The best pizza oven will guarantee the tastiest slice this side of Italy. Simulating the smoky flavors of a traditional stone oven, the best pizza ovens help you to make restaurant-quality pizza in your backyard. Not only that, but you can use them to roast meats and vegetables, and even bake desserts. But with so much on the market, it's easy to feel spoiled for choice.
As a professional product tester, I've had hands-on experience with all the best garden gear, and I think a good pizza oven could give the best grills a run for their money. I've tested twenty models from Ooni, Gozney, and Breville, and I've found the best pizza ovens to suit every garden and budget.
To help you compare and contrast, I've assessed each pizza oven against the same criteria: cook time, ease of assembly, price, and the all-important taste test. Our team - including a former pizza cook - tests every oven on cheese pizzas, pepperoni pizzas, calzones, meat and vegetable dishes, flatbreads, and even desserts to see how well it can cope with different styles of pizza and other meals. We record how long it takes each oven to reach cooking temperature and measure how long it takes each oven to cook each type of pizza.
Dozens of pizzas later, I've found the best pizza ovens in the world. The best pizza oven you can buy is the new Ooni Karu 2 Pro. I tested it a week ago on six pizzas, gluten-free flour, a calzone, a flatbread, chicken thighs, and even a brownie, and it knocked our previous #1 pick off the top spot. It has a large capacity in the same-sized body, a sleeker digital thermometer, and makes a better pizza.
Best pizza ovens 2025
You can trust Homes & Gardens. Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing the latest products, helping you choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Below, you'll find a summary of each pizza oven, and a rundown on the benefits and drawbacks of each model. You can click 'read more below' to jump down to detailed reviews and specifications and learn more about these ovens.
The quick list
This brand-new entry has just taken the #1 spot from its predecessor, the Ooni Karu 16. It reaches 950°F in just fifteen minutes and makes perfect pizza every time. It's the best pizza oven we've ever tested.
This inexpensive option is a great option on a budget. There's a steep learning curve to master it, but it makes incredible, smoky pizzas.
This pizza oven is easy to assemble and easy to use. Weighing just 20.4lbs, it's even easy to lift, and should fit perfectly on a standard outdoor kitchen counter top.
This pizza oven reaches 932°F incredibly quickly and makes delicious pizza - but it's not as portable as the marketing claims.
This little oven is safe for indoor use, but it still packs a punch. It's the first domestic countertop oven to hit 750°F and it can cook a pizza in just two minutes.
This attractive appliance should elevate your outdoor kitchen. You could transfer it to a countertop or leave it standing on the Gozney Dock, which features fold-out tables made from solid wood for easy pizza prep.
Fastest
This was our favorite pizza oven for years, but it's just been beaten by its predecessor, the Karu 2. However, this fast oven is still worth considering, especially now that the price is lower.
This oven is a perfect statement piece for an outdoor kitchen. Unlike others on this list, it can handle two pizzas.
This oven not only cooks pizza but can smoke meats. It's cheap and easy to use, but slow.
Best pizza oven 2025
Best pizza oven overall
I tested the Ooni Karu 2 Pro on six different pizzas, including a gluten-free pizza, a calzone, chicken thighs, and brownies, and it aced almost every test. It did so well that it knocked its predecessor, the Ooni Karu 16, off the top spot in this pizza oven ranking. This oven went straight in at #1.
Unlike most other pizza ovens, it has a glass door. This is what puts it at a higher level than all of the other appliances featured below. The glass door retains moisture and heat within the oven, making for a light, fluffy crust with the perfect moisture level. Every pizza I tested in this oven was perfect, with golden, melted cheese and sauce that was neither too dry nor too wet, offering the perfect counterbalance to the char on the crust.
In addition, it's one of the fastest ovens we've tested. It can reach more than 950°F in just 15 minutes, three times faster than some of the ovens on the list, and it can cook a pizza to completion in just over a minute. The updated digital thermometer is a big improvement on the original, offering a color-coded system to let you know when the oven is ready for pizza, as well as a handy probe thermometer.
It also excelled at cooking foods other than just pizza. A flatbread came out perfectly, with vegetables developing smoky char but not drying out. The chicken thighs I cooked in a cast iron skillet were also exceptional, and the probe thermometer made it easy to check that everything reached a safe internal temperature.
There are a handful of caveats, but they're nitpicking rather than real problems. The biggest is that this struggled to bake brownies. Even with the oven at its lowest temperature and keeping a constant eye on the top of the brownies, the top broiled and the inside was uncooked, which isn't the case with other ovens we've tried. Apart from that, it takes up a lot of room on a patio table, and while the thermometer is excellent, it can be hard to read it through the glass door in some lights.
There are more details in our Ooni Karu 2 Pro review.
Alex got his start in reviewing at the iconic Good Housekeeping Institute, testing and reviewing a wide range of household products and appliances. He has reviewed everything from vacuums to washing machines to dog toys to exercise bikes and has reviewed pizza ovens for several different magazines. He most recently tested Ooni's latest oven, the Ooni Karu 2 Pro, which has gone straight in at number one in this guide to the best pizza ovens.
