Traeger vs Pit Boss: Which Pellet Grill Is the Better Buy?

Pit Boss is the better buy for most people. About $500 at Lowe’s in October 2026 gets you a Pro Series II 850 with the same grate area as Traeger’s $899.99 Woodridge, plus a PID controller and a slide plate that opens the fire to the grate for searing. Traeger earns the extra $400 if you care most about a 10-year warranty, an app that stays connected, and Super Smoke on low-temperature cooks.

This page is one of our pellet grill comparisons, and each brand has a full write-up of its own in the Traeger review and the Pit Boss review. Neither brand has been through our hands-on temperature test yet. Everything here comes from manufacturer spec sheets, retailer listings and the praise and complaints that repeat across owner reports, and the page gets updated when our own numbers exist.

If the table leaves you split, sort by what you cook most. Steaks, burgers and chops a few nights a week point to Pit Boss, because the sear plate does a job no Traeger under $1,800 can do. Long overnight smokes that you want to watch from bed point to Traeger, where the app and Super Smoke are worth paying for.

What Traeger does better

The app is the clearest gap. Owners describe WiFIRE as the one that connects on the first try and holds the connection through a 14-hour cook, and the guided cooks walk a beginner through a brisket without much guesswork. The common Pit Boss complaint is an app that connects, drops, and needs a restart, which matters most at 3 am when the app is supposed to be your alarm clock.

The warranty comes next. Traeger covers the Woodridge and Ironwood for 10 years (limited) and the Westwood for 7, while Pit Boss covers most of its pellet grills for 5. Traeger parts also sit on the shelf at Ace and plenty of small hardware stores, so a dead igniter is a Saturday errand rather than a week of waiting on a box.

Super Smoke is a real feature on the Woodridge Pro ($1,149.99) and Ironwood ($1,799.99). It changes the fan and auger cycle at low temperatures to make more smoke, and owners report they can see and taste the difference on a 225°F brisket. Older Pit Boss controllers have a “P” setting that nudges the fire the same direction, but it’s a cruder tool.

Then there’s the Ironwood’s double-wall insulated body. Pit Boss doesn’t sell an insulated horizontal pellet grill, so a January cook on one means a thermal blanket or a lot more pellets. In cold wind at 225°F, owners report a Pit Boss burns about 2 lb an hour where the Ironwood gets by on about 1.

What Pit Boss does better

It gives you more grill for the money at every size. The Pro Series II 850 has 850 sq in, a 20 lb hopper and a PID board with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for about $500. The Woodridge has 860 sq in and a 24 lb hopper for $899.99. That’s the same class of grill with $400 between them, and the cheaper one has the extra feature.

That feature is the Flame Broiler, a slide plate over the fire pot. Pull the lever and the grate sits over open flame, which Pit Boss rates at up to 1,000°F, enough to crust a steak or a smash burger without dragging out a cast iron pan. On a Traeger the heat always passes through a deflector, and the only sear option in the line is the side station on the $1,799.99 Woodridge Elite.

Big capacity is cheaper on the Pit Boss side too. The Navigator 1600 has nearly 1,600 sq in for $1,199.99, and Traeger’s biggest mainstream grill, the Ironwood XL, has 924 sq in for $1,999.99. For tailgates and church cooks, that’s room for a lot more pork butts at $800 less.

Owners who have handled both say the Pit Boss body and lid feel heavier at the same price. The complaint both brands share is smoke leaking at the back corners of the lid, and a $15 gasket kit fixes it on either.

Watch out: Not every Pit Boss runs a PID controller. The Pro Series II and Navigator do, and those are the boards owners praise. The 15 to 25°F swing complaints come mostly from older non-PID Sportsman and Classic grills, so read the spec line before you grab a discounted floor model.

How they cook: smoke, heat and cold weather

Under the lid the two brands work the same way. An auger feeds pellets into a fire pot, a fan feeds the fire, and the controller decides how often each one runs. Below 275°F with the same pellets, owners report the food tastes about the same, so the differences live at the edges.

