The 5 Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens: Wood-Fired, Gas, Propane (2026)

Pizza is Universal. It is America's favorite food—the thin sliver of Venn occupied by both preschoolers and sophisticates. But until recently, the best pizza ovens for home use required compromise or an expensive, backyard-filling obsession. A Neapolitan-style pie asks for a blistering 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Most home ovens are lucky to crest 500, too low even for a New York slice without a good pizza stone to absorb and retain heat.

This has rapidly changed in the past decade since Ooni (then called Uuni) pioneered the modern, affordable backyard pizza oven. Since then, I and fellow reviewers Adrienne So, Martin Cizmar, and Kat Merck have made more than a thousand pizzas in the quest for the best backyard pizza ovens. A decade later, an Ooni remains the top outdoor pizza oven pick for most people. The Ooni Karu 2 ($449) is both attractive and versatile, letting you swap between wood-fired rusticity and the convenience of cooking with gas.

But others have caught up a bit. The All-Clad Gas-Powered Pizza Oven ($800) is an excellent propane oven with an accurate temperature gauge that will rotate your pizza for you to ensure even heat. As of early April, it's available for a steep discount right now if you buy directly from All-Clad. For those who simply must have blistering temperature stability at 950 degrees needed for real Neapolitan pies, the Gozney Dome Gen 2 ($2,300) with a Neapolitan arch ($60) is your best bet.

The 5 Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens

April 2026: I've added the Gozney Dome Gen 2, our top upgrade pick for Neapolitan pizza. We also tested and added the Gozney Arc Lite to our honorable mentions, and the Ooni Volt 2 to our roundup of indoor electric pizza ovens. I have updated prices and descriptions throughout, and added information on new oven models.

• Best Pizza Oven Overall: Ooni Karu 2
• Best Gas Pizza Oven: All-Clad With Rotating Stone
• Best Upgrade Pizza Oven for Neapolitan Pizza: Gozney Dome Gen 2
• Best Big Pizza Oven for Families: Ooni Koda Max
• Best Portable Pizza Oven: Gozney Tread

Best Pizza Oven Overall: Ooni Karu 2

The Karu 2 from Ooni remains the most gorgeous, versatile, portable backyard pizza oven for your money. It's also among the easiest wood-burners to use. The original innovation behind Ooni's ovens is still what has kept them atop this list of the best pizza ovens: They have managed to make a wood-burning backyard pizza oven portable, functional, and kinda lovable—while still also allowing for the convenience of propane cooking.

The Karu 2 is the updated version of Ooni's best-selling multifuel Karu 16, and the new version has kept the original's virtues intact. The Karu 2 is still light and portable (a mere 33.7 pounds), which makes it easy to move around your backyard and assemble. The powder-coated finish over a stainless steel shell manages to concentrate heat without heavy, dense insulation. You can still use either charcoal or wood, or buy an optional gas burner for $120 more.

But the upgrades are important. The fuel tray is 45 percent bigger than the original, allowing fuel sticks beyond Ooni’s proprietary ones. Bigger pieces of wood—like the cherry and pecan my colleague Adrienne So found at a local hardware store—remove the need to stoke flames to maintain heat “like a coal shoveler on a WW II–era steamship,” as she put it. The larger fuel tray heats the pizza stone faster and more evenly, up to 750 degrees within 20 minutes. The temperature varied only a few degrees from edge to edge, a rare achievement among backyard ovens.

Ooni says the material on its glass door helps repel soot and smudge, often endemic to high-heat doors. This claim is hard to verify, except to say that the door remained smudge-free after weeks of testing and baking. Other front-doored pizza ovens I have used cannot boast this. But note that you'll struggle to maintain a stable temperature at the Karu's top advertised temp of 950 degrees while using wood fuel, and will have to switch to propane. If you need a little more space for paella cooks or larger pies, this oven also comes in a 16-inch Karu 2 Pro size.

| Specs | |---| Fuel: Wood or charcoal (propane add-on available) | Dimensions: 30.3 x 28.3 x 16.5 inches | Weight: 34 pounds | Material: Powder-coated stainless steel | Pie size: 12-inch pies |

Best Gas Pizza Oven: All-Clad With Rotating Stone

This propane-powered All-Clad Pizza Oven is the company's first entrant in the pizza world. It's also a contender for the best oven out there—the gas oven upgrade I'd choose if cost were no object. And after entering the market at a much higher price, this beauty has been on offer mostly in the $500 to $800 range these days. At this price, it's the propane-only oven I'd recommend over all others.

The big sell, aside from a generous 16-inch maw that can cook a family-size pie, is a rotating pizza stone that takes a lot of the fuss out of cooking pizza evenly. It heats remarkably quickly—faster than a smaller Gozney Roccbox heated at the same time—and gets quite hot, above 900 degrees if you let it. The temperature gauge comes installed and is reasonably accurate. I have happily used this All-Clad to make New York and Neapolitan-ish pies, seared a handsome rib-eye steak on a lovely Field Co. cast-iron, and charred broccoli and asparagus.

But the thing that really sets this oven apart is that rotating stone, powered by four AA batteries. Press the button, and the pizza stone will rotate at one revolution every 40 seconds or so. In general, this means it's a lot easier to get even pizza bakes without constantly spinning your pie manually. Start the rotation during preheat, and your pizza stone will also heat more evenly. Round pies yield the best results, and you'll need to launch pretty close to the middle of the stone. Otherwise, you may still need to adjust the pizza's positioning mid-cook. My editor had concerns about the durability of the motor that spins the pies (if it breaks, you'd just have a regular pizza oven), but my colleague Martin Cizmar reports that it's still working after wintering outdoors.

The powerful peak heat also means you'll need to adjust the analog dial carefully to get the perfect temp—don't be shy about dialing it down a bit if your pies are burning. Note that you also may want to spring for the oven cover despite its pricey $170 price tag. The black exterior gets grubby-looking over time.

| Specs | |---| Fuel: Gas | Dimensions: 25 x 22 x 14.5 inches | Weight: 46 pounds | Material: Steel | Pie size: 16-inch pies |

Best Upgrade Pizza Oven for Neapolitan Pizza: Gozney Dome Gen 2

The Gozney Dome Gen 2 looks like the backyard pizza oven you'd dream up while trying to imagine the archetypal form of the modern outdoor pizza oven. With a chimney-topped rotunda silhouette and ceramic exterior available in cream or black, it is the apotheosis of backyard chill. Or, as my colleague Kat Merck put it, the Gozney Dome is almost “more lifestyle than appliance,” as represented by founder and tattooed lifestyle avatar Tom Gozney himself in countless YouTube videos.

The Dome is big. It's not portable, practical, or inexpensive. It accepts the romance of wood, or the brute power of propane or natural gas. Its height makes it versatile enough for steaks, fish, or other skillet meals. This pizza oven is designed to be a fixture in your life and backyard, bolstered by an ever-expanding accessory set. And it also more than earns its place