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How to Choose a Pizza Oven | Buying Guide
Pizza ovens are versatile machines that give you crunchy crust and gooey, molten cheese right in your backyard. These units make the perfect companion for kids’ birthday parties, family dinner nights, game day party cuisine, or literally just because. Need more than just pizza to be convinced? The infrared heat of these pizza ovens is excellent for steaks and roasts, while the lower baking temperatures encourage pastries, cobblers, and otherwise fragile desserts. Learn more about what makes these ovens a great addition to any outdoor kitchen.
Pizza Oven Fuel Types: Wood vs. Gas vs. Electric
Pizza ovens come in a few fuel types, and the right one depends on the kind of cook you want to be. Wood and gas are the familiar pair: wood delivers live-fire flavor, gas keeps things simple. Hybrid and electric pizza ovens have earned a spot in the backyard too, and here's how all 4 stack up.
Wood Pizza Ovens
Wood-fired pizza ovens make pizza the way it's been made for centuries, and the results earn the effort. Live fire and blistering heat crisp a crust in a couple of minutes. The trade-off is hands-on work: you'll feed the flame and spin the pie yourself. If you're after authenticity and enjoy the ritual, wood is your fuel.
Gas Pizza Ovens
Gas pizza ovens skip fire management entirely. Turn the dial, let it heat, and you're cooking, with no wood to split and no ash to clean up. You’ll run propane or natural gas, and most ovens hold a steady temperature for predictable results pie after pie. Gas is the easy answer for weeknight dinners and casual pizza nights.
A Quick Word on Hybrid & Pellet Pizza Ovens
Hybrid pizza ovens (also called multi-fuel) run on both gas and wood, so you're not locked into one method. Fire up the burner for a quick weeknight bake, or load wood when you want live-fire flavor for a crowd. That flexibility is the whole appeal: convenience and authenticity in the same oven, on your terms.
Pellet pizza ovens are the less common member of the fuel family, but they're worth a look. Hardwood pellets give you the dry heat and wood-fired character of a live fire with less of the cleanup: you load a hopper instead of splitting logs and shoveling ash. If you want that flavor without tending a fire, pellets split the difference. Our selection here is smaller, so give our pizza experts a call if you're weighing one.
Pizza Oven Configurations
Built-In Pizza Ovens
Of these designs, the first features finished exteriors (usually stainless steel) and can be built into an enclosure or mounted to a cart. The other is a great option for DIY lovers: ready-to-finish pizza ovens that provide the interior shell and necessary internals, then let you customize with the exterior (such as capturing the aesthetic of true Italian brick pizza ovens). Built-in pizza ovens involve a ceramic or stone shell within a brick-constructed enclosure, which often houses a propane tank or a cubby for wood storage. If you plan to make a pizza oven the superstar of your outdoor kitchen, then a built-in pizza oven will be your new best friend.
Countertop Pizza Ovens
Think about that enclosure-friendly, cart-mounted built-in variant, and you’ve got the basics for a countertop pizza oven. These finished pizza ovens are designed to sit atop a flat surface, like a cart or counter, with exteriors to deflect the elements. Now, these are made to vent a lot of heat through open air, so enclosures will wreak some havoc, but some models give you a choice between countertop and built-in installations. Countertop units are fantastic for those who already have their kitchen situation sorted and want to give it extra versatility. Sure, pizza power is great and all, but pizza ovens do way more than that. Steaks! Chops! Roasts! Cakes, pies, and cobblers? You bet. Roasted vegetables, braised lamb, artisanal bread and more are at your fingertips!
Freestanding Pizza Ovens
Freestanding pizza ovens are great for those who want simple cooking capability added to their outdoor space, or limited space for permanent installations. These are finished pizza ovens on a cart. Both the ovens themselves and their carts vary in shapes and sizes for any environment. Mobility is the main advantage as they can be moved around a space to suit your needs. Compared to building an oven into an enclosure, or a large DIY pizza oven, this is the less expensive and wildly easier approach. Freestanding pizza ovens come in all fuel types, including both variants of the wood-burning pizza oven mentioned above.
