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Rachel Wharton is a writer covering kitchen appliances. She once had a range die on Thanksgiving morning, two hours after the turkey went in the oven. fish fryer
After a new round of research, we have updated our picks. The GE GRF600AV is our top pick. The Energy Star–certified Whirlpool WFES3030 is our budget pick.
Freestanding, 30-inch electric ranges (also called stoves) are the unsung heroes of the American kitchen. They’re affordable, safe, and efficient, with versatile (and increasingly powerful) cooktops and the most consistent ovens. They’re also a lot more sophisticated than they used to be.
Our top pick is the GE GRF600AV. This range offers a basic convection oven and a flexible, powerful cooktop for a good price, and you can choose from four finishes.
We also recommend five other ranges in a variety of styles, including a good budget option, a range with a baker-friendly true-convection oven, a stove with an induction cooktop, a bare-bones model that’s built to last, and a double oven.
This sturdy, powerful stove with basic convection has a great cooktop and baking features for a good price. It’s made by a dependable brand, and it comes in four finishes.
This stove offers especially good value from a brand that ranks high for repairability. It has only four elements and doesn’t have convection, but it comes with a quick-preheat mode.
This handsome front-control range has a true convection oven with advanced features for bakers and a cooktop bridge for a dual-element griddle. But it comes in just two finishes.
If you want a freestanding stove with an induction cooktop, this model is the only widely available option and a great value. It has a true convection oven, but lacks cooktop settings and comes in only one finish.
This basic electric range has no frills or features, and its old-fashioned coil cooktop is less powerful than those of our other picks. But it’s extra sturdy and easily repairable.
This double-oven range has one of the largest lower ovens we’ve seen in this category and an extra-powerful, flexible cooktop. But it doesn’t have a storage drawer, and you have to stoop to access the lower oven.
A convection oven bakes more evenly, is typically a little faster, and usually comes with an air-fry mode.
If you frequently use extra-wide pots, a cooktop element larger than 8 inches in diameter comes in handy.
Before you buy, determine if local service technicians will be able to repair your range if problems arise.
You can buy an Energy Star–certified range using federal rebates and tax credits, if you’re eligible.
This sturdy, powerful stove with basic convection has a great cooktop and baking features for a good price. It’s made by a dependable brand, and it comes in four finishes.
The GE GRF600AV has a great combination of features and functionality for its price (often well below $1,000). It has an appealing, uncomplicated style and comes in four finish options—the most of our picks.
This model’s five-element, glass-ceramic cooktop includes an extra-wide (12-inch) burner, which accommodates oversize skillets or pots, and a 9-inch element. Both large elements are at the front of the cooktop, have a power-boil setting, and are flex-width, meaning they’re able to accommodate pots of different sizes.
The GRF600AV has a basic convection mode (it has a fan to move air, but no extra heating element), which means it bakes and roasts more evenly and quickly than a standard oven. The oven has a number pad to make inputting time and temperature easier, plus no-preheat and air-fry modes and settings for cooking or reheating specific foods like pizza or leftovers.
The bottom of the oven cavity is removable and dishwasher-safe, which can help make clean-up easier. This range also has a steam-cleaning mode.
The GRF600AV is a smart range. GE Appliances is known for good service, support, and quality, and we have recommended GE ranges since we began reviewing them in 2018.
This stove offers especially good value from a brand that ranks high for repairability. It has only four elements and doesn’t have convection, but it comes with a quick-preheat mode.
A particularly good value, the Whirlpool WFES3030 is a nice-looking range that often costs less than $600 and is available in three finishes.
The WFES3030’s powerful, four-element cooktop has two large elements that should heat as quickly as those of our top pick; both elements are flex-width (9 or 6 inches), so they can accommodate different pan sizes. This cooktop doesn’t have as many functions as pricier versions, or a fifth, low-power warming element. But its two rear, lower-power burners have a melt setting—a nice addition.
Like most ranges at the price, the WFES3030’s oven doesn’t have convection, an air-fry mode, a number pad for inputting times or temperature, or a hidden lower baking element. But its no-preheat settings are especially nice to have if you tend to bake frozen foods like pizzas or lasagna. This model doesn’t have a self-cleaning setting.
The WFES3030 is Energy Star–certified, so it’s eligible for federal electric appliance rebates. Our research and user surveys show that Whirlpool Corporation consistently ranks high for distribution, service, and repairability.
This handsome front-control range has a true convection oven with advanced features for bakers and a cooktop bridge for a dual-element griddle. But it comes in just two finishes.
If you spend a lot of time baking, roasting, and braising, the Frigidaire Gallery GCRE3060 is an affordable option with a lot of advanced features. It looks nice, too, though it’s available in just two stainless steel finishes.
The Gallery GCRE3060 has a true convection oven with an extra heating element by its fan, which allows for faster, more-even baking and roasting. It has no-preheat and air-fry modes, and modes for steam-baking and roasting and slow-and-low cooking. It also comes with a plug-in temperature probe, which can monitor the internal temperature of cooking foods and turn off the oven when a target temp is reached. Like our top pick, this model has a number pad for inputting oven time and temperature, and it has steam and high-heat self-cleaning modes.
