I’ve been cooking on flat tops for over a decade now, and I’ll be honest with you — five years ago I barely used mine. It sat in the corner of the patio collecting dust next to my offset smoker. These days? It’s the first thing I fire up on a Saturday morning, and it’s usually the last thing I clean before bed.
Something shifted in the backyard cooking world, and flat top grills went from “that thing at the state fair” to a legitimate must-have next to your kettle or your pellet smoker. Smash burgers all over social media didn’t hurt. Neither did people realizing you can cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the same 600-square-inch steel surface without ever touching a dish besides the spatula.
When I test flat tops for this site, I’m not just firing them up once and writing down what the box says. I run them through actual cook sessions — smash burgers, bacon and eggs, fried rice, quesadillas, the works — and I pay attention to the metrics that actually matter to a home cook standing in their backyard.
Heat distribution is the big one — does the whole surface cook evenly, or do you get a hot spot in the middle and a cold ring around the edge? Build quality matters because a griddle that rattles apart in a season isn’t worth the savings. Grease management is one of those things you don’t think about until you’re standing over a griddle with bacon fat pooling toward your shoes. Cooking area determines whether you’re feeding your family in one pass or doing three rounds. Portability matters if you plan to take this thing anywhere beyond your patio. And value — are you paying for features you’ll actually use, or just a name on the lid?
I’ll give you my quick picks up front for those of you who just want the answer, then we’ll get into the details, the buying guide, and the maintenance side of things so you’re not guessing once it’s sitting on your patio.
Rust-Resistant Griddle
684 sq in · 30,000 BTU · 3 burners
Original 4-Burner Griddle
720 sq in · 60,000 BTU · 4 burners
Edge-to-Edge Heat
590 sq in · 30,000 BTU · 3 burners
Countertop Griddle
226 sq in · 15,000 BTU · 1 burner
3-Ply Stainless
524 sq in · 24,000 BTU · 3 burners
Grill + Griddle Combo
Grill + griddle · 50,000 BTU · 4 burners
Best on a Budget
610 sq in · 52,000 BTU · 4 burners
Let’s dig into why each of these earned its spot.
Before I break down each one in detail, here’s the side-by-side so you can see how they stack up on paper. I always tell folks not to buy on specs alone — a griddle with more BTUs isn’t automatically better if it wastes half that heat to the wind — but this is a good starting point.
| Model | Cooking Surface | Burners | BTUs | Fuel Type | Weight | Best For | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weber Slate 36″ | 684 sq in | 3 | 30,000 | Propane/Natural Gas | ~145 lbs | Best Overall | |
| Blackstone Omnivore 36″ | 720 sq in | 4 | 60,000 | Propane | ~148 lbs | Best Value | |
| Traeger Flatrock 3-Burner | 590 sq in | 3 | 30,000 | Propane | ~135 lbs | Best Premium | |
| Halo Elite 1B | 226 sq in | 1 | 15,000 | Propane | ~28 lbs | Best Portable | |
| Solo Stove Steelfire 30″ | 524 sq in | 3 | 24,000 | Propane | ~120 lbs | Best Stainless | |
| Grilla Grills Primate | Varies (grill + griddle) | 4 (grill) | 50,000 | Propane/Natural Gas | ~180 lbs | Best Combo | |
| Nexgrill Daytona 4-Burner | 610 sq in | 4 | 52,000 | Propane | ~130 lbs | Best Budget |
9.6
9.5
9.2
9.4
8.8
If you’ve owned a flat top before, you already know the number one complaint — and it’s not heat, it’s not price, it’s rust. You cook a beautiful dinner, wipe it down, and three weeks later there’s a rust bloom creeping across your cooktop like it’s trying to tell you something.
The Weber Slate tackles that head-on with a pre-seasoned, case-hardened steel cooktop that’s actually built to resist rust rather than just delay it. I’ve had mine outside through a full spring of on-and-off rain, and I haven’t had to fight the surface back into shape once.
What I like about it beyond the rust resistance: the heat holds steady across all three burners, so you can run a hot zone for searing and a cooler zone for holding food warm — genuinely useful when you’re cooking burgers and buns at the same time and don’t want the buns turning into charcoal. If you’re comparing flat tops against traditional grills, check out our grill vs griddle breakdown for a deeper look at how they differ in practice.
Anyone who’s been burned (pun intended) by rust on a previous griddle and wants the “set it and forget it” version of flat top ownership. If you’re the type who wants great results without babying your equipment every single week, this is the one I’d point you toward first.
