Tech
We Made More Than a Thousand Pizzas to Find the Best Pizza Ovens
Compare the Top 8 Pizza Ovens
Tips and FAQ
Who We Are and How We Tested
WIRED reviewer Adrienne So has tested many pizza ovens and made more than a thousand pizzas over the past seven years. WIRED reviewer Matthew Korfhage is a longtime food writer who’s written about pizza on both coasts over 15 years, from sausage slices in Portland to the story of Mexican pizza in Philadelphia.
We test each pizza oven over the course of a few weeks, using homemade dough (Adrienne likes Ooni’s classic pizza dough recipe), fresh dough balls procured from local pizzerias, store-bought fresh dough, and frozen pizzas. We use infrared thermometers to make sure the temperature of the cooking surface is consistent (and is what the built-in thermometer says it is). Where relevant, we also cross-check built-in thermometers on each oven against our own ambient thermometers.
Pizza ovens are also quite a bit more versatile than you might think. Over years of testing, Adrienne has used her pizza ovens to sear steaks, quick-cook salmon, and pan-fry broccoli. Matthew has air-fried wings in a pizza oven, grilled pork chops, charred asparagus, and blackened chicken.
It’s taken me many years, and many thousands of pizzas, to refine my pizza-making technique. And to be honest, my Neapolitan-style pizzas don’t really meet the standard set by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the world authority on Neapolitan pizzas. (Ooni pizza ovens, including previous models of our top-rated Karu 2, are the only models we recommend that the AVPN has also recommended.)
But over the years, I have accumulated a few tips for those of you who find making a pizza to be a little bit awkward or intimidating. If you’ve refrigerated your dough, bring it to room temperature first. Sprinkle flour lightly on the peel before you stretch the dough across and assemble your pizza, to keep dough from sticking. (Some use cornmeal, but note that cornmeal can burn and become bitter in a hot oven.) Be patient and stretch your dough from the inside out. It is cheating, but I also am guilty of using a tiny rolling pin ($10) to help me get the dough as thin as possible.
An authentic Neapolitan pie will use a few specific ingredients. When you’re making your own dough, reach for 00 flour, which is milled specifically for pizza and pasta. Fresh mozzarella will make your pizza damp, so I use a mix of fresh and shredded, low-moisture cheese for the cheesiest, meltiest pie. If you’re not sticking to a strictly Neapolitan recipe, we also have a few favorite pies we’d like to recommend. Senior director Martin Cizmar and I like a good Buffalo pie with Frank’s Red Hot and pickles. I also recently tried Brightland’s Pizza Oil in a squeeze bottle; while it’s good as a finishing sauce to drizzle over pies, you could make your own for much cheaper by putting olive oil and herbs in a squeeze bottle.
Besides ‘zas, I cook everything from salmon to steak to chicken thighs in my pizza oven by preheating a cast iron pan in a hot oven and popping the food right in. For more guidance, Ooni has a cookbook; chef Francis Mallmann’s books are also a good source of inspiration. —Adrienne So
Is your patio already occupied by a giant Traeger? Your grill or smoker probably has a pizza attachment that you can buy for less than a new oven. Cizmar’s favorite is the Yoder Smoker wood-fired oven attachment ($499), which has saved him from many a night of pellet fire flameouts. It sits under the smoker’s hood, atop a steel sheet that sits over the firebox. The sheet is a diffuser and has holes of increasing size as you move away from the fire, so that the section farthest from the flame gets more exposure. The design provides a consistent temperature along the oven’s floor, and it works well, with the farthest corners of the oven still cresting 650 degrees Fahrenheit.
You can also turn your normal, indoor oven into a pizza oven. While most ovens max out at 500 degrees Fahrenheit, one way to impart more heat to your pizza is by preheating a baking surface with a high thermal mass, which maintains temperature stability and directly delivers its stored-up heat energy. An easy way to do this is by preheating a cast-iron pan or baking steel. A classic Lloyd pan is one preferred tool for Detroit- or Sicilian-style pan pizza, which works well in conventional ovens.
Several of our favorite grill and pizza oven manufacturers, like Kamado and Weber, also make ceramic pizza stones. Check out our guide to the Best Portable Grills and Grill Accessories for more.
Honorable Mentions
We’ve tried a lot of pizza ovens. Here are a few that we liked that didn’t quite make our top picks.
