The best pizza ovens for homemade margheritas in 90 seconds

Score: 93/100

Our joint winner's thoughtful design means it’s easy to set up and ignite, while pulling the pizza in and out of the oven is also straightforward. It reached the lower end of its optimum heat range in 14 minutes and peaked at an impressive 450 degrees. The flame also moves over the roof of the pizza oven, which provides the perfect cooking conditions for delicious pizzas.

Ours cooked in an average of one minute 41 seconds, with well-raised crusts featuring appetising spots of charring and mouth-watering melted cheese. This oven is also designed to be portable, making it a great option if you’ll need to move it around the garden.

Score: 93/100

Ooni’s electric pizza oven didn’t disappoint. It can be used in the garden during the summer and indoors during the colder months (or whenever it inevitably rains on your pizza parade). Aside from its 20-minute heat up time, it has speed on its side, too. It arrives ready to plug in and use with no assembly required, and our pizzas cooked quickly. In fact, our tasty pepperoni pizza took just over a minute and a half to bake, and it had a Neapolitan-style light, airy crust.

This Ooni is compact enough to fit on a table or kitchen counter, but if you are planning on moving it, note that it takes a while to cool down. You’ll also need to buy accessories separately. It comes with clear instructions, though, and is easy to clean. A versatile buy.

Score: 93/100

Nobody wants their pizza served with burnt crusts and sloppy undercooked centres, which is exactly why this cleverly designed oven is such a delight. It has a rotating pizza stone, so less manual pizza turning is required, and the evenly cooked and nicely charred results could rival an Italian restaurant. Not to mention, it takes just under 12 minutes to heat up, our pizzas cooked in under two minutes on average, and it can even accommodate 16-inch pizzas – perfect for garden gatherings.

However, there aren’t any accessories included, so you will need to invest in a peel (the tool used to place your dough in the oven). The ignition also had a habit of clicking when it wasn’t in use, so we took the battery out when we weren’t cooking. At over 33kg, it’s a heavy option, but if you’ve got a permanent spot for it, it’s ideal for easy cooking.

Score: 91/100

With a 24-inch cooking area, this is Ooni’s largest pizza oven with room to cook two 12-inch pizzas, or three 10-inch ones, at once. It’s more advanced than the original Koda below too – there’s a built-in digital screen that gives you the real-time temperature and lets you control its two gas burners independently (also new) to create separate cooking zones. You just need to remember to set both knobs to the same position if you’re after even results.

Another unique addition is the ability to set timers, check the oven temperature and receive cooking notifications from your phone, via the Ooni app – so you can entertain without interruption during the 30-minute pre-heat time.

The results didn't disappoint either. In under a minute and 40 seconds, testers were treated to three beautifully cooked pizzas, each with a light base, crunchy crust, and golden cheese, with the oven's temperature reaching 500 degrees on test.

Score: 90/100

Ooni is the brand that usually springs to mind when you think of a pizza oven, and it has several high-scoring models on the list. We found the set-up of the gas-powered Koda 12 was seamless, with easy-to-follow instructions both in the box and online. Its compact, lightweight design is ideal for moving around too, making it easy to store.

Lighting it takes a little bit of practice, but once fired up, it reached 380 degrees in just over 11 minutes and cooked our pizza in an average of one and a half minutes. The flames rolled across the roof, providing even coverage, and resulted in excellent pizzas, with airy and charred crusts.

The entrance is shallow so moving the pizza around can be tricky – no accessories or pizza peel are included either – but it has a great depth that allows you to control your cooking by moving the pizza from hot to cooler spots.

Score: 90/100

The Karu, which is one of the newer offerings from Ooni, also impressed. It’s bigger than the Koda 12 and has the option to use gas or wood fuel. Assembly is fairly involved, and it is heavy. Most accessories needed aren’t provided either, including the gas converter. That said, its clever design offers ample cooking control – vents and a chimney let you adjust the air flow and a door helps lock in heat. There’s also plenty of room for rotating your pizzas.

With gas, it didn’t reach the advertised 500 degrees, and took just over 20 minutes to heat up. But cooking time was rapid – pizzas were ready in just under one and a half minutes on average. They were also outstanding quality, only dropping two marks on test. Plus, we found it a doddle to clean. The Ooni app has plenty of guidance on cooking pizzas, too.