Portable Pizza Ovens
Portable pizza ovens are the smallest and least expensive of pizza machines everywhere. A smaller cooking chamber makes for very little fuel consumption and an overall compact design that’s perfect for easy storage and portability. The trade-off is the number of pizzas you can churn out at once, since these ovens typically only hold one pie at a time. They are fueled by gas, wood, or pellets and make any outdoor trip with friends and family memorable. Overall, they make a great option for anyone who just wants to bake the occasional pie at home.
What Size Pizza Oven do You Need?
Pizza ovens come in all sizes, but to make things easier we've divided our pizza oven selection into 4 distinct size ranges. Our pizza experts get a lot of questions from customers on the maximum size of pizza that can fit inside an oven, but to compare models we find it helps to imagine how many pizzas of a certain size can fit inside the oven instead of the potential maximum. We use 12-inch pies to help show the difference in size between ovens, but some of our XL models can fit extremely large pies. The only limitation is what you can lift into the oven!
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Which Class of Pizza Ovens is Best for You?
There are many factors at play when deciding on the perfect pizza oven. For more than 20 years, our experts have tested all kinds of pizza ovens. Using their wealth of knowledge, we split our selection into 4 easy-to-understand classifications: Luxury, Premium, Practical, and Entry-Level. All are judged by a combination of quality, performance, and features that lands a pizza oven in its class. See below for a brief overview of what each pizza oven class has to offer.
Luxury Pizza Ovens
- Ideal form and function combine to give you stunning craftsmanship and perfect pizza
- Top-of-the-line materials and lifetime warranties provide years of outdoor cooking
- Refractory cooking domes couple with smart chimneys for masterful heat retention
- Luxury features like interior lights and split glass doors add functionality and charm
Premium Pizza Ovens
- High-level versatility and customizability for your dream backyard pizzeria
- Mixed materials up to commercial-grade stainless steel are backed by solid warranties
- Thick insulation and heavy-gauge materials result in excellent performance
- Fun accessories plus unique features make for an immersive cooking experience
Practical Pizza Ovens
- Budget-friendly ovens made from a variety of materials with shorter warranties
- Can still achieve scorching temperatures despite relatively thin materials and less insulation
- Temperature maintenance is a breeze thanks to easy-to-access, offset fire boxes
- Lack the wide array of features and accessories common in higher classes
Pizza Oven Construction
Most of the pizza ovens you’ll see are assembled from a steel exterior and refractory cement interior. Powder-coated and painted steel are less expensive, but 304 stainless steel is better at holding up against the weather and tends to be more durable. On the interior, some models consist of a single poured cement dome; others are steel bodies with refractory tile floors and some others are steel. DIY and ready-to-finish models skip the exterior (that’s your job!) and are simply an inner shell ready to be outfitted for your kitchen.
Pizza Oven Accessories
To accompany your new oven, you can’t go wrong with the right accessories. Pizza peels will be your go-to for sliding your pies in and out of the oven. Wooden peels help build pizzas, while metal peels handle them around scorching heat. Next on your list should be a pizza cutter. Cutting boards make great backup; cast-iron cookware is awesome for deep dish pizza or more complex oven recipes. Don’t forget to keep your investment protected with a pizza oven cover! If you can’t decide, pizza accessory bundles tie up all the tools you’ll need to maintain order and stock up on incredible home-baked pizza. Looking for more advice? Our 5 Essential Pizza Oven Accessories guide will tell you everything you need to know.
Benefits of an Outdoor Pizza Oven
Better Than Take-out
It’s not delivery, it’s home-cooked pizza! Wood-fired flavors always beat what you get from chain restaurants or the frozen section of the store.
Not Just for Pizza
It may have “pizza” in the name, but these versatile ovens excel at creating delicious bread, desserts, and savory entrees.
Fun for Dinner
Tired of making the same old boring dinners every week? Pizza ovens transform mealtime into fun family experiences where everyone can participate.
Tasty and Nutritious Meals
Create healthy wood-fired meals such as chicken or fish. Even pizza doesn’t have to be unhealthy when made with high-quality, healthier ingredients.
Save Energy Costs
Most models don’t use electricity, and those that do require much less than indoor ovens, which could inflate your power bill when used to cook pizza inside.
Quick and Easy
Thanks to their high-heat output and refractory cooking floors, pizza ovens transform your dough into perfectly puffy crust in a matter of minutes.
If you still have questions about pizza ovens, we can still absolutely help. Our fantastic pizza experts are standing by and waiting for your call! Give them a call at 1-877-743-2269.
