Baking Steel v Ooni v Gozney: I tested the three best pizza makers for home in the US

It’s never been easier to make pizza at home. And today’s pizza-making gear is more capable and approachable than you might think.

The price range for at-home pizza gear is as wide as the topping choices. On the simple, affordable end, there is the humble carbon-steel slab that slides into the oven you already own – it’s like a basic cheese pie.

At the other extreme is pure splurge: a hulking hybrid oven that burns propane or wood and becomes the centerpiece of your outdoor cooking setup. Think of it as a pizza topped with Italian white truffles.

Sitting between those extremes is the dedicated electric countertop oven that performs far better than any fancy toaster oven. (Though if you’re looking to reheat leftover pizza in a jiffy, toaster ovens come in handy.)

What’s more, with each category, home pizza gear isn’t a one-trick pony. Pizza steels are fantastic for baking crusty bread. Newer electric ovens let you precisely control temperature, so you can bake cookies, broil veggies or toast a bagel. And modern outdoor pizza ovens can roast a chicken or sear a steak in cast iron as well as they can blister a New York-style pie.

So which gives you the biggest bang for your buck? If you’re new to making pizza, should you start with the basic baking steel or splurge on an oven that does it all for you? To find out, I spent weeks making pies at home to compare and contrast the best gear at every price tier.