The Weber kettle is ubiquitous at neighborhood cookouts for good reason. It's reasonably priced, well made, and just works. It can be used to sear a steak to perfection, smoke a brisket overnight, and handle several families' worth of burgers and hot dogs in the afternoon. 

There are two versions of the Weber Kettle: Original and Premium. The Premium is $80 more and features a built-in thermometer in the lid, a hinged grill grate, and a fancier ash-removal system. Unless you really like the easier ash-removal system, though, I'd suggest sticking with the Original Kettle and putting the money you save toward a good thermometer system like the Weber Connect Smart Hub. Sizes range from 18 to 26 inches. Weber sent me the 26-incher to test, and it is colossal. I have grilled for 10 people on it and had plenty of room to spare. But if you're cooking for a family of five or fewer, the 18-inch model is perfect. Whichever size you decide on, if you're storing it outdoors with no roof, grab a cover to protect your investment.

★ Runner Up: The PK 300 ($600) is a fantastic grill. It's made of cast aluminum, so it’s a little heavier than the Weber, but it can also be used for ovenlike cooking, much like a Big Green Egg. The main reason Weber wins here, for me, is price. You don't need to spend this much just to get your grill on.

This is by far the hardest reviewing decision I've had to make. The truth is, there are about five grills I could put here, but in the end I went with the Weber Spirit II E-210 for its simplicity, build quality, even cooking temps, and easy-to-adjust burners. It features nice side trays with plenty of space for platters, and hooks to keep tongs and other tools handy. It lacks some niceties, like a side burner, but it does what a good grill should: cook your food well. The porcelain-coated cast iron grill grates are solid, and clean-up is easy with a little soap and water. My favorite feature is the massive turn radius of the burner knobs, which makes it easy to dial in the perfect flame.

★ A Bigger Option: If you're cooking for a crowd and want something larger, I recommend Charbroil's massive 6-Burner Performance Series ($499). It's a great grill for crowds. It also has a 10,000-Btu side burner to heat up your beans while the hot dogs are cooking.

The charcoal vs. gas grill debate will never be settled to either side's satisfaction. (Those of us in the charcoal camp have to live with being right in silence.) But what if you could avoid the debate altogether by having both on the same grill? This is where the head-exploding emoji goes. Charbroil's hybrid grill can switch between gas and charcoal modes. There's also a side burner for heating up your mac and cheese or other sides, making it more of an outdoor kitchen than some of the other options here. Under the hood, this hybrid looks like every gas grill you've seen: bars cover gas pipes to distribute flames, with a cast iron grate on top of that. The results from the gas grilling are as good as any I've tried. 

Here's where your head explodes, though: If you remove the bars and add a tray to cover the gas burners, you've got a charcoal grill. There's only room for a single layer of charcoal, which isn't going to work for smoking, but for flavorful sears it's perfect. To get it going all you have to do is light the gas burners and close the lid, and your charcoal will be ready in about 15 minutes. It really is the best of both worlds.

If you want to become the neighborhood pitmaster without leaving the couch, Traeger's Wi-Fi-powered Ironwood electric pellet smoker (7/10, WIRED Review) is the way to go. Like a Weber grill, it's made of heavy, solid metal. The excellent app makes it easy to control your cooks from the comfort of, well, anywhere. You can keep tabs on the cooking progress of your meat through your phone, but the grill itself controls the temperature, the amount of smoke, and all the other details. The in-app recipes are pretty good too, and clean-up isn't too hard thanks to the accessible grease trap.

The downside is the price. Oh, and the fact that Traeger recommends using only its own pellets. I've also heard stories of premature rusting in some cases, though that has not happened with my review unit.

We have an entire guide devoted to portable grills, but it's worth mentioning our absolute favorite here. For charcoal, I love the Weber Jumbo Joe pictured above. It's the little sibling to our top pick here, the Original Kettle. The Jumbo Joe is perfect for car camping or cookouts at the local park. Build yourself a stand back at the house and it can do double duty as your portable and home grill—it's what I've been using both at home and on the road for four years, and it still looks and performs like the day I bought it.

If you want a portable gas grill, I've come to really like the Coleman Roadtrip 225 Grill. It's relatively lightweight and gives you the option to use only one burner, so you can grill a couple of burgers without draining your propane tank. With variable controls, you can sear veggies on one side while cooking meat more slowly on the other.

Not everyone has a yard, and it's increasingly common for apartments to ban open-flame grills on balconies. This is where electric grills come in. It's grilling, sort of, but without the flames. I remain a fan of the George Foreman grill. Sure, you can say it's just a hot plate with ridges, but if it's all you can do, it's better than nothing. Grill on with pride, my fellow George Foreman grillers.

There are a lot of fancy George Foreman grills at this point, but I still prefer the simple four-serving one that served me well through years of apartment dwelling. You can pull the grills out for easy cleaning, there's a drip pan to catch all the grease, and if you're not in the grilling mood, it doubles as a Panini press.

