The Best Fire Pits To Carry You Into Fall
- Aug 2
- 3 min read
The right fire pit will bring you together with friends and family without leaving you with smoke in your eyes and lungs. Gear Lab tested 17 of the best fire pits from Solo Stove, East Oak, Cuisinart, and more to find the best models.
Gear Lab conducted side-by-side testing of each fire pit to ensure the most thorough and reliable comparisons. To determine the overall score, they used five key metrics, each weighted by its importance and relevance. Heat output ranks as the most critical factor. Smoke control also carries significant weight, since excessive smoke can quickly turn a relaxing evening into an uncomfortable experience. Here's what they found:
For patios and groups, the Solo Stove Yukon 2.0 offers a nearly smoke-free night around the fire. Like the Bonfire 2.0, the Yukon delivers a great fire pit experience thanks to Solos Stove's thoughtfully designed 360-degree airflow.
Our testers emphasized that “it burns clean and requires minimal work to ignite.” Tending the fire was minimal, and the heat output was consistently hot from start to finish. Smoke was minimal, present only during ignition and extinction, as expected. The larger size can accommodate logs up to twenty-two inches, which helped produce a strong fire that we could still feel from over six feet away.
The GVDV Smokeless takes a totally different approach to smokeless: instead of a double-wall design, it relies on perforated sides. You can see and feel the fire better than in any other fire pit in the lineup. It is not as quiet or smokeless as competitors, but if you don't overload it with wood, we rarely encounter excess smoke.
It has multiple pieces that allow it to stack on itself, making it one of the most easily packable and transportable fire pits in this review. In spite of its small size, it is quite wide and deep, which allows you to use longer logs while keeping the wood under the rim: key to keeping any fire smokeless. It also includes a decently durable carry case for easy transport if you want to take it to a friend's house or on a camping trip.
The Solo Stove Bonfire 2.0 ensures a low-smoke, clean burn. “The double-walled stainless steel construction provides a more robust platform than its aluminum counterparts, and we noticed its ability to withstand the elements longer,” says our lead reviewer. Weighing 21 pounds, it's portable and delivers above-average heat for its size, though the Solo Stove Yukon 2.0 and Tiki Brand Reunion Smokeless produce more. “It produces clean and efficient flames, meaning less mess to deal with, and results in a longer 60-minute burn time in our tests,” notes our lead tester. Compared to the Original Solo Stove, the 2.0's removable ash pan is the main upgrade, not justifying replacement. T
For those wanting to skip the smoke, logs, and ash, the Outland Living Mega is the ultimate shortcut. We rely on it at home and when camping under wood-fire bans, but it truly shines as a portable party starter; as our tester noted, it makes you “the friend who can easily bring the ambiance” to any gathering.
While its 58,000 BTU output provides solid warmth, it won't match the raw radiant heat of a wood-burning powerhouse like the Solo Stove Yukon 2.0. However, the adjustable flame dial, zero-mess operation, and the ability to bypass fire restrictions are fantastic trade-offs. The steel construction is surprisingly portable, and the best part is the cooldown: while a wood pit stays hot for hours, this unit is safe to pack away just 30–60 minutes after you kill the flame. It may lack the crackle of a real log fire, but our kids still find roasting marshmallows over it just as much fun.
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