Score: 90/100

If your garden is small, then this pizza oven is a savvy buy – while it’s compact, it still produces a delicious pizza. Plus, it comes with a rain cover so you can leave it in-situ. Our testers found it easy to ignite and it heated up in a quick ten minutes. But as it doesn’t have a door to lock in the heat, it’s more exposed to the elements, so it does cook more slowly – taking about three minutes per pizza on test.

The pepperoni pizza was its best dish with even browning across the toppings and the perfect soft-inside-yet-crunchy-outside crust. Our margherita was less evenly charred but the cheese melted well.

It ticks our practicality boxes too. The pizza stone is easy to fit and remove, the external temperature gauge was accurate and its exterior cooled down quickly. It’s the perfect entry-level pizza oven.

Score: 89/100

This is another compact yet efficient pizza oven that impressed our experts with its easy (and cheesy) cooking skills. Both our margherita and pepperoni pizzas had crispy crusts and soft centres, and the oozing mozzarella also had some golden spots. Vegan pizzas were less impressive in comparison, as the toppings weren’t fully cooked through.

Set up was quick and easy, and it took just over 17 minutes to heat up – and that was when we tested it on a cold day. We’d have liked a temperature gauge for an easier way to check when it’s ready for cooking and there weren’t any recipes or tips included. However, with all our triple tested pizza recipes available, that’s hardly an issue.

Score: 87/100

We awarded this pizza oven full marks for ease of use, so invest if simplicity is your top priority. The design is robust and it comes with thorough instructions. It was also quick to set up and start using.

Most ovens we tested took a while to light, but this one ignited immediately and reached its optimum cooking temperature in just 17 minutes. Its flame didn’t roll across the top of the oven consistently, which can impact charring, but our pizzas cooked in one minute 48 seconds and the results were impressive.

You get a great view of your pizzas via the opening too, which helps you decide when they’re ready, but be careful of the legs as they did fold in on themselves easily. Removing and replacing the pizza stone when cleaning was effortless though, and it stores away compactly.

Score: 86/100

This compact pizza oven has folding legs and weighs just 16kg, making it one of the more portable designs from the brand – garden parties and camping trips will never be the same again.

The electric spark ignition lit instantly, and it heated up to almost 450C in 21 minutes – a good temperature for creating Neapolitan-style pizza. A margherita took two minutes to cook (a pepperoni pizza took even less) and had an airy crust with good charring and a soft, well-cooked centre.

Our experts found the narrow mouth made it tricky to turn the pizzas, so some trial and error might be needed to nail the technique. Plus, you need a good pizza peel for the job, which is sold separately.

Score: 86/100

This is an investment buy, and it was the closest to a professional pizza oven on test. It comes with thorough instructions, which is useful as assembly is lengthy and requires multiple pairs of hands. It can stay outdoors permanently but a cover is needed for bad weather while the stand and accessories, including a peel, are sold separately.

There’s an in-built temperature gauge and it comes with two meat probes – it can smoke and cook meats too – but it took nearly 30 minutes to heat up. It can reach a scorching 500 degrees though, and cooked our pizzas on test in a blistering one minute four seconds.

Our tester also liked how easy it was to move pizzas around the ample-sized cooking area and praised the control this oven offered. The resulting food was high quality and once you get the hang of it, you could cook two pizzas at once. One for serious foodies.

Score: 84/100

Ninja has taken everyone’s favourite kitchen appliance and given it an outdoor spin – meet the pizza oven air fryer. This sleek gadget combines four functions in total (pizza, bake, air fry and prove), as well as four dedicated settings for cooking artisan, thick crust, New York-style or deep pan pizzas.

Pre-heating took 20 minutes, and we were prompted to ‘Add Food’ by the display as soon as it had reached temperature. Our pizzas cooked quickly, taking two and a half minutes, and the margherita pizza came out with some nice, golden spots. These were missing from our pepperoni and vegetable pizzas though.

The air fryer and bake functions offer more versatility in the type of food you can cook outside – and we certainly took advantage of this in testing. We used the pre-programmed setting to bake cookies and air fry chips. Our cookies had a soft centre and crisp edges, but our chips were on the soggy side so a few more minutes than advised might be needed to crisp them up properly.

Score: 83/100

Despite being one of the more affordable pizza ovens in our list, this didn’t disappoint in testing. Lighting was straightforward and the oven took 21 minutes to preheat. From there, we could cook three pizzas in quick succession, each taking just under a minute and half.

