Best Air Fryers

Cosori TurboBlaze sits at #1 in the S tier of our consolidated board, ranked across independent research runs over 374 cited reviews, videos and discussions. Outstanding value with a solid service record on this model. Held out of the top two only by the brand's recall history.

Instant Vortex Plus (6-quart) ranks #2 (A tier). Superb, mature product with unmatched parts availability. Instant Brands' corporate turmoil knocks it down a slot on support risk.

Our research places Ninja Double Stack, Chefman TurboFry Touch 8-Quart, Dreo ChefMaker Combi Fryer, Dash Tasti-Crisp DCAF260, Russell Hobbs SatisFry Dual Basket in the bottom tiers (D/F). Ninja Double Stack: A compromised design from a good brand. Uneven lower-basket cooking with no reliability upside. Buy the DZ401 instead.

For four people, choose a basket of 8 quarts or more, or a dual-basket model of 9 to 10 quarts. A single 4-quart basket feeds one or two people and needs batches for a family. On our board the Ninja Foodi DualZone DZ401 and the Ninja Foodi DZ550 cover family meals, and the Instant Vortex Mini is the right pick for a small kitchen.

A dual-basket air fryer is better only if you cook two foods at once, at different temperatures or times. For one dish at a time, a good single basket cooks the same food just as well with fewer moving parts. Our board ranks the Ninja Foodi DualZone DZ401 as the proven dual-basket choice and the Ninja Air Fryer Pro 4-in-1 as the safest single-basket buy. The stacked Ninja Double Stack is the one dual-basket design to skip, because its lower basket cooks less evenly.

Buy a basket air fryer if you want the fastest, crispiest results and the easiest cleanup. Buy an air fryer toaster oven if you also want to toast, bake and roast on a tray and can give it more counter space. On our board the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is the best built machine of either type, and it costs about three times a basket fryer.

Ninja, Cosori and Breville have the strongest reliability records on our board. Ninja's dual-basket hinges, fans and controls have years of field data, the Cosori TurboBlaze has a solid service history, and Breville ovens routinely run for five years or more. Philips scores well in brand reliability studies but its machines cook a step behind. Chefman and Dreo units are where complaints about early fan and element failures cluster.

An air fryer cooks with hot air and a fan, the same way a convection oven does, so the cooking itself adds nothing to the food. The question is really about the nonstick coating on the basket. An intact coating is considered safe at air fryer temperatures, and a basket that flakes should be replaced rather than used. If you want no coating at all, the Ninja Crispi on our board cooks in glass vessels.

Air frying uses a spoonful of oil or none where deep frying uses a cupful, so the same dish carries less fat and fewer calories. The food you put in still decides whether the meal is healthy. There is no evidence that air frying causes cancer. Like any high-heat method it can form acrylamide in starchy foods cooked until dark, so cook fries and potatoes to golden rather than brown.

Both cook with a fan that moves hot air. An air fryer is a small, sealed chamber with the fan close to the food, so it heats faster and crisps harder than a full-size convection oven. A convection oven holds more food and bakes more evenly. If your oven already has a convection setting, an air fryer adds speed and crispness, not a new way of cooking.

Expect three to five years from a mainstream basket fryer and longer from a well-built one. On our board the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro routinely runs past five years, and the Cosori TurboBlaze and the Ninja basket lines have the longest service records. Replace a fryer when the heater weakens, the fan gets loud, or the basket coating flakes. Feature-heavy and app-dependent models fail sooner, which is why the Dreo ChefMaker sits in F tier.

Yes, for small meals. An air fryer draws less power than an oven element and runs for less time, because it preheats in minutes and cooks faster. For a large roast or a full tray of food, the oven is the better use of energy, because it cooks everything in one batch.

Avoid models whose features depend on an app, because the app loses support before the hardware wears out. Avoid stacked-basket designs, which trade even cooking for counter width. Avoid very low-wattage budget units with tiny baskets, which cook slowly and unevenly. On our board those three mistakes are the Dreo ChefMaker, the Ninja Double Stack and the Dash Tasti-Crisp.