Derek Gaughan
If you’re looking for the best electric pizza oven for indoor use, this is the review you need. This content is 6 months in the making. I actually purchased and continue to use these on a weekly basis. I made sure to thoroughly test each oven individually before comparing them to one another. You will leave here knowing exactly which pizza oven is best for you.
How I Test Indoor Pizza Ovens
I’m testing the performance of these ovens by making both Neapolitan and New York styles. I look at two main areas when ranking indoor pizza ovens:
- Quality to cost ratio
- Ability to cook Neapolitans.
I specify Neapolitan because New York styles cook well at low temperatures, so most of these should perform very well for this type of pizza. But double zero flour requires very high heat – or, as I found out, simply a beautiful burner design.
Here’s a chart showing the preheat times when set to 750 degrees (yellow line), along with their actual measured stone temps (bright red bar) when the preheat timer went off. The shaded area represents the oven’s max stone temperature, which varies quite a bit. However, stone temperatures this hot require a really strong top burner to evenly bake the pizza, so these numbers won’t answer the question of which one is best. Let me show you which one is.
The Best Indoor Electric Pizza Ovens
The following are the best indoor (electric) pizza ovens after more than 25 hours testing. I know what you’re thinking: only four?! There is a steep drop off in performance after the top 3 on this list, but I felt Chefman deserved a spot – especially if you prefer to make NY style. The best choice for you depends on pizza styles, size, and budget. The links below will have more info on each oven, or continue reading for my personal reviews.
- Ooni Volt. Best overall. Great burner design. Top-level quality. Does it all and is crazy easy to use.
- Effeuno P134. Best performance, but expensive to import. Unbelievable Neapolitans.
- Breville Pizzaiolo. Best burner design but expensive. Excellent Neapolitans; can’t cook pan pizzas.
- Chefman Home Slice. Lackluster Neapolitans; great New York’s. Good controls and great price.
Ooni Volt
- Weight – 39.2lbs (17.8kg)
- Max pizza size – 13 inches
- Max heat – 885° F
- MSRP – $899
- Preheat time – 15 minutes
- Neapolitan cook time – 90 – 120 seconds
- Warranty – 2 years (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
The first indoor or outdoor pizza oven. With the highest-marketed max temp (in the US) of 850F, I was impressed when the Ooni Volt actually exceeded this number. The bottom burner has a boost function to help the stone retain heat between pizzas, and the dial on the right controls how much power to send to the top and bottom burners. I realized that keeping it in the middle is the best for maintaining the set temperature. But if you push more power to the top or bottom burner, the stone temperature increases beyond the set temp.
For a balanced Neapolitan, here’s the best settings to use:
- Preheat it to 800 degrees
- Right before launching, turn the dial fully to the top burner
- Bake for 2 minutes
This cooks a Neapolitan with really even top and bottom color.
New York styles cook amazing as well, and you can even fit a full 10×14 Detroit pan. But what I like most is how well the Volt retains heat. This oven is a lot heavier than the Breville and Chefman, and that’s due to the thick insulation. If you want to cook a lot back to back, the Volt maintains stone temp the best. I’m giving it a 4.8 rating
Effeuno P134-HA
- Weight – 55lbs
- Max pizza size – 13 inches
- Max heat – 1050° F
- MSRP – $1640
- Preheat time – 13 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 60 seconds
- Warranty – One year
This is the Effeuno P134, a 240 volt beast that reaches over 1000 degrees. This Italian oven has a much larger electrical supply, so you may need to hire an electrician if you live in the US. But Black Rock Grill imports these with a US NEMA 6-20 15 amp plug. I’m using a converter for my dryer plug, which means I’m making pizza in the laundry room… A small sacrifice in order to test 3,200 watt pizza ovens.
The Effeuno comes with a refractory stone for New York style and a thick Biscotto clay stone for Neapolitan. You’re supposed to remove the refractory stone before putting the Biscotto in, but I leave it in for convenience. If anything, it should help with the max heat, but it does take an extra 5 minutes to preheat.
I launched my first Neapolitan at 950 degrees and baked it for only 75 seconds. The results were absolutely incredible for my first pizza.
By the time I prepped the next one, it actually reached over 1,000 degrees. The stone temp doesn’t drop much at all after a pizza, you can really crank a lot out of this for a party. A true 60 second bake is easily attainable in this oven.
The best New York style bake was set to 250 celsius, which resulted in a stone temp between 575 and 600 fahrenheit. This resulted in a super crispy edge crust and bottom.
