Kevin Hansen
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These are my recommendations based on 50+ pizza ovens tested. Some of the ovens were provided as free samples for review—I wouldn’t be able to test so many otherwise. But I also purchase many ovens myself and test every oven the same way. I actually use these products and continue to do so on a weekly basis. Got questions about pizza ovens? Ask in the comments or shoot me an email!
Until recently, if you wanted to make classic Neapolitan-style pizza at home, you needed to build your own brick oven or pay loads of money to have one delivered and installed.
But a new day is upon us. A warm, sunny day filled with cold beer as you cook outdoors and impress friends with authentic neapolitan pizza – WITHOUT emptying your bank account. This new breed of affordable outdoor pizza ovens allow any skill levels to make Ken Forkish-level pies that can go pound for pound with anything you can get in a restaurant. Additionally, many of the ovens in this article emphasize portability, so you can make the same great pizza whether you’re in your back yard or out camping.
So harness your inner pizza chef and join us as we break out the peel and hand-test every pizza oven.
The Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens
The following are the best pizza ovens after more than 100 hours of testing. 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 more info.
- Gozney Arc XL. Incredible price for the performance. Cooks both styles exceptionally well.
- Ooni Karu 2 Pro Highly versatile oven. Huge cooking area, door, and multi-fuel.
- Solo Pi Prime. Best budget oven. Stunned at how well it performs for the cost.
- Gozney Dome and Dome S1. Great premium pick. Crazy performance. Ability to exceed 1,000 degrees. Top-level quality.
- Pizza Party Emozione. Huge cooking surface (enough for two 12″ pizzas). Straight from Italy. Best for Neapolitan only.
- Gozney Roccbox. Portable. Incredible for Neapolitan. Not great for New York.
- Ooni Karu 2. Same performance as the Karu 2 Pro, but cheaper and lighter. Very versatile.
- Ooni Koda 16. Easy learning curve; great for beginners.
- Everdure KILN 2. Auto-rotating stone; incredible for New York. Good for Neapolitans.
- Halo Versa 16. Similar to Everdure design but cheaper and can ONLY cook New York.
The following ovens did not make our best-of-the-best list, but are not bad products. These are listed in no particular order.
- Cru. Tough to maintain a strong fire; a bit pricey for no gas option.
- Bertello Grande. Discontinued. Gets insanely hot (too hot?). Tough to use both wood and gas at same time.
- Bertello. Used to be a solid entry-level oven but newer ovens pushed this down the list.
- Ooni Karu 12 (original). Lack of viewing door and lesser insulation makes it incomparable to the Karu 2.
- Ooni Fyra. I love the price and build quality, but pellet-fueled pizza ovens pale in comparison. Still good for camping.
- Carbon. Questionable build quality for the price. Dual burners work great.
The following ovens had poor performance in our tests and are not recommended.
- Blackstone Pizza Oven w/ Stand. Very expensive and very heavy for an oven design like this. No overhead heat.
- Blackstone Conversion Kit. No overhead heat.
- Blackstone Leggero. Lacks enough heat to cook Neapolitan. Very cramped cooking space. Shoddy materials.
- Ooni Pro. The OG, but lacking insulation compared to newer models. (Also it’s discontinued.)
- Pizzeria Pronto. Downright awful performance.
- Biolite. Discontinued, and for good reason.
This content has been four years in the making. We wanted to review every major commercially available pizza oven before ever claiming one pizza oven as the best.
To date, Derek and I have tested over 50 portable pizza ovens.
The following ovens are among our top rated, with the Gozney Arc XL and Dome S1 among the best. The Dome S1 is very similar to the Arc XL, but is more of a statement piece for patios (one of the sexiest ovens ever made!).
The Solo Pi Prime is our pick if you’re on a budget.
If versatility is your priority, then we recommend the Ooni Karu 2 Pro for its multi-fuel capabilities combined with having plenty of space to cook non-pizza foods also.
The Pizza Party Emozione direct from Italy is our pick for authentic Neapolitans—you can even cook two pizzas at once! But you also can’t go wrong with the Gozney Roccbox.
I’ll go into more detail about each of our recommendations below.