Cook	Better pick	What owners report
Low and slow at 225°F	Traeger, by a little	D2 holds within about 5 to 10°F once settled; Pit Boss PID boards are close
Smoke flavor at 165 to 225°F	Traeger Pro and Ironwood	Super Smoke puts out visibly more smoke at low temps
Steaks and burgers	Pit Boss	A 1-inch ribeye crusts in about 90 seconds a side over the open Flame Broiler
Winter and wind	Traeger Ironwood	Insulation holds 225°F in the teens without a blanket
Pellet use, mild weather	Tie	About 1 to 1.5 lb an hour at 225°F on both

The most common mistake with both brands is blaming the grill for light smoke flavor. Pellet grills burn a small, clean fire by design, and above 275°F neither one makes much smoke. Run 225°F for the first two or three hours, or light a smoke tube beside the fire, before you decide the grill is the problem.

When the temperature starts wandering on either grill, check the boring causes before you call support. A leaking lid gasket, a fire pot packed with ash and damp pellets in the hopper account for most of the swings owners post about, and all three take ten minutes to fix.

Running cost is close. At about $1 a pound for pellets, a 12-hour brisket at 225°F burns roughly $12 to $18 of fuel in mild weather on either grill. In cold wind a Pit Boss can double that, which is where the Ironwood’s insulation starts paying for itself. The pellet calculator tells you how many bags to have on hand before an overnight cook.

Traeger and Pit Boss prices, October 2026

Prices checked at the manufacturer sites and Lowe’s in October 2026, lined up by size.

Size class	Traeger	Pit Boss	Gap
Cheapest full size	Westwood, 653 sq in, $699.99	From about $400	about $300
About 820 sq in	Westwood XL, 823 sq in, $799.99	Sportsman 820, $649.99	$150
About 850 sq in	Woodridge, 860 sq in, $899.99	Pro Series II 850, about $500	about $400
Upper mid-range	Woodridge Pro, 970 sq in, $1,149.99	Navigator 1300, $999.99	$150
Biggest	Ironwood XL, 924 sq in, $1,999.99	Navigator 1600, nearly 1,600 sq in, $1,199.99	$800

Pit Boss also fills the gaps with the Navigator 850 at $799.99 and the Competition 1250 at about $700 from Academy. Traeger’s other prices are the Woodridge Elite at $1,799.99 (insulated lid, side sear station) and the Ironwood at $1,799.99 (616 sq in, insulated, touchscreen).

The pattern holds all the way up. Pit Boss is cheaper at every size, and the cheaper grill usually has the sear plate the pricier one lacks. What you give up is five years of warranty, the better app, Super Smoke, and on the Ironwood, insulation.

Traeger does discount on a predictable schedule. Expect $100 to $200 off the Woodridge line around Father’s Day, Prime Day and Black Friday, and Costco bundles with a cover and pellets most springs. If you’ve settled on a Traeger this close to Black Friday, waiting a few weeks usually pays, and our pellet grill sale calendar is where I’d look. Pit Boss prices at Lowe’s and Walmart drift down slowly through the season instead.

Which one I’d buy

I’d buy the Pit Boss Pro Series II 850 and spend the $400 I saved on a wireless meat thermometer and a stack of pellet bags. That covers most of a season of cooks, and the Flame Broiler handles the weeknight burgers a Traeger would need a pan for.

Two things would change my mind. If you start a brisket at 10 pm and want your phone to wake you when it stalls, the Woodridge Pro at $1,149.99 is the better tool, because owners trust the app and Super Smoke makes the low-temperature hours count. And if this is the one grill you plan to own for a decade, the 10-year warranty is worth the premium by itself.

For anyone else, buy the Pit Boss and break it in on a pork butt, which forgives a first-cook temperature swing better than anything else you could put on it. If your budget sits above $1,000, Traeger vs recteq and Weber Searwood vs Traeger cover the next bracket up, and our ranked list puts both brands against everything else on the floor.