’s worth waiting the full hour for the stone to heat through so that the bottom won’t stick. According to a digital IR thermometer, the front of the stone was a few degrees hotter than the back, to compensate for heat loss from the bigger viewing window and the door opening and closing—a welcome detail. But it’s no replacement for an auxiliary oven, noted So, with only 2 inches of cooking height. The internal fans are also a rackety 60 decibels. “I love Ooni’s compact, convenient outdoor ovens,” wrote So. “I’m not convinced that the Volt 2 deserves a place of pride inside your kitchen. It’s a rare misstep from a company known for its gorgeous, intuitive cooking appliances. ”

Gourmia Pizza Oven and Air Fryer for $170: At a low cost, the Gourmia All-in-One offers a few lovely qualities. It plugs into a regular outlet, can be used indoors, crests 750 degrees Fahrenheit in 20 or 25 minutes, and tops out above 800 degrees. It also offers individual control over the top and bottom heating elements, so you can adjust if your cheese isn’t melty enough or your bottom isn’t quite cooked. Pizzas baked in this oven came out quite well, with a leopard-spotted bottom, a bubbly cheese topping, and a lovely puffy crust. It is the most affordable oven we’ve found that makes delicious pizza. It’s also, technically, an air fryer and a conventional oven. But caveats are in order. The heating can be wonky and uneven, and there’s an awful lot of heat loss through the door. If you preheat the stone, your pizza will come out well. But it’s not a top-line toaster oven or air fryer without the thermal mass of the stone keeping things even. Consider this a gateway pizza oven that’s quite easy to stow away when not in use—an affordable entry point until you decide that you love making pizza enough to finally ball out and get a (better) Ooni or All-Clad.

Breville Pizzaiolo for $1,000: The Breville Pizzaiolo was once a top-pick electric pizza oven, and like a lot of Breville devices it offers beauteous ease of use and admirable technological sophistication, with three separate heating elements and two sensors that make sure each part of your pie is perfectly cooked. Where the first-generation Ooni Volt edged it out was with better insulation, a higher max temperature, and more versatility for cooking other things besides pizza. But it’s a tough ask at the price.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Current Backyard Model P for $699: No less a TV food personage than Alton Brown has signed on as an endorser of this 1,750-watt electric indoor/outdoor pizza oven, which will heat to 850 degrees Fahrenheit using a standard power outlet. Heat is relatively even across the oven, and it’ll get up to top temp in around 30 minutes. But cook settings are constrained to a few preset levels (New-York style, thin crust, Neapolitan, frozen), whose temps and cooking times can be a bit fussy to fiddle with even after an app update. The app and on-device controls tend to offer as many quirks as functionality. Display temp and actual temp don’t always match, and its top thermal elements turn on and off like the lights in a David Lynch movie, according to what the company calls a proprietary algorithm. Still, you can make a great pizza on this thing, and you can make it indoors. After a firmware update this year, I tested the Model P again to check out the new options. But the app remained glitchy, the glass smuts easily, and the device still feels less than fully baked at the moment, especially at its price.

The Piezano for $100: This TikTok-popular oven is affordable, small, and convenient. It looks a little like a waffle iron, and comes with handy double paddles for easier placement. Astonishingly, its claims of heating the top and bottom elements to 800 degrees Fahrenheit are accurate, and it takes about 15 minutes, which allows for short cook times. But note that the heating element at the top doesn’t cover the whole surface area, so you have to rotate your pies pretty frequently. Also, opening the top like a waffle maker means that it doesn’t retain heat very well. It dropped by 100 to 200 degrees between pies and requires a bit of recovery time.

Pizzacraft Pizzaque for $130: This oven is adorable and affordable, and you can stand it in your driveway and cook a good pizza while sitting in your camp chair. However, it just doesn’t get as hot or cook as evenly as a better-insulated oven does.