Weber vs. Traeger: We Put the New Pellet Smokers Head-to-Head to See Which Reigns Supreme

GAS OR CHARCOAL? For decades, those were your grill options. But now walk into any home center and you’ll see a legion of outdoor cooking rigs: staple four-burner gas grills and trusty kettles now join a growing range of lidded griddles, clay kamados, old-school offset smokers, electric grills (for the urbanites), and backyard pizza ovens.

And then there’s the pellet cooker, a category within the outdoor cooking category that is now growing in popularity so much that two titans within the industry—Weber and Traeger—recently launched their own new pellet cookers launching just weeks apart.

Both the Weber Smoque and the Traeger Woodridge had similar price points ($700 to $800, depending on sales), features, and even a look. Covering outdoor cookers for as long as I have, I knew both brands were after the one key demographic: pellet cooking newbies. Me? I’m an regular outdoor cooker, with a family to feed, who likes hosting dinner parties, and I’m willing to spend a good chunk of money on a rig that I can depend on to do all that.

But which is superior: the Weber Smoque or Traeger Woodridge? I put them head-to-head to find out.

How Pellet Cookers Work

ALL MODERN PELLET smokers operate the same way.

Four key parts—a computer, an auger, a fan, and a firepot—work together to maintain a consistent temperature. A pellet cooker is essentially a poorly insulated version of your kitchen oven that that burns wood and vents smoke.

You set your target temperature (say, 225ºF), and it constantly balances that goal against real-time readings from the chamber’s thermometer probe. It tells the auger—a giant screw—to drop more pellets from the hopper into the firepot, where they burn to create smoke for flavor and convection heat for cooking.

The computer also controls the fan. If the fire needs to burn hotter, the fan spins faster to feed in more oxygen while more pellets are delivered to the firepot, or slows down if the temperature gets too high.

It’s simple—and fans of pellet smokers love that simplicity.

How I Tested the Pellet Smokers

To find out which model deserves your barbecue dollars, I spent two weeks assembling and testing the Weber Smoque and the Traeger Woodridge. I cooked spatchcocked chickens, bone-in pork shoulder, and spare ribs, evaluating ease of use, temperature probe accuracy, and taste. I used the triangle taste test—someone served me two samples from one smoker and a third from the other, and I had to guess the odd one out. Without knowing which cooker made what, my family and in-laws also tasted everything and provided feedback.

How the Pellet Cookers Compared

TRAEGER’S WOODRIDGE IS the entry-level model in its product line, with two other versions that increase in size, features, and price. Weber’s Smoque also comes in two sizes, though both offer the same function. For this test, I used the smallest and least expensive option from each brand. The Woodridge has 860 square inches of cooking space, compared to Weber’s 594 square inches. Both include upper racks as part of that capacity calculation.

Before cooking, you need to season a pellet smoker by running it at a temperature specified by the manufacturer. I used this as an opportunity to check how accurate each smoker’s temperature really was. I fitted each with a ThermoWorks wired probe, positioned about three inches off the center of the grate. Weber claims the cooker reaches its target temperature in about 15 minutes, and like a Swiss watch, I got an app notification saying it had hit 450ºF (the temperature Weber suggests for seasoning). The problem? The ThermoWorks read only 260ºF at that point.

During seasoning, the Smoque’s internal temperature fluctuated between 30 and 46 degrees cooler than the target and never hit 450ºF. The Traeger varied from about 15 to 63 degrees cooler than the target, but was a bit more accurate at lower temperatures—and even managed to hit 460ºF.

With the seasoning complete, it was time to cook. For consistency, I used the same Traeger pellets in both cookers for all the food tests. After spatchcocking (fancy term for removing the backbone and flattening the bird) two chickens of similar size, I fitted a breast on each with one of the smoker’s included wired probes. Traeger’s model supports up to four probes (two wired, two wireless Meater versions), while Weber’s handles up to two wired probes. Traeger includes one probe; Weber packages two with the cooker.

In both chickens, I added a second wireless probe from Typhur, which I trust for accuracy. I also wired up the grate with the ThermoWorks probe. By the end, the chickens looked like they were headed to a sleep study instead of a smoker.

I cooked the birds at 200ºF in both ovens and used the Weber’s SmokeBoost feature, which keeps the temperature between 180ºF and 200ºF while increasing pellet use to generate more smoke. (The entry-level Woodridge doesn’t include a similar feature, but it is available on the two higher-end models.)