The Effeuno clearly has a ton more power, resulting in the best baking performance overall. But it comes at a huge cost and with more difficult electrical requirements. I’m giving this a 4.8 out of 5.
Breville Pizzaiolo
- Weight – 37lbs
- Max pizza size – 11.5 inches
- Max heat – 781° F
- MSRP – $999
- Preheat time – 18 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 90-120 seconds
- Warranty – 2 years.
This right here is the OG indoor pizza oven. The team at Breville made a strong contender for best overall, and more impressively, they designed this years before anyone else even attempted an indoor oven. They also packed some cool innovations into a small frame. Like, really small. The round pizza stone is only 11 and ¾ inches, and there’s very little room between the stone and top burner. That close proximity is what makes it cook Neapolitans so well, but it prevents me from fitting a Detroit pizza pan.
When you open the door, the pizza stone pulls down and outward, allowing more overhead room for launching.
The default controls are tailored for preset pizza styles, but there’s a manual override function to change the timer control into an adjustable deck temp. This allows you to control the top and bottom burners separately.
New York’s are easy because of how adjustable the dual burners are.
As for Neapolitan, I like to launch at a stone temp of 700, and 750 up top. Even with lower temperatures than the Ooni, this one baked quicker – just 1 minute 42 seconds. An airy crust and great color on the bottom too. I’m really impressed with the burner design on the Breville. The “crust only” control shuts down the middle burner, and pushes all the power to the edge.
There’s so much to like here…except for the price. At $1,000, this is now $100 more than the Ooni Volt. Combine this with the cramped cooking space, I’m rating this 4.6 out of 5.
Chefman Home Slice
- Weight – 23lbs
- Max pizza size – 12 inches
- Max heat – 835° F
- MSRP – $399.00 (fluctuates a lot)
- Preheat time – 20 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 3 minutes
- Warranty – One year
Next up, we have the Chefman Home Slice.
Its placement in Costco stores is what catapulted the popularity of this pizza oven, especially because of the price.
Sometimes as low as one third the price of the Breville, this Chefman offers dual adjustable burners and a max temp of over 800 degrees.
But even with this level of heat, Neapolitans were lackluster. The top burner constantly turns off when it approaches max temp, which really affects the performance. Even if you time it well and launch when the top burner is still red hot, it takes upwards of 3 minutes to bake.
The door also sits really loose against the oven, not making a very good seal. I asked around, and it seems other users didn’t have this issue.
New York’s, on the other hand, cook beautifully. Rather than using the New York preset, I like to manually set 600 on the bottom and 625 on top. This creates a great cheese melt, excellent color on the crust, and a super crispy bottom.
If you’re not completely set on Neapolitan and prefer New York style, or even a Neapolitan hybrids, then you really can’t beat the price of this one. I’m giving it a 4.
Indoor Pizza Ovens That Failed Test
The indoor pizza ovens listed above are what I personally recommend after dozens of hours researching, hands-on testing, and eating a lot of really good pizza. I tested other electric pizza ovens which did not meet my criteria. Let’s focus on a few of these to show why they fall short.
Gemelli: 2.8 Rating
The Gemelli pizza oven is nearly identical to the Chefman, which was featured in my best list. I know what you’re thinking: how can this one be so low?
It’s the same Alibaba design (this means anyone can begin selling this oven with their own branding), but with different controls. And the controls on this one are downright awful. The touch-sensitivity is really low, so it sometimes doesn’t recognize your input. It takes forever to go from 450 degrees to 750.
The user interface is also bad – for example, you have to push a settings icon to change between pizza presets rather than just pressing the name of the pizza. The top burner selection is shown below the bottom burner. And I still can’t figure out how to change the timer from the default 2 minutes.
If you want an oven for New York styles, go for the Chefman with better controls and a cheaper price.
Cuisinart: 2.2 Rating
The Cuisinart oven took the longest to preheat out of any oven I tested – and not just by a little. This was a clear outlier, and the max temp was also much lower.
A lot of heat is pushed out the back of the oven; my kitchen wall was reading 145F, and I had it further away than the recommended 2 to 4 inches. It also smelled awful, way worse than any oven I’ve used before.
More importantly, it seems that the top burner never turns on. Most burner assemblies turn red after 5-10 minutes of operating, but the top burner doesn’t glow at all. Neapolitan pizza crusts refused to get any color whatsoever. If I didn’t hate this oven enough already, there’s no way to cancel or turn off the timer. The stop button just pauses it, and you can’t go below 30 seconds with the minus button. Avoid.