★ Luxury Upgrade: If you want something fancier, the Kenyon City Grill ($695) is as close to grilling as you can get without stepping outdoors. It cooks evenly and at consistent temperatures. (I was able to get up to 592 degrees, measured with a digital thermometer.) There's very little smoke, though I suggest using it in a well-ventilated area if you're indoors.

Why limit your backyard cooking to a grill? Ooni's Karu 16 pizza oven (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is our top pick from our Best Pizza Ovens guide. It's designed to burn either charcoal or wood, though you can buy a separate gas attachment. Simply drop a lit fire starter and a few oak sticks on the fuel tray and it'll get hot within 10 minutes. It's light, portable, and easy to clean. You do have to constantly add fuel to maintain the temperature, but not any more than with other ovens that we've tried. 

Another pizza option is a kettle grill. I have used the Weber Pizza Stone ($69) with pretty good results. KettlePizza's Pizza Oven Kit ($129) for the Weber Classic Kettle (or any other 22-inch kettle grill) is another option. I have not tested this one, but it gets good reviews around the web. The KettlePizza system solves the one big problem with Weber's pizza stone–every time you open the lid, the heat goes away. The access door of the KettlePizza prevents this heat loss.

There are a lot of grills, and no one can try them all, but we've tested a few others that are worth mentioning.

Big Green Egg: Big Green Egg is a well-known brand that’s representative of this style of ceramic cooker, which is modeled after Japanese kamodo ovens. They get much hotter than your ordinary grill and can be used to bake as well, which opens up a whole other world of outdoor cooking. I love the Big Green Egg, but it isn't cheap, and for most people a traditional gas or charcoal grill is going to be a better choice. However, if you know you love to bake, steam, smoke, grill, and more, the Big Green Egg is worth considering. Given the weight, these are best purchased at your local Green Egg dealer.

Spark One Grill for $1,099: The Spark One (7/10 WIRED Review) is another attempt to get the convenience of gas, but using charcoal. There's much to like here: It's easy to use, looks good, cooks well, and has a nice app to control a fan, which gives you control over the temperature. The downside, and the reason it's not higher up, is the proprietary charcoal Briqs, which are expensive and must be bought directly from Spark. The advantages don't outweigh the far greater ease of going to any store and buying a bag of good old briquettes.

Here are a few things that will make your grilling life easier. Our Best Grilling Accessories guide has more tools, tips, and tricks.

• A Good Cover: Which one you need depends on your grill, but a cover is worth the investment. Even if your grill isn't exposed directly to the rain, it's still going to get wet from dew and will eventually rust. A good cover can keep the worst of the rust at bay and will offer you many additional years of use.
• Instant-Read Thermometer: After the actual cooker, nothing will improve your grilling like an instant-read thermometer. Stick it in and know your food's internal temp instantly. For newbies, this cheap thermometer ($18) will work. The gold standard is ThermoWorks Thermapen Mk4 ($105). It is not cheap, but its automatic backlight and rotating display are nice to have. The feature I've come to appreciate the most is that it automatically shuts off when not in use and turns back on the minute you extend the probe (it's powered by one AAA battery).
• A Good Cleaning Tool: A stainless steel or brass wire brush can leave behind small bristles that get stuck in your grill and end up in your food. It happens more often than you think. Most grill makers don't recommend these wire scrapers anyway. After trying dozens of alternatives, the one I reach for the most is GrillGrate's Detailing Tool and Scraper ($12) ($29 at Amazon). This works fantastically on standard metal grills like the Weber Kettle. If you have cast iron grates, I like Proud Grill's Q Cleaner ($33), which combines a wire-free scrubber, stainless steel scraper, and disposable wipes to clean your grill without leaving your brush a mess.
• A Charcoal Chimney: For charcoal grills, get a chimney starter—I like this Weber ($26), but anything similar will do. It's faster and it saves your food from tasting like lighter fluid fumes. I have tested a charcoal chimney against our top-pick Weber gas grill and found that the gas was ready 7 minutes faster, which is to say, not much.

Take a trip to your local big-box home improvement store and you'll see dozens of grill models not mentioned here. Are they any good? Most of them are probably fine, but we suggest sticking with brands you recognize.

The nice thing about shopping in person is you can get a better sense of the grill's sturdiness. Give it a good shake, and make sure it seems well put together. If it's a brand you haven't heard of before, check the aisles nearby and see if there are replacement parts available. This is especially important with gas grills. The burners don't last more than a few years, but they're easy to replace—if you can get the parts.

Other things to look for include a good temperature range (the dials turn smoothly and are big enough that you won't be fiddling with them to find the midpoint between low and high). While it may be tempting to go for the biggest grill you can afford, that isn't always the smart choice. There's no need to heat 660 square inches of grill to cook two burgers. All that does is waste propane. Finally, avoid anything that says infrared. My experience is that infrared doesn't sear anything any better than regular flames. All it does is add a useless feature that ups the price.