9.3
8.5
9.0
9.6
9.8
Blackstone basically built the modern flat top category, and the Omnivore is them refining what they already know works. The redesigned plate uses fewer BTUs to reach a hotter, more even cooking surface, and the built-in wind guards actually cut down on propane waste on breezy evenings — which, if you cook outside as much as I do, matters more than people realize.
I’ve cooked everything from smash burgers to a full Sunday breakfast spread on the 36″ version, and the recovery time between batches is quick. That’s the real test with a griddle — not how hot it gets once, but how fast it bounces back after you drop a cold patty of ground beef on it. For more on getting the most out of your Blackstone, our outdoor griddle tips guide covers the techniques I use every week.
Someone who wants serious cooking capacity without paying premium prices. This is the griddle I recommend most often to people just getting into outdoor griddle cooking who don’t want to feel like they compromised.
9.8
9.6
9.4
8.4
8.2
This is the one I recommend to people who’ve already got a Blackstone in the garage and are ready to upgrade. The Flatrock’s edge-to-edge flame isolation design essentially eliminates cold spots — something I genuinely didn’t believe until I ran a thermal test across the entire plate myself and watched the temperature stay within a few degrees corner to corner.
The integrated fuel sensor is a small thing that turns out to matter a lot. Running out of propane mid-cook on a full griddle of food is one of those mistakes you only make once, and the Flatrock just tells you before it happens. If you’re already in the Traeger ecosystem and want to explore more of what the brand offers, our Traeger Ironwood review and Traeger troubleshooting guide might be useful reads.
The person who treats their outdoor cooking setup the way some people treat their kitchen — worth investing in because you use it constantly. If you’re hosting regularly or you just want the best possible version of the smash burger experience, this earns its price tag.
8.6
8.8
9.6
9.0
8.8
I’ve tested a handful of portable flat top grills, and most of them share the same problem — they’re fine on a flat picnic table and useless on anything else. The Halo Elite’s level-adjustable rubber feet solve a problem I didn’t know I wanted solved until I used them on an uneven campsite table and didn’t have grease pooling on one side of the plate.
The hinged lid is a nice touch for transport and for speeding up preheat, and it handles wind noticeably better than the tiny Blackstone tabletop units I’ve used in the past — which tend to lose half their heat the second a breeze picks up.
Campers, tailgaters, and small-space cooks (apartment balconies, boats, RVs) who need something that actually performs outdoors, not just in a calm backyard. If you’re looking for something even more portable, check out our guide to the best portable gas grills for more options.
The Halo Elite doubles as my top camping pick too, and it’s worth calling out separately because camping has different demands than tailgating. You need something light enough to carry from the car to the site, stable on grass or dirt (not just a table), and forgiving of wind since you often can’t control your campsite orientation.
Beyond the Halo, if you’re car camping rather than backpacking, a griddle like this beats a traditional camp stove for group cooking — you can do pancakes, bacon, and eggs simultaneously instead of juggling pots, and cleanup is just a scrape and a wipe. If you need even more cooking capacity at a campsite, consider pairing your portable griddle with a good portable smoker for low-and-slow meats alongside the griddle’s high-heat cooking.
9.2
9.5
10.0
9.0
8.2
If rust is your dealbreaker and you don’t want to manage it at all — not “resist,” but eliminate — the Steelfire is the answer. It uses a 3-ply stainless construction that sandwiches aluminum between stainless layers, the same approach high-end kitchen cookware uses for even heat distribution. That means you get the corrosion resistance of stainless without giving up the heat conduction that carbon steel griddles are known for.
I’ve found the Steelfire heats a touch slower than carbon steel options like the Blackstone, but once it’s up to temperature, it holds it beautifully, and the cleanup is noticeably easier since food doesn’t stick as aggressively to the surface.
This is for the person standing in their garage looking at both a gas grill and a griddle and wondering why they need two separate machines taking up patio space. The Primate is a heavy-duty stainless grill first, but it lets you drop in a full-size griddle top seamlessly when you want the flat top experience. If you’re interested in other two-for-one setups, our best gas grill smoker combos and hybrid gas-charcoal combos explore more space-saving options.
I’ve used combo units before that felt like a compromise on both sides — mediocre grill, mediocre griddle. The Primate doesn’t have that problem. The grill side sears steaks properly, and the griddle insert holds heat and cooks evenly enough that I’ve stopped thinking of it as “the griddle attachment” and started thinking of it as a real griddle that happens to share a cart.
