The Best Air Fryers

This is the basket air fryer to buy if you are buying one. The specifications are the ones that matter: a temperature range of 90–450°F, a 1,725-watt element, and five selectable fan speeds topping out at a claimed 3,600 rpm — which is the difference between browning a tray of wings and drying them out. The basket is square rather than round, which sounds like nothing and means you can lay food in a single layer instead of piling it toward the middle.

The coating is the other reason it's here. Cosori uses a nonstick ceramic on the basket and crisper plate that it states is PFAS-free, which is not yet the default in this category and is the sort of thing you only get to choose at purchase. Both pieces go in the dishwasher. Cosori also rates the machine at under 53 dB at its highest fan speed, which is quieter than most, though that is the manufacturer's own figure and not one we measured.

Nearly 22,000 ratings averaging 4.8 stars is the strongest combination of volume and score of anything in this roundup. The real limit is capacity: 6 quarts is a comfortable dinner for two or three, and if you are regularly cooking a main and a side at once you will be running two batches. That is what the Ninja below is for.

Fifty-dollar air fryers usually fail in one of two ways: they top out around 400°F, or they give you a dial with no numbers on it. This one does neither. It has a digital touchscreen with four presets, and a "Hi-Fry" mode that pushes to 450°F for the last two minutes of a cook — which is exactly when you want the extra heat, since that final blast is what crisps a surface the fan has already dried out.

The shape is the other point. Chefman built this one narrow and deep rather than wide, so 4 quarts of capacity fits into a small footprint. That is a real trade — a deep basket encourages stacking, and stacked food steams — but it is the right trade for a small kitchen, a dorm, or a counter that is already full. The basket is nonstick and dishwasher safe.

The caveat is honest: 4 quarts is one or two people, and at 3,800 ratings the review history is a fraction of the Cosori's. If the counter space exists, the extra forty dollars for the TurboBlaze buys a bigger, better-shaped basket and ten times the owner feedback. This is the pick when it doesn't.

The single-basket problem is scheduling. Chicken wants 400°F for twenty minutes, broccoli wants 375°F for ten, and one basket means one of them waits and goes cold. The DualZone's answer is not a divider — it is two separate 4-quart chambers, each with its own heating element and its own fan, in one housing.

Two features use that. Smart Finish runs both zones on different programs and staggers them so they end together. Match Cook copies one zone's settings to the other, which is what you want when you are just cooking eight quarts of the same thing — Ninja rates the combined capacity at up to 4 pounds of fries. There are six functions in total: air fry, air broil, roast, bake, reheat and dehydrate. Both baskets are dishwasher safe.

The cost is physical. This is a large appliance, and neither individual zone is bigger than the Chefman's basket, so a single large item still doesn't fit. If you cook one thing at a time, you are paying an extra $110 over the Cosori for a second chamber you won't use. Buy it because you cook mains and sides together, not because 8 quarts sounds bigger than 6.

A basket makes you shake things. A flat rack doesn't, and for anything that wants to stay in one piece — salmon, a tray of roasted vegetables, reheated pizza — an oven-shaped air fryer is simply the better tool. This one is 1,800 watts across eight functions: air fry, air roast, air broil, bake, bagel, toast, dehydrate and keep warm.

Capacity is the argument for it. Ninja states it fits a 13-inch pizza, nine slices of toast, or six chicken breasts, and claims 45% more usable pan area than the Cuisinart TOA-60 and TOA-65. Its more unusual feature is the hinge: the whole oven flips up and back to stand vertically against the wall, which Ninja says cuts its counter footprint by half. On a small counter that is the difference between owning one and not.

Two honest limits. Ninja's "up to 60% faster than a traditional oven" is a manufacturer claim, not a tested result, and flat-rack machines generally brown less aggressively than a tight basket with a fast fan behind it. If crisp fries are the main reason you want an air fryer, the Cosori does that better for less money.

This is the one that stops being an air fryer and starts being an oven. The interior measures 16 by 13.5 by 7 inches, which Breville rates for nine slices of bread, a 14-pound turkey, or a 5-quart Dutch oven for slow cooking. There are thirteen functions, including proof, pizza, cookies and slow cook alongside the air fry setting.

The mechanism worth paying for is Element iQ: five quartz elements that the machine powers independently depending on the function, rather than one top and one bottom element switching on together. Paired with a two-speed convection fan — the "super" setting is what the air fry mode uses — that is genuinely more control over where the heat comes from than any basket fryer offers. Breville states super convection reduces cooking time by up to 30%. It ships with a 13-inch pizza pan, two oven racks, a broil rack with an enamel roasting pan, and a mesh basket for air frying and dehydrating.

The 4.5 average across 13,000 ratings is the lowest score here, and for a $400 appliance that is worth taking seriously rather than explaining away. It is also big — this replaces a toaster oven and a stretch of counter, not a small appliance. Buy it if you want a second oven that air fries. If you want an air fryer, the Cosori does that job for a quarter of the price.