Photograph: Stove Pi Prime
Solo Stove Pi Prime for $450: The Solo Stove Pi Prime remains a very, very tight contender for our top gas oven pick. If you’ve heard of Solo Stove, it’s because of its smokeless, stainless steel fire pits. This made the company’s transition to high-heat pizza ovens more or less seamless. Instead of the conventional elongated design, the Pi Prime oven’s fuel attachments are long and slim and hug the back of the oven. This allows Solo Stove to keep its signature round, symmetrical design. This really is a great design, and this remarkably compact propane pizza oven has previously been among WIRED’s top picks. The cooking surface is large enough to accommodate a large Lodge cast-iron pan. If you have a small backyard, the top’s flat surface is a convenient storage space, and the stove doesn’t sacrifice any of its heating capabilities for these details. So why is the Koda 2 better than Solo Stove Pi Prime in our books? The Koda 2 allows for bigger 14-inch pies, and the broader opening makes launching a bit easier. (But note, if you live in a windy area, the Pi Prime offers better wind shielding than the Koda.)
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Halo Versa 16 for $499: At first blush, the Halo Versa 16 appears to offer much the same specs as the All-Clad gas-powered pizza oven, but for half the price. It’s got a rotating pizza stone, room for a 16-inch pie, and a clever extra feature: a little heater under the pizza stone. This said, the built-in thermometer isn’t accurate (at all!), and insulation isn’t the best, leading to a hot exterior. The oven doesn’t reach its advertised top temps of 950 degrees Fahrenheit, though it can generally heat the stone to about 800 degrees. Consider this a better oven for New York–style pies, at a quite affordable price when you take into account the rotating stone.
Gozney
Gozney Roccbox for $499: When Adrienne So first reviewed the dual-fuel Gozney Roccbox, she praised the fast recovery time that has made the Roccbox popular among pizza pop-up chefs, allowing her to make 10 pies in less than 30 minutes when cooking pizza with propane. That said, few home pizza makers need such throughput, and the 44-pound device is heavier than other competitors. The optional woodbox was oppressively difficult to use, for those who want the ability to cook with fire. But the Gozney’s price, previously among the most expensive entrants, now seems downright reasonable. And Matthew Korfhage’s experience using the default propane option has been good, with terrific temperature stability.
Ooni Karu, First Edition for $349: Ooni is still selling the previous generation oven of WIRED’s top pick, the Karu 2, for about $100 less. Like other Ooni pizza ovens, OG Karu is an excellent oven—light, portable, and easy to clean—and WIRED reviewer Adrienne So couldn’t stop using the thing after first testing it. Nonetheless the newer Karu 2 heats more evenly, and holds more fuel than the first-generation oven.
Ooni Koda 12 for $399: The original Ooni Koda 12 is a mere 21 pounds, making it the most light and portable Koda. Its thin, powder-coated steel shell insulates well enough that it remains cool to the touch, even when the fire is burning. Just slide in the baking stone, screw on the propane tank, and you’re ready to go. The door fits 12-inch pizza peels and 10-inch cast-iron skillets. However, you should not store it outside.
Photograph: Breville
Breville Pizzaiolo for $800: The Breville Pizzaiolo was our prior top-pick electric pizza oven, and like a lot of Breville devices it offers beauteous ease of use and admirable technological sophistication, with three separate heating elements and two sensors that make sure each part of your pie is perfectly cooked. Where the first-generation Ooni Volt edged it out was with better insulation, a higher max temperature, and more versatility for cooking other things besides pizza. Note, however, that the Volt will soon be fully phased out for the second-generation Volt 2, which follows Breville’s lead in moving toward greater automation.
Cuisinart 3-in-1 Propel Pizza Oven and Grill for $600: This Cuisinart Propel 3-in-1 offers an ingenious design. It’s a four-burner stand-up grill and griddle that’s perfectly good for burgers or pancakes—but with a pizza stone and mount, and a domed pizza lid. A smoked-glass door and temperature gauge lets you monitor your pie and turn your pizza without losing all the heat, while the side griddle means you can even cook toppings or sauces on the same device, without having to wander inside and outside. The extra workspace offered by the side tables is likewise truly welcome. But there are trade-offs to this versatility. You can heat your stone above 900 degrees Fahrenheit without trouble, but you won’t get reliable ambient baking temps above 750. And so there’s a bit of a learning curve. You’ll want to turn your middle burners down but leave the side burners on, to cook something between a New York pie and a Neapolitan. The build’s also a little clattery, and the poorly made burner knobs have an irritating habit of slipping on their pegs. This last flaw knocked this oven down to our honorable mentions, despite the Propel’s cleverness and versatility.