Indoor Pizza Ovens vs Kitchen Ovens
Most people don’t realize you can make an awesome pizza in your kitchen oven. Depending on the style of pizza you wish to make and how often you see yourself baking, an electric pizza oven may not be necessary. I’m not here to push you to buy one – just to show you the benefits of each.
Temperature Capabilities
- Electric Indoor Pizza Ovens: Models like the Ooni Volt are specifically designed to reach much higher temperatures than standard kitchen ovens—often upwards of 800°F (425°C) or higher. This capability is crucial for making authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas, which require a cooking temperature above 800°F to achieve the characteristic charred crust and perfectly melted cheese in just a couple of minutes. These ovens are engineered to heat up rapidly and maintain high temperatures, providing an ideal environment for this specific pizza style.
- Standard Kitchen Ovens: While capable of producing excellent New York-style pizzas, especially when used with a pizza steel that helps achieve a crispy crust by mimicking the heat distribution of a commercial pizza oven, they typically max out at around 500°F to 550°F (260°C to 288°C). This limitation means they cannot achieve the intense heat needed for authentic Neapolitan pizzas. The pizza steel is a significant enhancement, but the oven’s inability to reach higher temperatures restricts it to styles that do not require the extreme heat of Neapolitan pizzas.
Cooking Time
- Electric Indoor Pizza Ovens: Due to their ability to reach higher temperatures, these ovens can cook pizzas in a fraction of the time it takes a standard oven. A Neapolitan pizza might cook in under 2 minutes, providing a quick, restaurant-quality result. NY styles also only require ~6 minutes when baked at 625F.
- Standard Kitchen Ovens: Cooking times are longer, often requiring upwards of 8-10 minutes, depending on the pizza thickness and oven temperature. While the results can be very good, especially for styles like New York that do not require the extreme heat of Neapolitan pizzas, the process is slower.
Portability and Convenience
- Electric Indoor Pizza Ovens: Many of these ovens are designed for convenience and portability. They can be easily set up on a countertop or outdoor table, making them perfect for gatherings or outdoor events. Their design focuses on pizza, but many can be used for searing steaks or scallops and roasting vegetables.
- Standard Kitchen Ovens: These ovens are obviously not portable and are designed for a wide range of cooking tasks beyond pizza. They offer great versatility but might not provide the same level of quality for specific pizza styles compared to specialized pizza ovens.
Energy Efficiency and Heat-up Time
- Electric Indoor Pizza Ovens: They are generally more energy-efficient for pizza making, as they reach the desired cooking temperature much faster than standard ovens and are designed to retain heat effectively.
- Standard Kitchen Ovens: Take longer to preheat, especially when aiming for the higher end of their temperature range. They may also require longer cooking times, which could lead to higher energy use over time if used frequently for pizza making.
Frequently Asked Questions
The short answer is yes. If you want to make any variation of Neapolitan pizza indoors, then you will need a dedicated pizza oven that ranks among our top ratings (shown above). The AVPN (The True Neapolitan Pizza Association) requires authentic Neapolitan pizza to be cooked within 60-90 seconds. Now, if you’re like me and don’t care too much about authenticity, then we can go a bit over that. I found that anything under 2 minutes is a really solid result. And the Ooni Volt, Breville Pizzaiolo, and Effeuno can all do that.
If you only want New York style, then you can get by with your home oven with a pizza steel. However, a dedicated pizza oven will preheat faster, use less energy, and retain heat better than your kitchen oven. Moreover, if you only want to do NY style, then you can go with the cheaper Chefman.
New York styles typically take 6-7 minutes, and Neapolitans right around the 2 minute mark. Neapolitan times vary depending on the model, but I found that the Ooni Volt and Breville Pizzaiolo both take 2 minutes; the Effeuno took only 60 seconds; and the Chefman took 3 minutes.
The best indoor electric pizza ovens cost $900-1,000; in this range, you will get an oven capable of both NY style and Neapolitan. The high-end range (imported from Italy) cost ~$1650 and bake Neapolitans as well as an outdoor oven. The low-end range falls around $350 and are only suitable for NY style.
Yes – crazy easy. There’s hardly any setup to them; just unbox, insert the stone, and plug it in. After turning the dial to max, most ovens reach max temp in as little as 20 minutes – much faster than outdoor pizza ovens.
Since these are electric, they can be used outside when plugged into a suitable outlet, but doing so may void warranties. However, they are not weather resistant or designed to be used in poor weather or left outside.