Gozney Arc XL
- Weight – 58.5lbs
- Max pizza size – 16 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- MSRP – $899.99 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 30 minutes
- Warranty – 5 years (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
The Arc XL is a beautiful oven with an appearance very similar to the awe-inspiring Dome S1, but at a more achievable price point. This is an excellent, user-friendly choice whether you are a serious beginner or more experienced. It’s quite capable of making Neapolitans, but really excels at New York style.
I really appreciate the burner design on this oven, which is designed to mimic the flame of a wood-fired oven but with the ease of using propane instead. The overall build quality is fantastic, as I have come to expect from Gozney products in general. Gozney has been in the pizza oven business since 2016; they manufacture their ovens in the UK but provide free shipping to most US locations.
The smaller version of the Arc XL, the Gozney Arc, shares the same design but can only make pies up to 14 inches.
I have used the Arc XL a ton in the last few months. My home is currently overflowing with pizza ovens, but if somehow they all disappeared overnight, this is the oven I would most likely buy because it strikes a good balance between price and quality.
Is it pricey? Yes, a bit. Is it worth the cost? I think so.
Ooni Karu 2 Pro
- Weight – 60lbs
- Max pizza size – 16 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- MSRP – $799.99 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 30 minutes
- Warranty – Free returns within 60 days (conditions apply), up to 5-year warranty (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
The Karu 2 Pro is the oven I recommend most often to anyone who has an interest in cooking with wood. Propane is the easiest fuel source for beginners, but wood-fired cooking has an aura of authenticity and history around it that propane can’t replicate. It’s handy to be able to cook with wood or charcoal if you’re going on a camping trip, too … although the 60 pound weight of the Karu 2 Pro makes it a little less portable than some other options.
In addition to its fuel versatility, the Karu 2 Pro is spacious with lots of vertical height, which makes it very suitable for making steak, roasting vegetables, and more.
The Karu 2 Pro includes a recent innovation from Ooni: a digital thermometer display that connects to your phone and measures the air temperature inside the oven.
If you’re looking to keep your options open with respect to fuel source and what you’ll be cooking, the Karu 2 Pro is tough to beat.
Solo Pi Prime
- Weight – 30lbs
- Max pizza size – 12 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- MSRP – $349.99 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 20 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 90 seconds
- Warranty – Lifetime on manufacturer defects.
If you want to break with convention and go for something a bit unusual, consider the Solo Pi Prime pizza oven. Created by Solo Stove, the leading manufacturer of smokeless fire pits, this squat, compact little pizza oven has a futuristic look and an innovative design. It throws away many of the pizza oven conventions and goes its own way with a round body with a wide opening. These things should detract from a traditional pizza oven’s efficiency, but thanks to creative engineering, a signature airflow system, and optimized heat retention, this quirky oven can bake pizzas with the best of them.
But the best part? This oven costs under $350, yet it performs like a $600+ oven. During my tests, I was honestly shocked at how well it performed for every pizza style.
It reaches optimal temperature in around 25 minutes and cooks a Neapolitan-style pizza in under 2 minutes. It retains heat well from one pizza to the next, so cooking one after another is no problem.
I think this is a game changing pizza oven that will result in competitors looking to create an equally well-performing oven at the sub-$350 price point.
Gozney Dome
- Weight – 128lbs (classic Dome) or 107lbs (Dome S1)
- Max pizza size – 17 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- Dome MSRP – $1999.99 (see current price)
- Dome S1 MSRP – $1499.99 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 30 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 55 seconds
- Warranty – 5 years (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
Absolute perfection. This pizza oven is a BEAST. If I’m not currently cooking a pizza, you’ll often find me outside just staring at the Dome. Everything on this oven is made from high-end materials and done in an exquisitely-designed way. While it’s not entirely “portable” – weighing in over 100lbs – it has the same performance as 1,000lb custom-built ovens. The thick insulation in the Dome retains heat exceptionally well and the gas insert blows flames up and over the pizza for a really impressive cooking experience.
The multi-fuel option of the classic Dome lets you switch between gas and wood-fired instantly, and an awesome built-in digital thermometer lets you know when the oven is pre-heated. I also absolutely love the accessory port they created which allows you to expand cooking methods, including cold smoking!
