Air fryers are a great option if you often find yourself impatiently waiting for your oven to preheat or wishing your meals, sides, and snacks were crispier. The best models produce evenly cooked, crispy, golden-brown food fast. Many air fryers also offer surprising versatility. Models with a wide range of temperature and fan speed settings can roast, bake, dehydrate, and more. Dual-basket models even let you cook different foods on each side of the air fryer, so you can prepare your main dish and a side simultaneously, adding even more convenience.
We've tested more than 40 air fryers, and you'll find our recommendations for the best ones below. For more options, you can also check out the best small air fryers, the best large-capacity air fryers, or the best air fryers for French fries. The products here are all basket-style air fryers, but you can also see our recommendations for the best toaster oven-style air fryers. If you want more information on how we test or what to look for in an air fryer, stay tuned to the end for more.
Quick Look
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Best Air Fryer
Air Frying8.2Cooking Speed8.8Cooking Capacity8.6See all our test resultsCooking Versatility8.8The best air fryer we've tested is the Ninja Foodi DZ550. It's a 10.1-quart, dual-basket model that can handle anything from solo meals to family-size feasts. Thanks to its roomy baskets, powerful fan, and high maximum power draw, this air fryer produces great-quality air-fried food, resulting in crispy, golden-brown chicken wings, vegetables, and fries. It preheats and cooks quickly, too, so you don't have to wait long for meals and snacks. It's also quite versatile, with a wide range of temperature and fan speed settings, as well as six preset cooking modes. Additionally, it maintains a stable temperature while cooking, so it's easy to follow recipes accurately.
One of this air fryer's main selling points is the ability to use different settings for each basket, so you can prepare a main and side dish simultaneously, and even use Ninja's 'Smart Finish' feature to have them finish cooking at the same time. It's also equipped with a temperature probe that automatically monitors the internal temperature of meats, like steak or a whole chicken. Like most other Ninja air fryers, its crisper trays have a ceramic nonstick coating. This is more difficult to clean by hand compared to conventional non-stick coatings, but it may be a pro if you avoid PTFE materials due to health concerns.
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Best Upper Mid-Range Air Fryer
Air Frying8.0Cooking Speed8.2Cooking Capacity8.2See all our test resultsCooking Versatility9.2If you're intrigued by our top pick, but don't need quite that much capacity, consider the Ninja Foodi DZ071. It's a 7.1-quart model that can serve five to six people and, being from the same product line, it shares many of the same benefits as the Ninja Foodi DZ550. It makes similarly well-cooked air-fried food, with most of each batch being crispy and well-browned, while just a few pieces remain undercooked or wind up burnt. It preheats and cooks quickly, too, delivering very good results a little slower than the DZ550, but still very quickly overall. And thanks to its very low fan and temperature settings, it's even more versatile than our top pick.
Like the recommendation above, this air fryer lets you cook two separate dishes simultaneously. However, its basket is also convertible, so while you can divide it into two sections and use Smart Finish to cook a full meal, you can also remove the divider to cook a single, large dish. Of course, this convertible design means the sections won't be as well insulated as completely separate baskets, so you may notice some heat transfer between them. Like most of Ninja's air fryers, it also features a ceramic crisper tray.
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Best Mid-Range Air Fryer
Air Frying8.0Cooking Speed8.0Cooking Capacity7.7See all our test resultsCooking Versatility9.5The COSORI TurboBlaze is a 6-quart air fryer with enough space in its single basket to serve approximately four people. If you're looking for the best air fryer at a mid-range price point, it's hard to beat. This air fryer makes even better-quality fried food than the Ninja Foodi DZ071, leaving a bit more of each batch evenly-cooked and crispy. It preheats more slowly and takes longer to reheat after adding food to the basket, leading to greater temperature fluctuations, but it cooks a little faster. It's also very versatile, offering a wide range of temperatures, five distinct fan speeds, and even more preset cooking modes than the Ninja models above.
Interestingly, this model's top fan setting overshoots the ideal speed, since air passes over the heating element too quickly to heat up properly. Luckily, unlike most manufacturers, COSORI lists the corresponding fan speed for each setting in the user manual, so experimenting to find the ideal setting for your recipe is relatively simple. Plus, its square basket provides more cooking surface area compared to some options with the same overall capacity, making it easy to spread food out for better results. Its crisper plate has a PTFE nonstick coating, making it very easy to clean after you're finished cooking.
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Best Budget Air Fryer
Air Frying8.1Cooking Speed8.7Cooking Capacity7.3See all our test resultsCooking Versatility8.3If you're looking for the best air fryer at an affordable price, consider the Ninja Pro AF141, a 5.1-quart model that can cook for two to three people. Although its list price is the same as the COSORI TurboBlaze, you can usually find this model for less, under $80 at its best value. It doesn't fry quite as evenly as the previous picks, so you risk having more of each batch over- or under-cooked. Still, it produces good results, leaving most of each batch crispy. It also cooks very fast, making it an excellent option for quick snacks. While it's less versatile than the picks above, with a narrower range of settings, it still offers four functions: Air Fry, Roast, Reheat, and Dehydrate.