Photograph: Adrienne So
Ninja Wood-Fired Oven for $300: If you’re looking for a remarkably sturdy and versatile outdoor oven, this is a pretty good pick with a top temperature of 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The door is a little sticky, which makes baking pizza at high heat a little tricky, but if you want one device that can do everything from smoking a pork shoulder to making muffins to bake a pizza pie, this is your pick.
The Piezano for $100: This TikTok-popular oven is affordable, small, and convenient. It looks a little like a waffle iron, and comes with handy double paddles for easier placement. Astonishingly, its claims of heating the top and bottom elements to 800 degrees Fahrenheit are accurate, and it takes about 15 minutes, which allows for short cook times. But note the heating element at the top doesn’t cover the whole surface area, so you have to rotate your pies pretty frequently. Also, opening the top like a waffle maker means that it doesn’t retain heat very well. It dropped by 100 to 200 degrees between pies and requires a bit of recovery time.
Also Tested
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Current Backyard Model P for $699: No less a TV food personage than Alton Brown has signed on as an endorser of this 1,750-watt electric indoor/outdoor pizza oven, which will heat to 850 degrees Fahrenheit using a standard power outlet. Heat is relatively even across the oven, and it’ll get up to top temp in around 30 minutes. But cook settings are constrained to a few preset levels (New-York style, thin crust, Neapolitan, frozen), whose temps and cooking times can be a bit fussy to fiddle with. The app and on-device controls tend to offer more quirks than functionality. Display temp and actual temp don’t always match, and its top thermal elements turn on and off like the lights in a David Lynch movie, according to what the company calls a proprietary algorithm. Still, you can make a great pizza on this thing, and you can make it indoors. Current says it plans to add more functions and cooking modes in future updates, and we’ll keep testing. But it feels less than fully baked at the moment, especially at its price.
Pizzacraft Pizzaque for $130: This oven is adorable and affordable, and you can stand it in your driveway and cook a good pizza while sitting in your camp chair. However, it just doesn’t get as hot or cook as evenly as a better-insulated oven does.
The Best Accessories
Some pizza ovens provide you with proprietary accessories to set you on your pizza path. But we’ve also found a few extras to be helpful along the way:
A handheld infrared thermometer for $11: Even if the oven has a built-in thermometer, a handheld infrared thermometer is a great way to check the temperature on different areas of the pizza stone. It’s also important to make sure the stone has time to reheat after each pizza. For pizza purposes, this affordable one should be accurate enough to suit your needs.
A wooden pizza peel for $34: If you own multiple peels, it’s quick and easy to prep one pizza while another is baking. WIRED reviewers Adrienne So and Matthew Korfhage each own several peels, including a useful small turning peel. But for launching, the dough is much less likely to stick on a wooden peel, especially if you first sprinkle on some semolina or flour.
A cast-iron skillet for $25: You can also use a cast-iron pan in your pizza oven to sear steaks or pan-roast broccoli. Lodge’s pans work just as well as much more expensive options.
Heat-resistant gloves for $20: That cast iron gets extremely hot, so you’ll also need a good pair of mitts. (Even these won’t protect your hands for long, so you’ll need a place near the oven to set the pan down.)
Fire starters for $20: If you’ve ever been intimidated by the idea of cooking with wood, don’t be! These fire starters make it quick and simple. Just light the end with a match, drop it in the fuel tray, and line up a few oak sticks on top. Be sure to keep your wood dry if you don’t want to create a smoke stack in your backyard.
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The most immediately striking difference is that Hyperkin’s product swaps the typical Xbox approach of asymmetric thumbsticks for the PlayStation’s horizontal layout. It also separates the D-pad (it’s one piece inside the pad, but splits its cardinal directions so each appears to be its own button), while the ABXY face buttons are spaced slightly further apart. Where the DualSense’s touchpad would sit, we have the Xbox home, menu, view, and share buttons, all blended in rather smartly. An LED ring around the home button just about echoes the lights running the periphery of the DualSense’s touchpad, although it’s really more of an inversion of the regular Xbox controller, where the home button itself lights up.