If you’re looking for the best pizza oven, this is it. However, the cost is obviously a hurdle. This oven is for those who know they are pizza-making fanatics and live to cook outdoors.
If you love the idea of the Dome but can’t quite justify the price, the gas-only Dome S1 has most of the same stellar features yet is slightly easier on the wallet.
Pizza Party Emozione
- Weight – 72lbs (32.7kg)
- Max pizza size – 15″ (or two 12″)
- Max heat – 1,000° F
- MSRP – check current price
- Preheat time – 30 minutes
- Neapolitan cook time – 60 seconds
- Warranty – 2 years
If cooking authentic Neapolitans is your heart’s desire, then you should check out the Pizza Party Emozione from Italy.
This oven comes with Saputo biscotto clay stones and a powerful gas burner enabling temps over 1,000°F. You can definitely cook sub-60 second Neapolitans in this oven. In fact, you can cook two at once!
The shape of the dome and the burner placement spreads out the heat across the ceiling and toward the opposite side. Meanwhile, the biscotto stones bake the bottom more slowly than refractory stones would, so the pizza bottom ends up perfectly cooked instead of scorched.
If I were looking to cook only Neapolitan pizzas, this oven would be on my shortlist.
Gozney Roccbox
- Weight – 44lbs
- Max pizza size – 12 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- MSRP – $499.99 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 20 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 60 seconds
- Warranty – 5 years (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
If you’re looking for an oven to make great Neapolitans but you want something cheaper or more portable than the Emozione, then the Roccbox is the oven that comes to my mind first.
The Roccbox looks more like a rocket ship than an oven – especially when the torch-style burner is on full blast.
One advantage this oven has over Ooni ovens is that the outside features a “Safetouch” silicone jacket, which means it is super-insulated. The coating not only locks in the heat but prevents the outside of the oven from getting hot, so it’s safer, especially for families with young children or pets. On the flip side, the Ooni ovens can get pretty hot to the touch. A small downside of the silicone jacket is that it does add to the weight a little bit.
The Roccbox comes with a gas burner but offers an optional, detachable wood hopper. Burners can be easily removed to change between gas or wood and cleaning. It’s available in a really unique bright green or standard black, features fold-out legs, and a built-in thermometer. As a bonus, the Roccbox comes with a pizza peel and bottle opener. I particularly like where their heads are at for the latter – nothing better than having a beer while cooking pizza, and they know it!
Overall the decision between the Roccbox and the Ooni Koda was tough, and at a similar price-point either is a solid choice. In the end, it came down to preferring the larger cooking surface, the portability, and the look and feel of both the inside and outside of the Koda.
We love the design and portability of this oven. Very fast preheat times from a crazy-hot torch burner. However, with the limited cooking space, be ready to turn your pizza often!
Ooni Karu 2 (formerly Karu 12G)
- Weight – 34.2lbs
- Max pizza size – 12 inches
- Max heat – 950°+ F
- MSRP – $399 for base model, $498 with gas burner (see current price)
- Preheat time – 20 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 75 – 90 seconds
- Warranty – Free returns within 60 days (conditions apply), up to 3-year warranty (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
Ooni completely revamped their original multi-fuel oven design, transforming it from a clunky experience to a completely polished gem. This gem is essentially a mini-me clone of the Karu 2 Pro, our top pick for versatility. And with the smaller size, comes a bigger price cut—about half!
Ooni also claims that the gas burner on the Karu 2 uses 36% less fuel than the previous model, and gets up to optimal cooking temperature up to 29% faster. In my tests, it reached 900 in 25 minutes on a 68 degree day.
The price point for the Ooni Karu 2 brings tremendous value and makes this one of the best 12” pizza ovens you can buy. It has no problem reaching 900F+, even in windy conditions thanks to the door, so Neapolitans come out amazing. The burner also gets low enough to bake a 5 minute 600F New York style with super crispy bottoms.
Together with its big sister the Karu 2 Pro, the Karu 2 is the most versatile oven on the market: able to cook with wood, charcoal, or gas; it’s lightweight and the cover has carry handles, making it super portable; and the door allows cooking a wide variety of foods outside of pizza. This is a great one.