Smaller patios or anyone who wants grill marks and griddle food without owning two separate rigs. The Primate gives you the flexibility to cook a steak with sear marks on Saturday and do a full smash burger spread on Sunday without doubling your footprint.
If you’re regularly cooking for six, eight, or more people, capacity matters more than almost anything else on this list. The Blackstone Omnivore 36″ and the Weber Slate 36″ both give you enough real estate to run breakfast for the whole crew in one pass instead of cooking in shifts while half the table waits.
Not everyone wants to buy a dedicated griddle, and I get it — patio space is real estate, and it’s precious. This is where flat-top inserts come in: steel plates sized to sit directly on your existing gas grill grates, turning your current grill into a griddle for the afternoon.
Someone who wants to try flat top cooking a handful of times a month without committing to a second appliance, or someone genuinely tight on space. Inserts are affordable and space-saving, but they heat less evenly, don’t hold heat as consistently, and typically don’t include built-in grease management — you’re wiping the plate into a bowl rather than watching it drain into a bucket automatically.
Anyone who already knows they love flat top cooking and will use it regularly. If you’re going to cook on a griddle three or more times a week, buy a dedicated one — the heat consistency and grease management alone are worth it.
I want to walk you through the stuff that actually matters when you’re standing in front of a wall of griddles trying to decide, because specs on a box only tell you part of the story. If you’re new to outdoor cooking in general, our first-time gas grill guide covers the basics; here we’re going deep on what makes one flat top better than another.
Here’s something that trips a lot of first-time buyers up: more BTUs doesn’t automatically mean a better griddle. BTU is just a measure of raw fuel burned per hour — it says nothing about how efficiently that heat actually transfers to your food.
Look at the comparison table above again. The Weber Slate does its job at 30,000 BTUs across three burners, while the Blackstone Omnivore uses 60,000 BTUs to do a similar job. Neither is wrong — they’re just different engineering approaches. What actually matters is recovery time: how fast the surface bounces back to temperature after you drop cold food on it. That’s the number I care about when I’m testing, and it’s the number most spec sheets don’t even list.
As for burner count, three or four burners give you the ability to run different heat zones — a hot zone for searing, a medium zone for cooking through, and a low zone for holding food warm. That’s genuinely useful once you’re cooking more than one thing at a time, which, let’s be honest, is most cookouts. For a deeper look at how BTU ratings translate to real-world performance, our budget gas grill guide covers this topic in detail.
This is probably the single biggest decision point on this whole list, so let’s break it down properly.
Carbon steel (what most traditional griddles, including the Blackstone, are made from) heats fast and builds a natural seasoning layer over time that improves nonstick performance the more you cook on it — similar to a cast iron pan. The tradeoff is it’s prone to rust if you don’t maintain that seasoning, especially in humid or coastal climates.
Stainless steel (like the Solo Stove Steelfire) trades a little bit of heat-up speed for essentially eliminating the rust conversation entirely. It also tends to be easier to clean since food doesn’t bond to the surface the same way.
Rust-resistant hardened steel (Weber’s approach with the Slate) tries to get you the best of both — carbon steel’s heat performance with a case-hardened, pre-seasoned surface that resists corrosion without going full stainless.
Grease management is one of those things you don’t think about until you’re standing over a griddle with a puddle of bacon fat pooling toward your shoes instead of into the collection bucket. A good griddle channels grease toward a front or side trough into a removable cup — check that the cup is actually easy to pull, empty, and rinse, because you’ll be doing it every single cook. For more maintenance guidance, our flat top grill cleaning guide covers the full routine.
Wind performance matters way more than most people expect. I’ve tested griddles on calm patios where they performed beautifully, then took the same model camping into a 10 mph breeze and watched cook times nearly double. Features like the Blackstone Omnivore’s wind guards or the Halo Elite’s design that shields the burner are the difference between a griddle that works everywhere and one that only works in your backyard. If you’re interested in other tailgate-ready cooking setups, wind performance should always be on your checklist.
A lot of these griddles, including budget-friendly options like the Nexgrill Daytona, sell extremely well online because the pricing is aggressive compared to what you’d pay through a specialty retailer. A few things worth knowing before you click “buy”:
I get asked this constantly, and my answer is usually “both, eventually” — but if you can only own one right now, here’s how I’d think it through. We cover this debate in even more depth in our grill vs griddle comparison, but here’s the short version.
