Ooni replaced our favorite pizza oven – it was $280 cheaper than it should be

It's no secret that Ooni dominates the pizza oven market. I've been trying to find something to replace the Ooni Karu 16 as our favorite pizza oven for years - half the time my job feels like I'm advertising for them rather than reviewing.

The good news is that the Ooni Karu 16 has been replaced at the top of my guide to the best pizza ovens. The kicker? It's been replaced with a different Ooni. The company recently launched the Ooni Karu 2 Pro, and when I tried it the other week on seven different pizzas, I knew it had to go in at number #1.

This means that the original flagship oven has been kicked down the pecking order, but that also meant a huge Black Friday discount. Because the original Ooni has been supplanted, it became the cheapest I've ever seen it, and $280 cheaper than it was in the summer. It was such a good deal that it sold out on Ooni's own site, and then on Best Buy, and then on Huckberry. I'm not surprised - it was top of our guide to the best pizza ovens for a reason.

What's the deal?

Ooni Karu 16: was $649 now $519.20 at huckberry.com

We used to think the Ooni Karu 16 was the best pizza oven in the world, but Ooni recently announced its successor, the Ooni Karu 2 Pro. This meant that the original was discounted, a huge saving on an incredible pizza oven. But it's an even better deal than it looks because the MSRP on this oven briefly dropped from $799 to $649 - it has since returned. That means it was more like a $280 discount from its price in the summer.

There's more detail in our Ooni Karu 16 review.

View Deal

What's so good about this oven?

For years we thought this was the best pizza oven in the world. It can cook with gas for ease and convenience and wood for unbeatable smokiness. It can cook a crisp pizza crust in just over a minute, making for perfect pizza.

Unlike most pizza ovens on the market at the time, the Ooni Karu 16 had a door, and not just that, a door with a window. It seems like an obvious feature, but it sets the oven above many others because it means that the air retains a little moisture while the rolling flame evaporates grease and wetness from the pepperoni and sauce. This also helps the pizza, because the crust is the perfect consistency. Where other pizza ovens leave the pizza wet with sauce, the Karu 16 harmonizes every element into a world-beating pizza.

That's not just a figure of speech - it was the first domestic pizza oven recommended by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Neapolitan pizza.

In short, this was the best oven we had tried. It was faster, easier to use, and tasted better than any oven we'd tested - until the Ooni Karu 2 Pro, available at Ooni and my new pick for the best pizza oven.

What are the drawbacks to this oven?

There are two main drawbacks to this oven: the cooking area and the thermometer.

Firstly, the Karu 16 holds, unsurprisingly, a 16" pizza. But the Karu 2 improves on this capacity by excavating a little space up the back of the oven under the burner. This slightly increases the capacity while maintaining almost the same exterior dimensions. I've done the math and the Karu 2 Pro has more useful cooking space while only increasing its exterior dimensions by 1%. That means more room for cooking, and it's especially useful if you're cooking non-pizza dishes that need skillets or pans.

On top of that, the original Karu has a very basic digital thermometer with a retro digital readout. It's fine, but it just shows the temperature, so you need to learn the right temperatures for different pizzas. The updated thermometer on the Karu 2 Pro - the grandly named 'Digital Thermometer Hub' - has handy color coding to let you know when you reach the top temperature. It also has a probe thermometer, which proved especially helpful when testing roasted chicken thighs.

A smaller improvement is with the door. The door of the new Karu 2 Pro has a bigger window, so you have a better view inside, and it does a slightly better job of retaining moisture.

Are there any other good pizza oven deals?

While the deal on the Karu 16 is the best I've seen this year, there are a couple of other deals worth considering.

Gozney Dome: was $1,999.99 now $1,799.99 at Gozney US

If you're kitting out an outdoor kitchen, this is the oven you need. Both the bone white and olive colorways look much better than the tedious grays and blacks of the usual pizza oven. It makes great pizzas too, but we also found it was best for flame-grilling meat. This is the best deal I've seen on this oven in years, hundreds of dollars cheaper than the last time it was on sale. It's a popular deal, too - the Dome sold out yesterday but it's back in stock today. Yet even with the deal, this is one of the most expensive pizza ovens on the market.

There are more details in our Gozney Dome review.

View Deal

Gozney Dome S1 : was $1,499.99 now $1,199.99 at Gozney US

The S1 is the gas-only version of the iconic original Dome. It can bake pizzas in around a minute, and our tests found that it also excelled at cooking calzone and chicken thighs. The only drawback is that the controls are sensitive - nudging the dial a little can drop the temperature by hundreds of degrees. That said, this is one of the best deals I've seen on Gozney's site, and hundreds of dollars cheaper than I've seen this oven before.

There are more details in our full Gozney Dome S1 review.

View Deal

Don't just take my word for it - there are plenty of pizza ovens out there and it pays off to do your research. There are a lot of Ooni alternatives and I've directly compared Ooni to their biggest rivals, Gozney. There is also a range of indoor pizza ovens to consider.