The five-element cooktop supports a dual-element griddle. Its largest, strongest element is not quite as wide as that of our top pick, but it’s a little more powerful and ideal for all but extra-wide pots and pans. The cooktop knobs are located in the front, which is easier (and safer) for most people to use than those on the backsplash.
If you want a freestanding stove with an induction cooktop, this model is the only widely available option and a great value. It has a true convection oven, but lacks cooktop settings and comes in only one finish.
The IKEA Tvärsäker is the only freestanding induction range with a backsplash that is widely available. (Most induction ranges are slide-in models with front controls and no backsplash.) It’s also a great value for an induction range.
The cooktop has four elements in a variety of sizes, but each element has only eight temperature-adjustment settings, which can make fine-tuning the heat slightly more frustrating. The largest element is only 8.3 inches wide, but it’s sufficient for most cooking.
The Tvärsäker has a true convection oven (with an extra heating element by its fan, for faster, more-even baking) as well as a quick-preheat setting. It also has high-heat and steam self-clean functions.
Professional-style round handles give the Tvärsäker an elevated look, but the range only comes in one finish. This model has a five-year warranty, which is rare at this price (one year is standard).
This basic electric range has no frills or features, and its old-fashioned coil cooktop is less powerful than those of our other picks. But it’s extra sturdy and easily repairable.
The affordable, well-made, bare-bones Hotpoint RBS160DM is an all-manual and all-mechanical range, with components that can often be replaced easily with or without a repair person. And it’s specifically designed with a sturdy metal body to hold up to heavy-duty long-term use, even in high-turnover rental apartments. All of this is ideal if you are willing to forgo extra features and aesthetics in order to buy one stove to last at least a few decades.
The cooktop has four coil elements. The largest element is 8 inches in diameter and doesn’t bring water to a boil or heat a skillet for searing nearly as fast as the largest elements on our other picks—but it’s still much faster than older coil stoves. You can lift up the cooktop to easily clean underneath it.
The RBS160DM does not have an interior oven light, a digital control pad to input or display the oven temperature, or even an oven window, all of which could break over time. But it has a 5-cubic-foot oven, which is ample, plus a broiler setting and a storage drawer.
This range comes in two finishes. It’s Energy Star–certified and eligible for federal electric appliance rebates.
This double-oven range has one of the largest lower ovens we’ve seen in this category and an extra-powerful, flexible cooktop. But it doesn’t have a storage drawer, and you have to stoop to access the lower oven.
The GE Profile PB965 is a freestanding double-oven range with both an impressive cooktop and larger lower oven. It’s sleekly designed and comes in two finishes.
This model has the strongest power burner of any range we considered, which should bring water to a boil and skillets to searing hot faster than our other picks. The largest element is flex-width and accommodates three pot sizes instead of two. You can also sync its two medium-size elements for use with a griddle.
Its 4.4-cubic-foot lower convection oven is bigger than those of most double-oven models available (it should fit a 23-pound turkey). Its smaller, standard top oven fits one rack. You do, however, give up a lower storage drawer with this style, and you need to stoop to reach the lower oven.
The PB965 is smart and can sync with a GE Appliances range hood so that lights and the ventilation fan come on when you begin cooking.
I cover large kitchen appliances for Wirecutter and have nearly 20 years of experience writing about food and cooking. I’ve written guides to induction cooktops and portable induction cooktops, and I also offer advice on how to make the most of large kitchen appliances (including how to clean an oven).
We’ve been evaluating electric ranges since 2018. For this guide, we did the following:
This guide covers 30-inch electric ranges with a backguard and a freestanding design. These ranges have finished sides and can be installed anywhere in the kitchen: between two kitchen cabinets, at the end of a counter, or entirely on their own. Most now come with sleek, ceramic-glass cooktops and increasingly high-tech ovens, and they are generally considered safer and more efficient than gas stoves.
If you’re willing to spend a little more on a stove, we have a guide to slide-in (or front-control) electric ranges; these are designed to be installed between two cabinets (though many have finished sides), and they do not have a backguard. Most have front-mounted controls that look sleeker and may be easier for some people to use. These stoves sit flush with your countertops, creating a built-in look, and they tend to come with better hardware and features. Many of our freestanding picks come in a slide-in version that isn’t that much more expensive.
Most of the ranges in this category have radiant-electric cooktops, but a few have induction, which works via electromagnetic induction to produce heat in the pan itself. They’re arguably better than radiant electric cooktops by nearly every measure, but they’re more expensive and hard to find in a freestanding range. We currently have one pick with an induction cooktop.
After years of research (and cooking), we determined these features are the most important to consider when you’re investing in a new freestanding electric range:
conveyor fryer Radiant versions can be harder to clean if you don’t wipe away spills each time you cook, as food heats up on the surface and becomes hard to remove—this is not an issue with an induction cooktop. If repairability and longevity are important to you, though, note that a ceramic-glass surface is much harder to replace than a coil element, which typically plugs into the cooktop without any tools.