Best Pizza Ovens for 2024
CNET’s top pizza oven picks will help you craft restaurant-quality pies from the comfort of your home.
Our Experts
What to consider
Fuel type
Most pizza ovens are fueled by gas or wood pellets, but there are electric and charcoal models to consider.
Size and portability
If you're planning to host larger pizza parties, spring for an oven that makes larger pies.
Accessories
Not all pizza ovens come with a peel, turner or protective cover.
Cost and value
Good pizza ovens start at $300 and go sky-high from there.
Our Picks
Best overall pizza oven
Ooni Koda 12
Another excellent option
Gozney Roccbox
Best budget pizza oven
Ooni Karu
Easiest pizza oven to use
Halo Versa
Best semipermanent pizza oven
Alpha Nano
What to consider
Fuel type
Most pizza ovens are fueled by gas or wood pellets, but there are electric and charcoal models to consider.
Size and portability
If you're planning to host larger pizza parties, spring for an oven that makes larger pies.
Accessories
Not all pizza ovens come with a peel, turner or protective cover.
Cost and value
Good pizza ovens start at $300 and go sky-high from there.
The $400 Ooni Koda 12 takes the top spot on our list of best pizza ovens for 2024.
What's the best pizza oven for 2024?
Want to make fresh pizzas at home instead of ordering in or having frozen pizzas? While it adds extra effort to your pie routine, you can get a special pizza oven to help. Good homemade pizza can jazz up your family pizza nights, birthday parties and summer gatherings. Plus, there are so many ways to experiment if you have your own pizza oven.
The market is packed with pizza ovens, making it tricky to choose the right one. We’re here to help you find the ideal option, whether it’s for yourself or as a holiday gif for the pizza lover in your life. CNET's experts tested several top-rated models from Ooni, Gozney and others to find the best ones. Our top pick is the Ooni Koda 12, which excels at fast cooking and comes with responsive temperature controls. We've got other picks, too, all of which offer fantastic features, whether you want to make a Neapolitan pizza or go Chicago-style deep-dish.
These outdoor pizza ovens are easy to set up and use, cook pies in as little as two minutes with their high heat and are simpler to clean than a traditional grill. To get your oven going, all you need is your flour mixture, sauce, toppings and olive oil. Here are our top picks of the best pizza ovens of 2024, ranging from a budget-friendly pie maker that comes in under $300 to splurge-worthy models that rival professional setups.
Read more: The secret ingredient for making instant pizza dough may surprise you
Best pizza ovens for 2024
The versatile gas-powered Koda is portable, weighing just 20 pounds, and it's easy to operate. It ignites in seconds and reaches the coveted 900 degrees Fahrenheit -- the optimal temperature for cooking killer pizzas -- in less than 15 minutes.
Though you can often find the smaller model on sale for around $300 and the larger Koda 16 for a bit more, stick to the cheaper Koda 12. Smaller pizzas typically net better results, particularly for first-timers. And the smaller cooking chamber delivers fast results: This oven turns out crispy, thin pizzas in under 2 minutes.
Ooni's Koda is simple to set up and a pleasure to use. The temperature controls are responsive and accurate, and the gas fixture takes just a few seconds to screw in and out.
- Reaches extremely hot temps
- Solidly built
- Choice of gas or wood fuel
- Heavy and less portable
- On the expensive side
Another excellent option
Gozney Roccbox
The Roccbox made a flurry of excellent pizzas in under two minutes per pie. The rotund Roccbox is easy to set up, and it reached 900 degrees Fahrenheit in under 13 minutes. It runs on gas as default, but a wood burner attachment can be purchased as an extra (we only tested it using gas).
The Roccbox has a very sturdy build and is wrapped in a safe-touch silicone jacket, making it a good pick for homes with curious young hands. At 60 pounds, this oven is more than twice as heavy as the Ooni Koda or Ooni Fyra and takes two people to move around. It's also roughly $100 more than our top pick. The oven comes standard with a pizza peel valued at $85.
Best budget pizza oven
Ooni Karu
Wood pellet pizza ovens tend to be a bit cheaper than gas-powered ones, but they also require a bit more manual labor. The Karu 12 retails for $299 but can often be found on sale for less than $280 or less, making it the most budget-friendly model on our list.
While the Koda (our top pick) is the easiest, most turnkey oven, switching on and heating up in seconds via natural gas or propane, the Fyra runs on wood pellets that take longer to preheat and also burns less evenly, although it eventually gets just as hot as its gas counterparts.
The Karu is similar in size to the Koda but weighs about 6 pounds more due to a smoke chimney -- a necessary feature, as pellet-powered ovens produce more smoke than gas-fired models. The chimney helps to corral it and keep it out of your face. The results were comparable to what we got from Ooni's gas model.
Pellet ovens such as the Karu take a little longer to heat up and the temperature control is less precise, but that's typically not a problem when you're making pizza as long as you're keeping a close watch.
Easiest pizza oven to use
Halo Versa
At $500 retail, the Halo Versa is more expensive than Ooni's top ovens, but it has two advantages that make it worth the cost: The rotating pizza stone eliminates the need to manually adjust your pies. The unique liftable lid provides unparalleled access for cooking and cleaning up after.
The hot stone in the oven is heavy and needs at least 15 minutes of preheating time before you slide your pies in. Once it's ready, a homemade pie takes just five to six minutes to cook to perfection. When it's cooked you can lift the lid and easily remove the pizza. The open top also allows you to clean the stone more regularly without removing it from the oven.
The Halo Versa oven is on the heavy side at 44 pounds, but it's fairly compact -- just 25 inches across and 25 inches in height.
