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Grill Type 1 of 5

Gas Grill

The most common backyard grill in the US, cooking food directly over an open flame. It's built for fast, everyday direct grilling — think burgers, steaks, and hot dogs, ready in minutes.

Gas grills are about as easy as outdoor cooking gets — hook up a propane tank, turn a knob, and you're cooking. They excel at direct, high-heat searing, and the drippings that vaporize off the flame add a bit of extra flavor along the way.

They struggle with indirect, low-and-slow cooking — a 12-hour brisket just isn't what this cooker is built for. Smoke flavor is milder than charcoal or wood, and overall versatility trails behind other grill types.

Grill Type 2 of 5

Charcoal Grill (Kettle or Kamado)

Delivers classic smoky flavor you can't get from gas. With a two-zone fire setup, it can also handle slower, indirect cooking.

Charcoal brings a rich, authentic smoky flavor, enhanced further with wood chips or chunks. Set up a two-zone fire and it handles both direct searing and indirect cooking, making it one of the more versatile cookers around.

That versatility comes with more hassle — lighting the charcoal, managing where it sits, and adding more mid-cook all take extra effort. It's slower to get going than gas, and sear evenness can lag slightly behind it too.

Grill Type 3 of 5

Pellet Grill

Essentially a smoker with grill capabilities, feeding wood pellets into a burn cup for steady, indirect heat. Think of it as a smoker first, a grill second.

Pellet grills are about as hands-off as outdoor cooking gets — load the hopper, set the temperature dial, and walk away. They shine at low-and-slow smoking and stretch into baking, roasting, and braising too.

The tradeoff is high-heat performance — pellet grills are weak at direct searing compared to gas or a griddle. The smoke flavor is also noticeably lighter than a true offset smoker.

Grill Type 4 of 5

Offset Smoker

A tank-style smoker with the firebox offset from the cooking chamber, built for long, low-temperature cooks. It produces deep bark and rich smoke flavor no other cooker matches.

Pros

Nothing touches an offset for indirect, low-and-slow cooking — the best bark and richest smoke flavor of any cooker here, whether it's hickory, post oak, or fruit wood. Once you've learned to run one, the results are hard to walk away from.

Cons

Offsets aren't built for direct searing, and running one is genuinely labor-intensive — expect to add fresh wood roughly every 45 minutes. There's no built-in temperature control, so you're managing airflow and fire size by hand, making this the steepest learning curve on this list.

Grill Type 5 of 5

Flat Top Griddle

A hot, fast searing surface built for smash burgers, fajitas, hibachi-style meals, and breakfast spreads. It's the opposite of a smoker — all speed, no low-and-slow.

A flat top is a searing machine — outstanding for direct, high-heat cooking and a smash-burger crust that's hard to get any other way. It fires up as easily as a gas grill and handles serious volume, like 20+ pancakes at once.

What it can't do is cook indirect — everything sits in direct contact with hot metal, so there's little to no smoking capability. It doesn't add much inherent flavor on its own, and needs cleaning and reseasoning after every use to keep it from rusting.