For pizza parties and easy dinners alike, these hearths make pristine pies every time.
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While we love tending to the grill and gathering around a fire pit, theres something we (and your party guests) may love more: Pizza. Baking your pie in the oven can yield good results, but there’s nothing like the crunchy crust and smoky flavor of a pizza made in a proper hearth. If you’re hoping to replicate your favorite restaurant’s pies, an outdoor pizza oven can take your homemade slices from decent to genuinely artisan.
Outdoor pizza ovens reach much higher temperatures than regular ovens, and in less time. That high heat is exactly what you need for a perfectly cooked pizza crust, and our tests found that many of our recommended models can cook up your pie in as little as 60 seconds—a genuine game-changer for frequent party-throwers or big family pizza nights.
Plus, many of the outdoor pizza ovens we recommend are suited for other tasty foods, just like a real hearth. You can make fish, meat, roasted vegetables, and even bread in these countertop and standalone ovens—excellent for anyone who loves entertaining on the patio.
Outdoor pizza ovens use gas or wood to create flames across the top that radiate intense heat downwards, heating the pizza stone. Once the stone hits cooking temperature, throw your pizza in the oven—because the stone is as hot as the “roof” of the hearth, the pizza cooks evenly and quickly from both the top and bottom. While it cooks, those flames up top produce a golden crust that’s crispy on the outside and soft and airy on the inside. Because the pizza only takes a minute or so to cook, you can make a few with different toppings one after another.
The oven’s size dictates the maximum temperature the unit can reach, as well as the size pie you can cook in it. Many outdoor pizza ovens are designed for 12-inch pies. Our Best Overall pick, though, can accommodate pizzas up to 16 inches for big, restaurant-like slices.
Pizzas are typically cooked at a minimum of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Classic Neapolitan pizza requires temperatures over 900 degrees (these are the ones with golden crusts, mottled with dark leopard spots, that you often see on Instagram).
The pizza ovens we recommend have max temperatures that far exceed 500 degrees, but note that an oven with a relatively low maximum temperature will still give you a delicious, cooked-through pie—it just may not look quite as picture perfect.
Wood is the traditional fuel of choice for pizza ovens, favored for the smoky flavor it imparts in the crust and toppings. However, wood (or charcoal) fires take longer to heat up and require more attention to maintain the right temperature. That may not be an issue if you’re only making a couple of pies, but it can become a hassle if you’re cooking multiple pies for a large group, or entertaining a party while you cook.
Propane fuel can heat a pizza oven up quickly with just the turn of a knob. The convenience of firing up the oven on high and being ready to cook a pie within 15 minutes is hard to deny, as is the ease of clean-up when there’s no ashy firebox to empty. However, propane ovens won’t give you the wood-fired flavor.
Luckily, you don’t have to pick just one: Many of the brands we recommend offer extra accessories you can buy to accommodate a different fuel type. There are even some options with combined fuel, so you can heat up your oven fast with the propane and imbue the pizza with wood-fired flavor, too.
To find the best pizza ovens, we looked at models with good features and designs and called in a handful to try ourselves. We selected pizza ovens that use a variety of fuels, including gas, charcoal, and wood. We tested several, too, including the Ooni Karu 16, Ooni Karu 12, Gozney Roccbox, Bertello, Bertello Grande, Alfa Nano, Solo Stove Pi Prime, and Cuisinart 3-in-1 pizza ovens.
For testing, we heated each oven for 30 minutes to season them and burn off any oils or contaminants from manufacturing, then let them cool completely. Fifteen minutes after firing up each oven on high using propane burners, we measured the temperatures on the pizza stones with an infrared thermometer.
Then, we made pizza, using the same dough each time, with propane and oak firewood as our fuel. During cooking, we noted how well each oven performed, different features, and their ease of use. Finally (and most enjoyably), we assessed, a.k.a., ate, the pizza. We recommend these ovens based on our experience and, for the ovens we haven’t gotten our hands on yet, we evaluated specs, features, and user reviews to ensure their quality.
Over a decade ago, Ooni built its first portable pizza oven with a design that many have mimicked. The Karu 16 is capable of making 16-inch pizzas fired either with propane or wood. In testing, we liked the new version’s locking door with a glass window, which kept temperature in the oven consistent and allowed us to keep an eye on our pizza while it cooked.
Ooni also added a digital thermometer that monitors air temperature in the oven. Using the propane burner is super easy and will get the job done, but we appreciate the large firebox for wood, which provides a lot more flame across the top of the oven.
This outdoor pizza oven looks like the Ooni Karu, and it’s a fraction of the price. The stainless-steel oven is fueled by wood pellets, which conveniently load in a trap door at the back—though unlike the Karu, wood is your only fuel option for this oven.
It preheats in roughly 18 minutes, can cook pizza in 2 minutes or less, and reaches a maximum temperature of 860 degrees. It’s also easy to store, weighing a reasonable 25 pounds with folding legs. The only drawback—though likely not a dealbreaker—is that there’s no integrated temperature gauge.
A pizza oven from the smokeless fire pit folks? Yup—and it comes in a wood-fired oven option, or a dual fuel model with a propane burner. We’ve used it both ways and prefer the ease of burning propane.
As with most portable wood fired ovens, this one took longer to reach operating temperatures when burning wood, and we needed to keep an eye on the fire to add more when it burned down. Still, it’s nice to have the option if you’re into the authenticity of wood fired pizza.