An hour into the cook, the Weber was 23 degrees cooler than the ThermoWorks sensor, but the meat probes were just six degrees apart. The Traeger was only nine degrees off of the ThermoWorks probe, and the meat probes were nearly identical.

When I blind taste-tested the chicken, I correctly identified the Traeger’s breast meat and the Weber’s thigh meat. I expected a more substantial bark from the Weber, but the short cook time likely limited that. I couldn’t consistently pick a winner—both were pleasingly smoky—but my wife, daughter, and in-laws all preferred the Traeger, citing juicier meat.

Next came the pork butt, smoked at 225ºF for several hours, then rested overnight in an insulated blanket tucked into a cooler bag (keeping it at a food safe temperature) to break down the remaining collagen. The long cook gave Weber the edge on the bark. Its pork had a dry, crackly exterior that scraped loudly under a knife—a great contrast to the juicy, shredded meat inside. While my family was split on the winner, my in-laws again favored the Traeger for its slightly milder smoke flavor. I’d give the edge to the Weber here, which, even though it was cooking beyond the SmokeBoost setting, had a better bark.

The rib test was the clearest winner. The Traeger’s ribs had a bit more chew, which I like. Some in my family preferred the fall-apart texture of the Smoque’s ribs, which were closer to pulled pork. My in-laws, once again, favored the Traeger.

The Weber was by far the easier of the two models to assemble. Traeger says it can take up to 90 minutes to build the Woodridge—and you should believe them. Do yourself a favor and recruit the kids to help unpack each Traeger part, which comes wrapped in plastic, in exchange for letting them play with the cardboard box (Traeger has mastered the cardboard box game with images of pigs and houses that are begging to be colored). The assembly, along with the seasoning process, is something to keep in mind if you plan to cook with either unit the day you get it home.

Neither machine aced the user experience when using the controller. With each new generation of these cookers, manufacturers move further away from printed words like “probe” or “shutdown” in favor of icons on buttons or memorizing click wheel patterns.

Even by the third cook, I still had to refer to instructions to execute basic functions like setting the meat probe temperature and shutting the unit down after cooking. I suspect Traeger knows how counterintuitive its menu is, which is why they include a cheat sheet on the underside of the pellet hopper lid. Weber should do the same.

In both cases, the app experience is much better. With both units, you can shut the smoker down remotely—a nice feature. Along with monitoring the temperature, you can also change it remotely. Weber connects through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you can control it even if your patio or deck isn’t within your home’s network. Traeger only uses Wi-Fi, so to get the benefits of the app, you might have to place it closer to the house. Traeger suggests keeping the Woodridge at least 20 inches away from any wall, including vinyl siding; two feet for the Weber.

Both units have a drawer that makes it easy to clean the grease. The Traeger is a larger grill, so its hopper holds more pellets—24 pounds compared to the Weber’s 20. Weber has a five-year warranty on the cook box, and three years each on the electrical parts, grates, burn pot, heat baffle, and other parts. Traeger covers the entire cooker with a ten-year warranty. The build quality on the Traeger is a bit nicer, with a stretcher between the legs that gives the entire rig more stiffness. However, it’s a missed opportunity not to turn that structure into a usable shelf. The Weber, with four legs and no stretcher between them, has a bit more wiggle as you wheel it around a patio. The $70 add-on shelf, which can support up to 30 pounds, would make the rig feel sturdier.

Verdict: Which Pellet Cooker Should You Buy?

THE CHOICE BETWEEN them might come down to how many people you’re cooking for.

While a bigger capacity sounds nice, remember that these cookers work on convection. It takes longer to cook the same amount of food in a larger model (imagine reheating a slice of pizza in a toaster oven versus a regular oven).

If you don’t need the Traeger’s capacity—which can fit six chickens or six pork butts—the Weber’s tidier footprint is a good choice. If you know you won’t have Wi-Fi near the cooker, go with the Weber. If you want greater capacity and the ability to use wireless Meater probes, the Traeger makes more sense. Both apps have extensive recipe libraries, but the Traeger’s offering is tailor-made for pellet cookers, whereas some of the Weber recipes, like meatballs, feel a bit odd to make on a smoker.

And while both still have a hard time grilling, they each make really good barbecue.