The Competitor’s thumbsticks come equipped with thumbcaps that mirror the PS5’s, an outer ring with a convex central point, but a pair of Xbox-standard concave caps are included. These easily pop on and off, and can be mixed and matched, if you were so (strangely) inclined.
There are two areas where this departs from both the standard Xbox and PlayStation controllers in terms of inputs. The first is the presence of two programmable rear buttons, M1 and M2. By default, these duplicate the input of the A and B buttons, but holding down the Mode button between them lets you remap them. There are also physical button locks to prevent their use entirely. The other is that while the Competitor boasts a 3.5-mm headphone jack like Microsoft’s official pad, it adds a built-in audio mute button, hidden in the black between the thumbsticks—a nice little upgrade.
Oddly Familiar
In use, the Competitor feels … well, a lot like a PS5 pad. The slightly wider grip fits in the hand comfortably, all inputs are accessible, and those symmetrical thumbsticks sit nicely in reach for all but the smallest hands. A microtextured underside provides a solid grip that, when coupled with its 232-gram weight, makes the Competitor feel particularly suited to longer play periods. It’s all very familiar if you’re already a multiformat gamer, to the extent that it sometimes slightly threw my muscle memory off, reaching a thumb out to do a PlayStation touchpad function and finding only the Xbox system buttons.
Photograph: Matt Kamen
When US president Donald Trump launched his own meme cryptocurrency on January 17, days before his return to the White House, I was halfway up a Swiss alp, attending a crypto conference in the town of St. Moritz.
Memecoins, which typically have no purpose beyond financial speculation, were having a moment. The previous year, millions of new memecoins had flooded the market; a few, like Fartcoin, had rocketed to billion-dollar valuations. Pump.Fun, a platform for launching and trading memecoins, had become one of the fastest-growing crypto launchpad businesses ever. Now, the soon-to-be president was getting in on the act.
Over lunch on the second day of the conference, beneath the ornate stucco ceiling and golden chandeliers of the venue’s dining hall, I located a table designated for a conversation about memecoins. Whereas other tables were half full, the memecoin workshop was oversubscribed; latecomers pulled up chairs to create two full rows.
The discussion was led by Nagendra Bharatula, founder of investment firm G-20 Group. Bharatula had recently coauthored a paper arguing that memecoins, despite their juvenile spirit, had a place in professional investors’ portfolios. In the six months prior, a basket of 25 “bluechip memecoins”—an oxymoron if ever there was one—had outperformed bitcoin by 150 percent, he pointed out. Some of the attendees murmured their approval.
Since then, the shine has come off the memecoin market. The paper value of Trump’s coin, which climbed to a peak of $14 billion two days after its launch, has cratered to roughly $1 billion. Hundreds of thousands of small investors lost their shirts. Pump.Fun’s daily revenue, a proxy for the overall appetite for memecoin trading, is barely more than a tenth of what it was in January. The memecoin gold rush has spawned a raft of litigation.
Next up: the stablecoin. If memecoins are symbolic of reckless abandon and unflinching profiteering in cryptoland, stablecoins are a symbol of the industry’s search for purpose and respectability. Designed to hold a steady $1 valuation, stablecoins are pitched by proponents as a faster and cheaper way to make everyday payments and international money transfers.
In a year in which the US has declared itself open for crypto business, where previously crypto firms feared regulatory backlash under the Biden administration, stablecoins have supplanted memecoins as the coin à la mode—and punctured the mainstream.
Though stablecoins have been around since 2014, they have predominantly been used by crypto traders as a safe harbor during bouts of market volatility, not by regular people. The concept has also faced resistance from regulators skeptical of a new form of money; Diem, a stablecoin venture incubated at Meta, famously shuttered in 2022 in the face of broad-based opposition.
Leveraging meal kit coupons is the extreme couponing of our times—a capitalism hack-a-thon right up there with trial yoga classes and attempting to cancel your Adobe subscription. Meal kits like HelloFresh have always been a better deal than they get credit for, even at full price: It’s actually hard to recreate meal kit meals for less than you can get the recipes delivered to your home. But it’s especially worth it when you can find a HelloFresh coupon, promo code, or discount at more than half off.