It took us about 20 minutes to get the oven up to temperature with propane, but you can expect longer times when it’s cooler outside and shorter when it’s hotter. In testing, the average cook time was about 90 seconds and required turning the pie every 20 seconds or so.
We found that managing oven and stone temperatures didn’t take too much time, although like other ovens without a door, breezy or windy days could make it more challenging. The oven opening on the Pi is 13 inches wide, so 12-inch pies are about as big as this oven can handle.
The Karu 12 multi-fuel pizza oven lets you cook with wood or charcoal, or an optional gas burner for propane, which is what we used in testing. We were as impressed with its ability to cook a delicious pizza in 60 seconds as we were with its design and construction. Made from stainless steel and riveted with tight seams, the sleek oven is compact and easy to set up.
We easily reached temperatures over 900 degrees using propane, although it took a little longer using wood on top of charcoal in the firebox. The flames in the Karu licked across the roof of the oven, radiating intense heat down and heating the stone before we put a pizza in. This resulted in an evenly cooked pizza from top to bottom in no time.
Bertello’s Grande, 16-inch outdoor pizza oven is considerably bigger than its original model, which we tested. It works in much the same way, though—it can burn wood, propane, or both at the same time. We like the flexibility this offers, allowing us to heat the oven quickly and start cooking before worrying about how much wood we had on hand.
We did need to keep an eye on the temperature as the pizza stone got so hot that the bottom of the pie cooked a lot faster than the top. This is partly due to the burner being located under the back half of the pizza stone.
We got the best results warming the oven up with the burner on high, then turning it down and adding wood just before we put the pizza in. This resulted in flames across the roof of the oven, radiating down to cook the top while the pizza stone took care of the bottom.
Once we had the process dialed, we cooked a bunch of Neapolitan-style pizza in the Grande and were very pleased with the results, as were our guests.
Initially, we had to be cautious pitching the pizza into the Bertello (above) through the narrow door in front.
Though the Roccbox is different in shape, it still functions similarly to other ovens designed to make Neapolitan pizza. It uses propane, although a wood burner is available as an accessory. Heating up the oven, we easily reached temperatures over 900 degrees on the pizza stone in 15 minutes. Although inside the oven gets very hot, we were happy to find that outside body did not. You can actually touch the green oven body—on the silicone—without getting burned.
Functionally, the Roccbox performed well and we were able to make outstanding pizza in it. The one drawback we noted was that the propane burner left a fair amount of soot on the front of the oven, above the door. While harmless, it did take us some time to clean it off when it came time to store it away.
When pizza takes about 60 seconds in the Roccbox oven (above), you have to check and turn it every 15-20 seconds.
Made in Italy, the Alfa Nano has authenticity both in pizza-making and design flair. The shiny enamel finish seems a little precious and luxurious at first, but we found it durable and easy to clean.
While the Nano is portable, it does weigh about 65 pounds and is a little awkward to move. We suggest setting it up on an outdoor, built-in counter or table. We used the optional color-matched cart in testing which made the Nano easy to move from the porch to patio thanks to the large, rubber-wheeled, locking casters.
Unlike most models we tested with pizza stones, the Nano has thick fire bricks lining the floor of the oven with a heavy layer of insulation below them. We noted the fire brick and thick, insulated oven walls effectively held heat and kept temperatures stable. The Nano took between 15 and 20 minutes to warm up and was capable of oven temps over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit; temps on the fire bricks hit the high 900s. We made Neapolitan pizzas with perfectly crisped crusts.
The Nano is a premium oven if you’re invested in pizza making and want to get an appliance you’ll have for years. The unit we tested had a propane burner but it’s also available as a wood-burning oven.
The Volt 12 is Ooni’s first electric pizza oven made for both indoor and outdoor use. While there are plenty of electric pizza ovens, there are precious few that can cook a pizza on par with a propane- or wood-fired oven. This is one of them.
We used an infrared thermometer to check temps on the pizza stone, confirming the Volt 12’s ability to hit temperatures well above 800 degrees Fahrenheit. It took just around 20 minutes to get up to cooking temps and weren’t surprised when we were able to quickly cook pizzas. Our results had beautiful, mottled leoparding on the crust—just like an outdoor oven.
The Volt 12 has three controls on front: A timer can be set up to 20 minutes; a thermostat goes up to 850 degrees; and a balance control to adjust the upper and lower heating elements separately. The balance control is a useful option, but it can only be used once the oven hits the set temperature. The Volt fits on a standard depth countertop and is relatively easy to move thanks to handles on each side.
Danny Perez is a Commerce Editor for Popular Mechanics with a focus on men's style, gear, and home goods. Recently, he was coordinator of partnership content at another product journalism outlet. Prior to that, he was a buyer for an independent men's shop in Houston, Texas, where he learned all about what makes great products great. He enjoys thrifting for 90s Broadway tees and vintage pajama sets. His spare time is occupied by watching movies and running to impress strangers on Strava.
Camryn Rabideau is a freelance writer and product reviewer specializing in home, kitchen, and pet products. In her four years as a product tester, she's tested hundreds of items firsthand, and her work appears in publications such as Forbes, USA Today, The Spruce, Food52, and more.
Brad Ford has spent most of his life using tools to fix, build, or make things. Growing up he worked on a farm, where he learned to weld, repair, and paint equipment. From the farm he went to work at a classic car dealer, repairing and servicing Rolls Royces, Bentleys, and Jaguars. Today, when he's not testing tools or writing for Popular Mechanics, he's busy keeping up with the projects at his old farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania.
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