Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo vs Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven – which one comes out on top?

Indoor pizza ovens are becoming increasingly popular as we head into winter. Unlike outdoor ovens, you can use them year-round, so there's no standing out in the snow while you wait for a homemade pepperoni pizza.

Two popular choices for an indoor pizza oven are the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo vs Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven. However, these two ovens look pretty much identical. Apart from several hundred dollars of difference in their price tags, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're the same.

I've spent my career testing all of the best pizza ovens, and I've tried both of these ovens first-hand in my own kitchen. There are some crucial differences between these two ovens, and I think the Breville oven is by far the better choice. Here's what I found in a head-to-head comparison.

Head to Head

We'll start with a head-to-head comparison of these two ovens. You can see that the Breville is the better oven. It's faster and offers helpful settings for lots of different types of pizza. It's also (very slightly) smaller for storage.

However, the big difference is that the Cuisinart oven is hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Breville oven, so if you're on a budget, it's a better option.

Which oven makes the best tasting pizza?

Winner: Breville

It's always hard to call this, but the Breville oven makes a better pizza. It cooks faster, looks and better, and tastes closer to an authentic Neapolitan pizza. Breville's marketing says that this oven can ' cook an authentic wood-fired style pizza'. I've tested a lot of wood-fired pizza ovens as well as this Breville and this is a reach - it's pretty good but the taste can't match the smokiness of a wood-fired pizza oven. However, it's much tastier and closer to the real thing than the Cuisinart oven.

That's partly because the Breville oven can reach 50°F hotter than the Cuisinart, which lets it cook much faster. On the hottest temperature, the 'wood-fired' mode, it takes just over two minutes to cook a pizza. That makes for a crisper crust and better-melted cheese.

The Cuisinart oven takes seven minutes to cook at its hottest temperature, so it doesn't bake the pizza oven as thoroughly as hotter ovens. When I tested brownies in this oven, I noticed a cool zone right along the front of the oven, which meant they weren't cooked as they should be.

Which oven is easier to use?

Winner: Breville

The Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is the easiest pizza oven to use. Unlike any other pizza oven I've tried, the Breville has dedicated settings for different types and styles of pizza. This makes it much easier to use than others, because there's no learning curve or looking up the perfect temperature for deep dish or New York-style pizza. You just set the dial to the style of pizza and switch it on.

Not only can you automatically cook your pizza with a setting, but this pizza oven includes a darkness setting. If you like your cheese and crust to have authentic leopard spots, you can turn the darkness up for more char.

The Cuisinart oven has neither of these features, so while it has a timer and temperature dial, it doesn't have specific setting for types of pizza and doneness.

Which oven is cheaper?

Winner: Cuisinart

There's no contest here. The Cuisinart oven is $400 cheaper than the Breville oven. If you factor in that it's often on sale - at the time of publication it's under $300 in the runup to Amazon Big Deal Days - so it's a much better option if you're on a budget.

That said, unlike Ooni pizza ovens, both of these ovens include pizza peels and pizza pans as standard, so they're both better value than the biggest brand.

Which is best for storage?

Winner: technically Breville, but there's little in it

When I did the math, I was surprised to find that the two ovens take up the same area on a countertop: 334.85 square inches. However, the Breville is narrower and longer, so it looks like it takes up slightly less room, even though the actual area is identical.

The Breville is slightly shorter, so it has a smaller overall volume for storing in a kitchen cabinet, but there's only half an inch in it.

The biggest thing to bear in mind with these ovens is that they're both large appliances. They both took up a third of my countertop space when I tested them, and I'd have to throw out all my pans to make enough room for them in my cabinets. For balance, I live in a small apartment in a city; you may have more than enough room to store one of these. Just keep in mind they both take up more than a square foot of countertop real estate.

Which is better looking?

Winner: it's a tie

Both of these ovens are low-profile countertop appliances. They don't add to your kitchen's style, but nor do they take away from it. They're both unobtrusive, neutral appliances. They usually come in a stainless steel colorway, but both have black versions too. If I were to be hyper-critical I'd say that the Cuisinart oven looks a little aughts compared to the Breville because of the old-school digital timer and analog temperature dial, but it's too close to call.

Buy Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo if...

• You want lots of different types of pizza
• You want fast pizza

Buy Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven if...

• You want to save money

However, neither of these ovens can quite replicate the flavor of a good wood-fired oven. Before you buy an indoor pizza oven, it's worth considering the merits of indoor pizza ovens vs outdoor pizza ovens. Outdoor models are trickier to use, but they make for better pizza.