I’ll admit I wasn’t that sold on HelloFresh when I first tried it most of a decade ago. It was useful, it got me out of my staid routines, but I wasn’t impressed with the selection. It felt a little basic. But lately? Honestly, it’s kinda cosmopolitan these days, after expanding to a dozen countries and absorbing the supply networks from multiple other meal plans. When I last tested the HelloFresh meal kit (7/10, WIRED Recommends), I was surprised to find myself cooking credible home renditions of ramen, ponzu-plum beef stir fry, and Southwest-accented pork roasts. And when I’m able to pick up a HelloFresh discount code, it’s generally less than I’d spend on groceries anyway. So it’s a good moment to try out a lifestyle where the food comes in the mail.
Get 50% Off and up to 10 Free Meals as a New HelloFresh Customer
Right now, new and returning customers can take advantage of a HelloFresh discount code offering 50% off your first meal kit box plus a free item each week. Enter your email as part of the signup process, and you’ll be auto-subscribed to an email with even more offers for both new and existing customers. Plus, new customers can get up to 55% off and extra free breakfasts, desserts, and other items with other secret discounts.
HelloFresh Student and Discount: 55% Off, Free Shipping, Plus Extra 15% Off Education Discounts Available via UNiDAYS
HelloFresh meal kits are pretty amenable to dorm life when ordering the ready-to-eat meals—or just saving time during grad school instead of ordering pizza, by letting the Internet do your shopping and meal planning. But student budgets tend to be tight, of course. And so there are steeply discounted HelloFresh coupon codes specifically for students. Follow the link here for a HelloFresh education promo code offering 55% off your first box, free shipping, and a continuing discount of 15% off for the first year.
Discounts also apply to teachers who’ve never tried HelloFresh. Educators and school employees can get up to 12 free meals spread out across 3 boxes, plus free shipping. Click here for the HelloFresh promo code, or go here for more information about educator discounts.
Note that the student and educator discounts don’t combine with any other HelloFresh discounts or promotions.
Special Hero Discount for Military, Veterans, and Healthcare Workers
Military discounts are a long tradition in America. HelloFresh also offers hero discount programs for first responders, health professionals, and military personnel. Heroes also get excellent discounts that include 55% off the first order, free shipping, and 15% off for the first year of HelloFresh delivery boxes.
This program is open to nurses, hospital employees, EMTs, active military, veterans, and first responders. First responders include law enforcement, 911 dispatch, and firefighters. Click here to see if you’re eligible, or follow this link for more information about HelloFresh hero discounts.
Note that the hero discounts don’t combine with any other HelloFresh promo codes.
Give $40, Get $10 With the HelloFresh Referral Program
Already a HelloFresh subscriber? You’re still eligible for discounts if you pass along subscription information to your friends. Here’s how: Send your friends a $40 discount for their own affordable meal kits. Once they sign up using your HelloFresh referral code, you’ll also get a $10 credit on your next delivery.
These discounts stack. So if you sign up multiple friends with your referral code, you get multiple $10 discounts. Check out the HelloFresh meal kit referral program here.
Take Advantage of HelloFresh Come Back Offers
Some of these discounts are only available to new HelloFresh customers. But there’s a hack to getting discounts anyway. After you pause or cancel your subscription, check your inbox after the next few days or weeks. Often, you’ll get HelloFresh coupon codes for discounts.
Typical HelloFresh “come-back” offers after a canceled subscription include: $100 to $180 off (spread out over several meal boxes), free shipping on the first box (after re-subscribing), free items such as dessert, breakfast, or an extra protein per meal, or a free meal box is offered after a break. Typical retention offers, for when customers try to cancel, include: 40% off the next box, if you decide not to cancel, or 25% off the next two meal kits. None of this is failsafe, of course, offers vary for each customer. But as with magazine subscriptions, sometimes canceling, or trying to cancel, will lead to a good discount offer from a company eager to keep your business.
When to Save the Most on HelloFresh Subscriptions
HelloFresh almost always has some sort of deal going, whether to bring in new customers with an especially choice HelloFresh coupon, or bring back previous customers with HelloFresh discount codes and retention offers. But summer tends to be one of the times they offer the steepest discounts, including 10 free meals across several boxes, complimentary appetizers, free ready-made items, or free shipping on select boxes.
The other big times for HelloFresh coupon codes are around Black Friday and the end of the year. HelloFresh often launches limited-edition holiday meal boxes and themed meal kits, not to mention discounts for returning customers looking to cook more at home as part of New Year’s resolutions.
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