Everdure KILN 2
- Weight – 63lbs
- Max pizza size – 16 inches
- Max heat – 850° F
- MSRP – $799 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 30 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 90 seconds
- Warranty – Free returns within 14 days. 1 year warranty.
The Everdure KILN 2 popped onto the market out of left field. I had never heard of the Australian Everdure brand before. They designed a really unique pizza oven packed with features. And the best part? Nothing about it is gimmicky.
The U-shaped burner wraps around the back half of the oven, cooking up to half of the pizza at one given time. When you combine this feature with the auto-rotating stone, it makes for the easiest, hands-off baking experience.
An under-stone burner helps keep the stone hot between bakes, and includes its own gas dial. However, I found that you’ll want that dial on high the whole time.
This pizza oven is very heavy – over 60lbs – which limits the portability factor. But the overall dome-shaped design is really sleek and the build quality seems very nice.
As far as mex temperature, it only reaches about 850F. Neapolitans bake in about 2 minutes. So as long as you’re not chasing an authentic 60-90 second bake, it can still produce good Neapolitan-style pizzas. Where it shines, though, is with New York style. This cooks 16″ pizzas just as well as the Halo Versa, but retains the ability to also cook 00 flour based pizzas. Very solid pizza oven for those who prefer NY.
Ooni Koda 16
- Weight – 40.1lbs (18.2kg)
- Max pizza size – 16 inches
- Max heat – 950° F
- MSRP – $599 (see current price)
- Preheat time – 20 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 60 seconds
- Warranty – Free returns within 60 days (conditions apply), up to 3-year warranty (if you register the product) otherwise it’s one year.
The best propane pizza oven is the Ooni Koda 16, manufactured by Ooni. The company started its journey with a successful Kickstarter campaign for the world’s first outdoor wood pellet pizza oven and has since gone on to become one of the most beloved pizza oven manufacturers, bringing backyard ovens to just about anyone, anywhere, thanks to the portability.
The Koda 16 is their largest model, so named because you can make up to 16-inch pizzas in it. It is ready to go out of the box, no assembly required and features folding legs for easy transport and storage. What’s truly incredible about this oven, is that even with it being larger and able to accommodate 16″ pizzas, it weighs less and is much easier to transport than the Roccbox.
But portability isn’t the only reason this oven tops our list. The Koda has been designed to maximize heat circulation in a very different way than any other oven on the market. Its pipe-style burners are in a unique L-shape that allows for single-turn, even cooking. Most pizza ovens have a single super hot flame in the back of the oven, which means you have to turn the pizza regularly – sometimes 3 times to get even cooking.
It runs on propane gas, with a built-in gas ignition. And because gas burns clean, there’s no ash or residue to clean. Gas also gives you much greater control over the heat, so you can lower the temperature for things like turkey or big briskets. The Koda 16 is also compatible with natural gas using the Ooni natural gas conversion kit, which is sold separately for $50.
Because it’s larger, it does take a bit longer to warm up. Ooni recommends 20 minutes, but if you don’t have an infrared thermometer I recommend bumping that up closer to 25 minutes.
Overall the Ooni Koda 16 is an impressive pizza oven that’s as beautiful as it is useful, and is my clear favorite.
Halo Versa 16
- Weight – 43.21 lbs
- Max pizza size – 16 inches
- Max heat – 800° F
- Price – $499.99 (coupon available below)
- Preheat time – 25 minutes
- Pizza cook time – 3-5 minutes
- Warranty – 5 years
The Halo Versa 16 blew away my expectations. Without any previous experience in the pizza industry, Halo introduced a completely unique design with a ton of innovative features. More importantly – they all work. Nothing gimmicky here about it.
The auto-rotating stone works with the push of a button, allowing you to fine-tune the bake and removes the need for manually turning your pizza. The dual burner system has a gas flame in the back to provide the top-down heat, while an infrared heater below the stone keeps the base hot between bakes.
I never used an oven that cooks New York style pizzas this well and this effortlessly. The top heat is the perfect amount for a 4-5 minute bake.