Best semipermanent pizza oven
Alpha Nano
Alpha's smallest oven, the Nano, is larger and heavier than any of the other ovens on this list. It's beautiful and sturdy, can accommodate larger pies and makes excellent, evenly-cooked pizzas in just a few minutes.
As with other gas pizza ovens we tested, the Nano attaches to a standard propane tank with a few twists, ignites immediately and heats up in about 10 minutes. The Nano is large enough to make 19-inch pies. There's also an oven door to keep the precious heat inside.
The Nano's larger internal capacity makes it easier to see and rotate a pizza. You can also cook quite a bit more than just pizza or a tray of vegetables. Simply turn the heat down a few cranks and make a whole roasted chicken or a slab of roast beef. None of the other ovens on this list have enough space for that.
The heavy Nano can be stationed on a table or you can purchase a dedicated cart for $499 from Kickass Grills. You can also buy a standard grill cart for much less that will almost certainly work fine. The Alpha Nano requires some simple assembly that takes less than 10 minutes.
Alpha makes a wood-fueled version of the Nano that can be had for $999.
Other pizza ovens we tested
Solo Pi Pizza Oven (Update: Out of Stock): Another solid pizza oven that's sturdily built and fast to cook, but at the time of review was more expensive than the Ooni Koda.
Ooni Fyra Ooni's multifuel pizza runs on wood pellets similar to the Karu. It's housed in a sleek carbon-steel hull, making it about 6 pounds lighter than the Karu. It's also $50 more expensive, with a sticker price of $350.
PizzaCraft Pronto: This budget-friendly pizza oven churned out pies in just a few minutes, but the build felt a little cheap to us and the design isn't appealing.
The Ooni Koda 12 is the best overall pizza oven for the price.
How we test pizza ovens
We hand-tested all of the ovens on this list over the course of several months, assessing build quality and how easy they were to set up and connect to a fuel source.
A picturesque pie pulled from the hot chamber of the Alpha Nano.
We cooked a minimum of three pizzas in each, following the manufacturers' guidance on time, temperature and technique. Ovens were scored on their ability to produce crispy crust and toppings that were fully cooked and cheese that was evenly melted. We also took notes on how long each oven took to cook a pizza. Spoiler alert: None of these ovens take more than five minutes to bake even a large pie.
We also evaluated the ease with which the ovens attached to their fuel source and how intuitive the dials and controls were. Finally, we looked out for any ovens that were particularly difficult to break down or clean after use.
Top pizza ovens compared
| Ooni Karu | Ooni Koda 12 | Gozney Roccbox | Halo Versa | Alpha Nano | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 26 lbs. | 20 lbs. | 60 lbs. | 44 lbs. | 125 lbs. |
| Max pizza size | 12 in. | 12 in. | 12 in. | 16 in. | 19 in. |
| Max temp | 900 F | 950 F | 950 F | 950 F | 1,000 F |
| Fuel source | Wood pellets | Gas | Gas or wood | Gas | Gas |
| Price | $299 | $399 | $500 | $450 | $2,199 |
| Peel included | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
What to consider when buying a pizza oven
Fuel type: Gas vs. wood pellets
The Gozney is an excellent oven, but heavier than the average model at 60 pounds.
Outdoor home pizza ovens mostly run on gas, wood or wood pellets. Propane gas pizza ovens can be connected quickly, ignite instantaneously and heat up in just a few minutes. They also burn clean, with less smoke and little mess to clean up. They can be hooked up to propane tanks in the same way you would a grill.
Wood and charcoal ovens, in contrast, must be loaded (and sometimes reloaded) with fuel before use and take longer to heat up; also, a consistent temperature is trickier to maintain. They also make a bigger mess, leaving behind ash and soot. Although you may assume wood-fired pizza ovens would impart a smoky flavor, the pies are not subjected to much smoke or in the oven long enough to absorb the wood flavor. The ovens do smell nice once they're fired up.
Gozney released a large oven fueled by old-school firewood.
There isn't a significant cost difference among the various fuel types. It's more a matter of personal preference. Wood pellets can be purchased online or at most hardware and grocery stores and are available in a range of wood varieties.
There are also electric pizza ovens, including this pricey model from Breville and this new entry from Ninja. Electric pizza ovens only reach temps of about 700 degrees F. Purists may tell you that's simply not hot enough to make truly great pizza. We plan to test a few electric pizza ovens soon and will report back.
The Alpha Nano is the largest oven of all the models we tested, allowing you to roast whole chickens and other food that won't fit inside most home pizza ovens.
Size and portability
If you have a dedicated space for your oven, a larger, heavier model should work. If you'll be looking to store it away between uses or move it around regularly, a more portable oven is a better choice. At-home pizza ovens start at around 20 pounds, while semiportable and stationary pizza ovens can weigh several hundred.
Accessories
A pizza peel is the most important tool for making pies at home.
One accessory you'll definitely need for your new pizza oven is a pizza peel. This unique paddle-shaped tool allows you to safely slide a pizza in and out and rotate it for even cooking. Remember, these ovens get as hot as 950 degrees so you don't want to take any chances with a shaky spatula or tiny tongs.
The other accessory you'll likely want to invest in is a cover, especially if you plan to leave it out in the elements between uses. Some pizza ovens come with a custom cover, but many don't.
Cost and value
Quality at-home pizza ovens start at around $300 and go up (way up!) from there. More expensive pizza ovens tend to feature larger, sturdier frames, more oven capacity and they reach hotter temps faster. You can find cheap pizza ovens under $250, but so far we haven't tried one that's worth the investment.
A pizza peel is the most critical accessory for making pies at home.