Although this air fryer has the smallest capacity among our recommendations, it has a roomier basket than most similar-capacity options, so there's plenty of surface area to arrange food in a single layer for better results. And as the other Ninja picks here, its crisper tray has a ceramic non-stick coating instead of the more common PTFE.
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Best Cheap Air Fryer
Air Frying7.7Cooking Speed8.1Cooking Capacity7.5See all our test resultsCooking Versatility7.4Want an even less expensive air fryer? Check out the Beautiful 6qt Digital, a 5.9-quart model that's big enough to cook for about four people. It makes even better-quality fried food than the Ninja AF141, which is especially impressive considering it's available for less than $70. Of course, the low price does come with trade-offs. It cooks more slowly than the other options listed here, though it still works more quickly than most air fryers. Versatility is also a weak point. While it has a wide range of temperature settings and reaches a pretty low fan speed, its highest fan speed isn't very fast, so it's not the best choice for roasting or making extra-crispy snacks.
While this air fryer isn't quite as roomy as the COSORI TurboBlaze, which has a similar capacity, it comes very close, so there's lots of space to arrange food in a single layer. Like the COSORI, it also has a PTFE crisper plate, making it easy to clean. And unlike most other air fryers, this one comes in various pastel colors, like 'Lavender' and 'Thyme Green' with gold accents, making it a good option if you want an air fryer that matches your kitchen.
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Best Windowed Air Fryer
Air Frying7.8Cooking Speed8.4Cooking Capacity7.6See all our test resultsCooking Versatility7.3If you want to keep a close eye on your food while it cooks, consider the Dreo ChefMaker. This high-end air fryer has a window in its basket and a light inside its 6.4-quart cooking chamber, so you can peek at your recipe's progress without opening the drawer. This air fryer cooks less evenly than the Ninja Foodi DZ550, but it still produces good-quality air-fried food and works very quickly. It doesn't have a very wide range of fan speeds for different cooking methods, but it offers a temperature range wide enough for a variety of recipes.
This model also offers some unique features, including its 'Chef Mode' presets, which use a temperature probe and a water-misting feature to automatically cook cuts of meat, like steak or salmon. It connects to an app that allows you to monitor the cooking process, look up Chef Mode instructions for a variety of foods, and send cooking information to the air fryer, so all you have to do on the machine itself is press the start button. Like the COSORI TurboBlaze, its crisper plate has a PTFE nonstick coating, making cleanup easy.
Notable Mentions
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Ninja Foodi DZ201:
The Ninja Foodi DZ201 is a dual-basket air fryer with a design similar to that of the Ninja Foodi DZ550. It has a smaller 8-quart capacity and doesn't come with a temperature probe. It's not as versatile and doesn't air fry as evenly as the DZ550 or the Ninja Foodi DZ071, but it's a solid, less expensive option.
See our review -
Ninja Speedi SF301:
The Ninja Speedi SF301 is an air fryer that doubles as a multi-cooker. It makes better-quality fried food than the Ninja DZ550, but unfortunately, it's been discontinued. That said, if you can find it, it's an impressive option.
See our review -
Typhur Dome 2:
The Typhur Dome 2 is a 5.7-quart air fryer with tons of surface area in its roomy basket, enough to cook a 12" pizza. It cooks about as evenly as the Ninja DZ071 but takes longer to produce results and offers less versatility.
See our review -
Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL AF181:
The Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL AF181 is a good alternative to the COSORI TurboBlaze. It cooks less evenly, so more of your food with wind up undercooked or burnt, but it also works faster and maintains a more stable temperature throughout the process.
See our review -
Ninja Crispi Pro AS101:
The Ninja Crispi Pro AS101 is a 6-quart air fryer with swappable glass cooking chambers that double as storage. It makes good-quality air-fried food, but cooks much more slowly than the COSORI TurboBlaze.
See our review
Recent Updates
Jan 21, 2026:
We changed this article to list our recommendations by price. We added the Beautiful 6qt Digital as the 'Best Cheap Air Fryer,' removed the Ninja Speedi SF301, as well as the 'Best Air Fryer For French Fries' category, and added the Ninja Speedi SF301, the Typhur Dome 2, the Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL AF181, and the Ninja Crispi Pro AS101 as Notable Mentions. We also edited the text throughout.
Dec 16, 2025:
We verified that our picks are in stock and made small edits for clarity.
Nov 04, 2025:
We've added picks for the Best Large-Capacity, Single-Basket Air Fryer and the Best Air Fryer for French Fries. We also checked to ensure the rest of our picks are still available and made small edits for clarity.
Apr 23, 2025:
We've made minor updates to the text for clarity, but haven't made any changes to our recommendations.
Mar 25, 2025:
We've made minor updates to the text and checked that the products are available.
All Reviews
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the top air fryers for most people. We factor in the price, feedback from our visitors, and availability.
If you'd like to do the work of choosing yourself, here's the list of all air fryer reviews. You can also read more about how we test air fryers or check out our Air Fryer Buying Guide. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no air fryer is perfect, most are good enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you look for them.