However, the max heat is a bit low for true Neapolitan. In my tests, the Halo Versa 16 struggled to get much past 800F, but more importantly, the top flame just isn’t strong enough to get the quick rise that 00 flour requires.
But the performance of the NY style was so good, that this oven remains as a top pick – with an asterisk (much like the Gozney Roccbox). If you only want to make New York styles (and/or pan pizzas), then get this Halo Versa. If you only want to make Neapolitans, get the Roccbox. If you want to make both, get the Ooni Karu 16.
Pizza Ovens That Didn’t Make The Cut
Benefits: Outdoor Pizza Ovens vs Kitchen Ovens
When it comes to flavor and consistency, there’s no comparing pizzas that are cooked in a traditional oven to ones cooked at the high temperatures of outdoor pizza ovens. Whether powered by gas, charcoal, or wood, the high temperatures in the ovens below mimic the conditions of the brick ovens of Italy.
Conventional ovens usually have a maximum temperature of 500 degrees. The ovens in this article are meant to reach much higher temperatures, more than 900º Fahrenheit. These ovens can reach the proper cooking temperature for pizza in 15 – 20 minutes, and once they’ve properly warmed up they can cook a pizza in just 60 seconds. This high heat and quick cooking impart an unmistakable flavor to the pizza, as anyone who’s had a traditional brick, wood-fired pizza can tell you.
Because of the new portable ovens, you no longer need a huge, expensive, permanent outdoor brick oven. While a brick oven can be aesthetically beautiful and cook great pizza, high costs and large size make them impractical for many.
Outdoor pizza ovens are becoming more popular every day for a variety of reasons mentioned above, in addition to:
- Fun – These ovens are a great conversation starter, perfect for outdoor parties. You can create your own fantastic pizza that just about everyone will enjoy.
- Family-friendly – Your whole family can take part in creating your pizza styles and toppings and watching pizza cook in a minute makes for a lot of fun.
- Affordable – Compared to making your brick oven, these are a fraction of the costs. While some top-of-the-line ovens cost several hundred dollars, some alternatives make Neapolitan-style pizza available to just about any budget.
- Easy – These ovens are designed with the user in mind and can be set up and cooking pizza in no time.
- Flexible – These ovens aren’t just good for pizza. Anything that cooks at high heat will taste great on one of these ovens, including seared steaks, roasted chicken, bread, and cookies.
- Delicious! – Of course for many, the most important reason to use an oven is the unrivaled taste of a pizza cooked at high heat. Once you’ve had a pizza cooked at high temperatures you’ll know why many see them as entirely different food than what’s cooked in a regular oven.
What makes a good outdoor pizza oven?
There are several factors to keep in mind when determining the best pizza oven for your specific skill level, budget, and location/space. Here are the most important criteria we used when putting these rankings together.
Pizza Oven Fuel Sources
When it comes to the fuel used to heat your oven, there are a few options. The primary choices for fuel are gas, wood, charcoal, or wood pellets. Some of these ovens allow for more than one fuel type, although it often requires an additional component. The ovens that work with wood will also use charcoal. A combination of wood and charcoal often works best. It allows the charcoal to burn evenly and provides a base on which you can place the wood for a burst of heat and wood flavoring.
Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking about fuel sources.
Gas Pizza Ovens
These ovens run on the same propane gas tanks used by most outdoor barbecue grills. Gas is often the easiest to start, stop and control your oven. It provides a convenient fuel source and because you have much greater control over the temperature, it makes it easier to cook food that requires a lower temperature than wood or charcoal.
One thing to keep in mind is that if portability is important to you, don’t forget about having to transport the gas tank, although some of these models allow a smaller tank to be used.
And make sure you have enough fuel. Nothing is worse than running out of gas when you are hosting a party and have hungry guests. Ensuring you don’t run out of gas is key to getting the full use from the oven.
The other potential drawback of gas is that you’ll miss out on the woody, smoky flavor that you’ll get when using wood and charcoal. But while you might lose a bit of the authentic brick-oven taste, for many the convenience makes up for it
Wood and Charcoal Pizza Ovens
Using wood and charcoal is the closest you’ll get to the authentic Neopolitan, wood-fired brick oven taste.