The pepperoni pizza turned out best with an airy crust, soft centre and well-cooked toppings. Across the board, the cheese lacked a golden finish, and the oven struggled to reach the promised temperature of 500C, instead getting to a maximum of 458C.

A standout feature is the dial, which rotates the pizza stone for you, so your pizzas cook evenly with minimal effort. Even so, we recommend purchasing a pizza peel just for getting the the dough in and out of the oven as the narrow (and hot) opening can make the task tricky. There’s one available on the ProCook website though, so it’s easy to add one to your basket when purchasing.

Score: 83/100

Having a pizza oven that looks as good as it cooks is important when you’re hosting. This stylish model ticks both boxes. It’s also easy to set up and ignite, and it reached its cooking temperature in 17 minutes.

The shallow entrance makes it difficult to move the pizza during cooking, which we found was needed to produce the best results. But we were impressed with the beautifully charred crusts and quality pizzas it produced.

Score: 83/100

Given the unpredictability of the British weather, this indoor pizza oven will appeal if you’re after properly cooked pizza, come rain or shine. You get detailed set-up guidance and cooking tips, and its user-friendly design means you can pop the pizza in and leave it to cook, with no rotating required. We focused on Neapolitan pizzas on test, but its clever technology also allows you to cook New York-style, deep pan, thin and crispy and frozen pizzas.

Like outdoor pizza ovens, it can reach a temperature of 380 degrees in a speedy 16 minutes. The pizzas took longer to cook than in outdoor models, but its average of two minutes 17 seconds is still quicker than a traditional oven.

Our pizza crusts rose well but there were a few spots where it could have benefitted from longer in the oven. It also struggled to melt vegan cheese. Its non-slip feet are sturdy, but the machine takes a while to clean.

Score: 82/100

Gozney’s latest model delivered a real feast. Both our margherita and pepperoni pizzas had crunchy, airy crusts, and the pizzas were covered with golden cheese. Even often tricky vegan pizzas were well cooked – within two minutes testers could tuck in to soft toppings and nicely melted vegan cheese. While the oven is meant to reach 500C, for our testers it didn’t exceed 400 degrees (and its flame wasn’t always the most powerful), but this is still a good temperature for restaurant-quality Neapolitan pizza and achieved some decent charring.

The wide opening and accompanying pizza peel made turning the pizza straightforward. In fact, most elements of this oven were fuss-free and intuitive including set-up, ignition and adjusting the temperature on the digital display (although this was often different to the one we recorded with a temperature gun).

It’s heavy too, so you’ll need another person to help you lift it, but top-quality pizza seems like a worthwhile reward.

Score: 77/100

Doubling up as an indoor pizza oven and air fryer, this is a versatile (and relatively affordable) investment. There’s no assembly needed, so you can start cooking straightaway. You'll have to wait around 23 minutes for it to reach its maximum temperature though – which was 380C in the lab, instead of the advertised 400C. It maintained that well and cooked our fresh pizzas nicely – although, again, two minutes slower than the expected seven-and-a-half-minute cooking time.

The crusts were charred, and our vegetable toppings caramelised in places. We’d have liked more golden cheese though. Perhaps surprisingly, the pizza oven worked incredibly well as an air fryer, producing chips with crispy exteriors and light, fluffy insides. With 20 cooking functions, this will upgrade your pizza nights and help on busy ones too.

Score: 77/100

Elevate your camping menu with this portable pizza oven. Compatible with the Vango Camp Chef Pro 30 Stove (which you have to buy separately), we found it intuitive to use, if initially a little fiddly to set up.

As you’d expect with camping gear, it’s not the quickest we tested, taking just over 20 minutes to heat up and nine minutes to cook a pizza. But while it claims the maximum temperature is 370 degrees, we were impressed to measure 375.

The results are also worth the wait. We were left with crispy bases and perfectly cooked toppings, although it won’t char your crusts. The ideal pizza oven for when you’re away from home.

Score: 77/100

Uniquely designed with burners that form a U-shape around the pizza stone, this oven produced beautiful pizzas. It’s also lightweight, straightforward to set up and easy to ignite. It’s the only pizza oven we tested with legs that lock into place too, making it reliably sturdy.

The flames don’t roll across the top of the oven, so if you’re after charring you’ll need to angle the pizza towards the flames. This would also help ensure the centre cooks at a similar speed to the crusts.

Note, it took over 30 minutes to heat up, so plan ahead if you’re on a tight schedule.