Cooking versatility: A flat top wins here, no contest. You can cook breakfast, stir fry, smash burgers, quesadillas, pancakes, and fried rice on a griddle. A gas grill is fantastic at what it does, but it’s built around direct flame and grates, which limits you to foods that hold together on their own.
Heat zones: Both can offer multiple heat zones, but a griddle gives you more precise control since you’re working with a solid, even surface rather than grates with gaps between the flame and the food.
Cleanup: This one actually favors the grill in my experience — you can burn off residue on grates by just cranking the heat, while a griddle needs an actual scrape-and-wipe routine after every cook (more on that in the maintenance section below). For grill cleaning specifically, see our gas grill cleaning guide.
Foods each excels at: A gas grill still wins for steaks, chops, and anything where you want those char marks and that live-fire flavor. If you’re deciding between fuel types more broadly, our charcoal vs gas grill and charcoal vs propane comparisons can help. A griddle wins for anything delicate (fish, eggs, vegetables) that would fall through grates, and for high-volume cooking like feeding a crowd of burgers at once.
If you already own a gas grill and you’re debating your next purchase, get the griddle — it adds capability you don’t currently have. If you’re starting from zero and want one appliance that does the most things well, I’d lean griddle for most home cooks, with the caveat that you’ll miss that live-fire char on steaks.
You don’t need to buy everything on this list day one, but a few of these will make your first month of griddle ownership a lot smoother. For a complete breakdown of what to stock, check out our BBQ tips hub.
This is where I see the most confusion from beginners, so let’s simplify it. Our full flat top grill cleaning guide goes into more detail, but here’s the version you can pin above your workbench.
If you stick to the daily routine, a deep clean becomes something you do occasionally for maintenance rather than an emergency rust-removal project.
For most home cooks, the Weber Slate 30″/36″ is my top overall pick thanks to its rust-resistant cooktop and even heat distribution. If you’re working with a tighter budget, the Blackstone Omnivore delivers excellent performance for less.
Yes, if you cook outdoors regularly. They offer more cooking versatility than a traditional grill — breakfast, stir fry, smash burgers, and more — and most home cooks find themselves using the griddle more often than the grill once they own both. If you’re still deciding between the two, our grill vs griddle guide breaks down the differences.
Smash burgers, bacon and eggs, fried rice, quesadillas, pancakes, stir-fried vegetables, and pretty much anything you’d normally cook in a skillet or on a flat pan. Delicate foods that would fall through grill grates (fish fillets, sliced vegetables) do especially well. For recipe ideas, check out our best smoker and grill recipes collection.
It depends on your priorities. Stainless steel (like the Solo Stove Steelfire) essentially eliminates rust concerns and is easier to clean, but heats up a bit slower. Carbon steel (like the Blackstone) heats faster and builds a naturally nonstick seasoning layer, but requires more consistent maintenance to prevent rust.
Yes, with a quality cover and consistent maintenance. Rust-resistant models like the Weber Slate or stainless options like the Solo Stove Steelfire handle outdoor exposure better than uncoated carbon steel griddles. If you’re in a humid or coastal area, I’d strongly recommend going stainless or rust-resistant.
The Halo Elite 1B is my top pick for camping thanks to its adjustable feet for uneven ground and its wind performance, which noticeably outperforms smaller tabletop griddles. It weighs just 28 lbs and the hinged lid makes transport easy. See our full portable flat top grill guide for more options.
Heat the surface, apply a thin layer of high smoke-point oil, let it heat until it stops smoking, then wipe and repeat two to three times before your first cook. Most griddles, including the Weber Slate, arrive pre-seasoned, but an extra round before first use never hurts. Our cleaning and seasoning guide covers the full process step by step.
A light clean and re-oil after every single cook, and a deeper clean with a grill brick or stone every few weeks depending on how often you’re using it. The daily routine takes about three minutes once you get the hang of it, and it makes a huge difference in how long your cooktop lasts.
At the end of the day, the right flat top grill comes down to your space, your budget, and how much maintenance you’re willing to put in. If you want the least fuss long-term, spend up for rust resistance or stainless steel. If you’re happy with a seasoning routine and want the most cooking surface for your money, a carbon steel option like the Blackstone Omnivore is hard to beat. And if patio space is tight, a combo unit like the Grilla Grills Primate gets you grill and griddle performance without doubling your footprint.
Whichever one you land on, the biggest jump in your cooking won’t be the model you choose — it’ll be actually using it every week instead of letting it collect dust in the corner like mine did for way too long.
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