When using wood as a fuel source, you’ll need small pieces of wood cut up to pieces not much larger than six inches. Dense, slow-burning wood like oak, ash, or beech works best. If you have access to a wooded area, you can likely scavenge for free wood.
You can use the same lump charcoal popular for BBQ grills. It burns evenly and imparts a bit of a smoky flavor. When you want to cook something at a lower temperature, charcoal can burn much more slowly and if you limit the charcoal amount can result in lower temperatures.
Cooking with a combination of wood and charcoal is recommended by several users. In this scenario, you start by lighting the charcoal and allow it to catch and burn until the briquettes have fully caught. At this point, you add the wood. The wood will burn much quicker and at a higher temperature, so you can use it to add a burst of heat.
Wood Pellet Pizza Ovens
Somewhere in between the authenticity of wood as a fuel source and the convenience of gas are wood pellets. Wood pellets are made of highly-compressed sawdust and other waste material that comes from milling lumber. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to store and use. And because they are used from waste material, they are the least impactful on the environment.
Think about the potential benefits and drawbacks of each fuel source as you think about what oven is right for you.
Size Matters
Obviously, the bigger the oven, the more food you can cook in it at once. Because the pizzas cook in just minutes, you’ll likely never feel the need to cook two at once. But if you plan on cooking meats, vegetables, or other side-dishes, you might want to cook them at the same time (and want a bigger oven). A bigger size will also result in a longer warm-up time and require more fuel.
But perhaps the most important factor when thinking about size is the amount of space between the flame and the pizza as it cooks. Pizzas baked in a traditional Neapolitan oven are typically placed about 6″ away from the fire. This buffer area allows the pizza to bake at really hot temperatures without burning in one spot too quickly. Because of this, even if you order a 12″ pizza oven, realistically you are better off cooking 10 – 11″ pizzas (13″ pizzas for the 16″ ovens).
Pizza Oven Burner type
The type of burner played a big role in determining our favorite pizza oven. From the diagram below, you can see two types of common burners found in portable outdoor pizza ovens today: Pipe burners (on the left) and torch burners (on the right). At a glance you might not notice much difference, since both will get your oven mighty hot. But the HUGE benefit with pipe burners is that you have more space outside of the “danger zone”, which is the red hot area that is more likely to burn quickly.
Moreover, it flawlessly bakes an entire half of the pizza thanks to the L shape, so you only have to turn your pizza once or twice as it cooks. With the torch style burners, you have to keep an eye out for that danger zone that is likely to burn crust and toppings, and turn more frequently to get an even bake around the pie.
Insulation and Air Circulation
The best ovens have been designed to maximize, distribute and maintain internal temperature evenly throughout the oven. Because you don’t want to put the pizza directly into the fire, these ovens are designed to pull the heat from the fire and circulate it throughout the cooking chamber. The high heat cooks the dough and ingredients and makes sure everything cooks evenly.
Most of these ovens have been designed to maximize airflow from the fire, through the oven, and out the exhaust. Some of the manufacturers even claim patented design and technology that maximizes airflow.
Insulation is key. Regardless of what fuels the oven, the oven must be properly insulated so that the heat is captured and evenly distributed throughout the oven. It will determine the max temperature, and affect how quickly your oven warms up and cooks.
Keep In mind that these ovens are dealing with extremely high temperatures, which is even more important if you have young children. If that is the case, you might want to prioritize an oven that limits how hot the exterior of the oven gets to minimize the chance of any accidents.
Cooking surface
The cooking surface also has a big impact on the final product. The right cooking surface ensures that the base of the pizza cooks, not just the top. This is one reason why it’s important to make sure your oven’s internal temperature is reached before adding your pizza.
You want the cooking surface to be able to reach and retain the high temperatures a Neapolitan-style pizza requires. Most, but not all, of the ovens covered here, have a cordierite stone cooking surface. Cordierite is an iron-rich mineral that can reach and retain high temperatures.