Best wood-fired pizza oven
Wood-fired pizza ovens create a smoky flavor and charred crust that isn’t achievable in an ordinary convection oven. The Ooni Fyra 12 comes in at number 2 as the best wood-fired pizza oven on the market.
Wood fuel can be daunting, but the Fyra 12 is easy to set up and use. This is thanks to clear instructions and a handy app packed with recipes for doughs and sauces. It's simple to add wood and control the temperature, and the fast heat-up time means it's ready to go in just 15 minutes.
The Ooni Fyra 12 makes a perfect Neapolitan pizza in two minutes. Our expert tester Helen found 'a crispy puffed-up crust with lightly charred patches' that cooked in just two minutes. You aren't limited to pizza, either – Helen also found great results when experimenting with roast garlic potatoes, lamb, and asparagus.
Like all wood-fired ovens, the Fyra 12 needs more care and attention than gas-powered ovens. You'll need to monitor the wood pellets as they reach temperature and stoke them to maintain the right heat.
It's also worth knowing that Ooni doesn't include accessories like a pizza peel or pizza slicer with their ovens. While the Fyra is the best-value Ooni, it costs an extra couple hundred dollars if you want all the bells and whistles, such as specialized wood pellets and a thermometer.
You can find more details in our Ooni Fyra 12 review.
Helen is a trained home economist with a 20-year career in appliance reviews. She is a freelance writer specializing in home appliance reviews, but she’s most at home when trying out the latest kitchen and cooking gadgets.
She tested the Ooni Fyra12 in her own backyard and found that 'even a novice cook will be able to achieve good results'.
Best budget pizza oven
If some of these ovens sound like too much hassle, then the Ooni Koda 12 could be for you. Instead of charcoal, it runs off gas, so all you need to do is plug in your propane and you're good to go. It heats up in 15 minutes and cooks your pizza in two.
Our expert tester used the Koda 12 to make an excellent cheese pizza, a perfect pepperoni pie, and an indulgent garlic bread. Although most gas ovens can't create a crispy crust, this model achieved excellent charring, and it's especially good at baking thin-crust pizzas.
This oven can make more than just pizza. Our tester used it with a cast iron skillet to make delicious grilled chicken and roasted vegetables. The Koda 12 is lightweight, too, so it's easy to move and store.
The biggest issue with this oven is the lack of a door. It makes it easier to load the pizza but much harder to regulate the temperature. The Koda 12 is also missing the bonus features of Ooni's Karu 16, such as a built-in thermometer.
You can find more details in our Ooni Koda 12 review.
Helen is a trained home economist with a 20-year career in appliance reviews. She is a freelance writer specializing in home appliance reviews, but she’s most at home when trying out the latest kitchen and cooking gadgets.
She tested the Ooni Koda 12 in her backyard.
Best gas pizza oven
If you know that you want to cook with gas, go for the Gozney Roccbox. It's easy to set up and arrives on your doorstep already assembled. It's pretty heavy, but portable, too, with a long Velcro strap. You can pick it up, set it down, and start cooking straight away.
The Roccbox is wrapped in green or gray silicone, which means the outside of the oven is safe to touch, even as the inside reaches 950°F. This is one of the highest temperatures on the test and means that the Roccbox cooks the fastest of any oven on the test, finishing a pizza in little over a minute. What's more the pizza we made was delicious, with great leopard-spotting.
As portable ovens go, this one is pretty heavy, though it has retractable legs. When unfolded, you can easily attach the gas burner to the underside. It runs on gas, though Gozney also sells a detachable wood burner as an additional accessory, which we found less powerful than cooking with gas.
We found the wood hopper a little lacking if you want to get a proper roaring fire going. The gas never left us short on power and was a lot faster to get started.
You can find more detail in our Gozney Roccbox review.
Millie was Head of Reviews at Homes & Gardens and has reviewed a number of the pizza ovens in this guide. With a lot of trial and error, she's discovered exactly what an oven needs to make the best pizza. Millie tested the Breville Smart Gozney Roccbox in her yard at home.
Best indoor pizza oven
For a quick and easy pizza night, you need the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo. This electric pizza oven is designed for indoor use, so it's the perfect option for apartment dwellers or people without a yard.
This countertop oven was the first domestic oven to reach 750°F. That means it can cook a 12-inch pizza in just two minutes. The Element iQ smart system regulates power so that the oven mimics the type of heat generated in a brick oven. This gives that leopard-spotted charred finish you usually get from a wood-fired pizza oven.
There are dedicated settings for different types of pizza, covering New York, pan, thin and crispy, or frozen pizzas. While you can control the temperature and heating element, our expert preferred the pre-set features which kept the process almost fool-proof. Though this indoor marvel comes close, it still can't recreate the smokiness that marks a traditional Neapolitan. It's also one of the most expensive ovens we've tested.
You can find more details in our Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo review.
Millie was Head of Reviews at Homes & Gardens and has reviewed a number of the pizza ovens in this guide. With a lot of trial and error, she's discovered exactly what an oven needs to make the best pizza. Millie tested the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo in her kitchen at home.