Ease of Use
You don’t want firing up the oven to be a chore. If you struggle to get the oven lit, keep the proper temperature, or with maintenance overall, it will decrease how much you enjoy the pizza-cooking experience. If this is the case, I strongly encourage you to go with a gas pizza oven. They are incredibly easy to light up and essentially maintenance free.
Affordability
Price is always an important factor when making purchasing decisions. While these ovens are certainly less expensive than building a whole brick oven, they are still several hundred dollars. You’ll need to balance affordability with the features that are important to you.
And if you want the flexibility of multiple types of fuels, some of these ovens require additional components you’ll need to buy. And it’s not just the up-front cost of the oven. Keep in mind the cost of fueling the oven over time. You can’t expect a budget product from Amazon that cost $200 to end up being one of the best pizza ovens (such as the Gozney Dome or Ooni Karu 16). Ooni and Gozney are not known for being cheap, but they perfectly bridge that gap between affordability and performance, giving you real pizza oven heat while remaining under a thousand bucks.
Maintenance
Nobody likes cleaning up, and the easier the oven makes it the better. Because of the high heat these ovens reach, most if not all the food product should be burned off while the oven is in use, meaning cleanup should be minimal. Nevertheless, maintenance and long term care should be a factor when finding the perfect oven. A thorough cleaning of your pizza oven should be done periodically, especially if you have a wood-burning model with a chimney.
Frequently Asked Questions
Outdoor pizza ovens are absolutely worth it if you are even remotely interested in making restaurant-quality pizza at home. The advancement in design and technology allow both beginners and pros to make incredible pizza at a fraction of the cost pizza ovens used to be. Just because the ovens are smaller does not mean you will end up with a lackluster pizza bake. The AVPN (The True Neapolitan Pizza Association) requires authentic Neapolitan pizza to be cooked within 60-90 seconds. Since most portable outdoor pizza ovens reach over 900F, it’s possible to be certified by the AVPN while using one of these products. In fact, the Ooni Karu 16 recently became the first and only pizza oven to be ‘Recommended for Domestic Use’ by the AVPN.
Since most outdoor pizza ovens reach temperatures of 900+ degrees fahrenheit, it typically takes a pizza around 90 seconds to cook. The first ~30 seconds are typically baked without moving it, as you need to wait for the dough to “set” – or firm up. Once the dough sets, rotate the pizza to get an even bake. The high heat and fast bake time results in a crispy exterior but incredibly airy center.
The best outdoor pizza ovens typically cost between $500-$800. There are cheaper models around the $300 mark but these are typically more limiting in capability, fuel choices, and the quality of materials. Higher end pizza ovens fall around the $2,000 mark. The products I most often recommend (where I compare performance to cost) are the Ooni Koda 16 (~$600), Gozney Roccbox (~$500), and Ooni Karu 16 (~$800).
Setting up and firing up outdoor ovens is very easy to do. Many products these days require no setup apart from setting the pizza stone inside the oven, unfolding the legs, and connecting a propane tank (or adding wood, depending on fuel type). However, making pizzas in outdoor pizza ovens takes some practice and has a pretty large learning curve. Most beginners tend to burn their first few pizzas since they are not used to cooking with such high heat. In addition, problems with dough sticking to the peel or not proofing enough are also common. So again, the product itself is very easy to use, but the pizza-making part of it (especially relating to dough) takes some practice when using these ovens.
Yes, portable pizza ovens can be placed on your deck or porch as long as you place it on a proper table/surface, there is no structure directly overhead, and the weight limit is sufficient (most portable ovens are under 100lbs which should be more than acceptable). A great surface for most pizza ovens to be placed on is a 316 stainless steel table. 316 stainless has better corrosion resistance for being used outdoors.
Most pizza oven manufacturers recommend their products to be placed at least 3 feet away from the house. Personally, if I’m using a wood-fired oven, I’ll pull it away even further. If I’m using a gas oven, I feel comfortable with that 3 foot rule, however I always put my hand between the oven and house after heating it for 5 minutes to ensure nothing feels warm. If the only place you can put your pizza oven is against the house, I recommend looking for a 316 stainless steel table with caster wheels, that way you can wheel out your whole prep table a few feet from the house while you cook, then wheel it back in place after you’re all done (ensuring you let it cool down first).
