Camp Chef vs Z Grills: Is the Step Up Worth It? My Side-by-Side Answer

Halfway through a rib cook last month I turned the Smoke Number dial on my Woodwind 24 from 3 up to 8, and inside two minutes the chimney went from a polite wisp to rolling white. The Z Grills 700 sitting next to it had no opinion about any of this. It was doing 225°F the only way it knows how, one setting, one kind of smoke, take it or leave it. That dial is the whole matchup in one gesture: Z Grills sells you the fire, Camp Chef sells you a say in what the fire does.

This is the classic step-up question. Nobody cross-shops these two by accident; you are either climbing out of the budget tier or deciding not to.

What separates Camp Chef and Z Grills on paper?

Camp Chef brings 500°F ceilings, WiFi, direct-flame searing, and adjustable smoke output across the Woodwind line, with the Pro adding a smoke box for real wood chunks. Z Grills counters with simpler, cheaper machines: 450°F, no WiFi, no sear hardware, and the two best value scores I have recorded in this article.

Here are the five current models from my bench, side by side. Where a number is not in my verified data you get n/a, not a guess.

One row deserves a second look: warranty. Unlike most step-up arguments, Camp Chef gives you no extra paper, three years on both sides. Everything Camp Chef charges extra for lives in the hardware, and the sear numbers say it plainly. The Woodwind 24 and 36 both scored 8/10 in my sear testing with their slide-and-grill direct flame; the two Z models sit at 5.5, the score of a grill with no sear plan at all.

Who makes more smoke?

Camp Chef, and it is the best reason to step up. The Woodwind 24 and 36 scored 8/10 for smoke and the Woodwind Pro a 9, the highest smoke number in this matchup, thanks to its wood-chunk smoke box. The Z Grills 700 posts a respectable 7.5 and the 450A a 7.

The gap is not about the fire, it is about control. Every pellet grill burns compressed hardwood through an auger-fed firepot, the design Wikipedia's pellet grill page sketches in two paragraphs, and at 225°F they all make decent smoke. Camp Chef's Smoke Number setting lets you push the controller toward a dirtier, smokier burn on demand, which is how my Woodwind ribs come off darker than my Z Grills ribs from the same pellet bag. The Woodwind Pro goes further with its smoke box, an actual chamber for wood chunks and chips above the firepot, and that is what a 9 tastes like: closer to a stick burner than any standard pellet grill I have run. Z Grills gives you whatever the controller decides. A 7.5 is honest wood flavor, and plenty of people never miss what they have not tasted, but nobody adjusts it.

Which holds temperature better?

Camp Chef, by a measured half point. All three Woodwinds scored 8/10 for both temperature accuracy and stability on my protocol; both Z Grills models scored 7.5 and 7.5. In brisket terms the difference is small. The Z swings a little wider, and neither brand embarrassed itself.

Half a point sounds like nothing, and on a forgiving cook it mostly is. Both brands held smoking temperatures through full-length cooks on the logged-probe method described on my how we test page. The difference showed at the edges: wind, lid lifts, hopper running low. The Woodwind recovered a little faster and wandered a little less, which tracks with the thicker barrel holding more heat. What the Z Grills numbers actually tell you is more interesting: 7.5-grade control from the cheapest seat in the pellet market is why the brand survives every comparison it gets dragged into, including the one against the biggest name of all, which I break down in Z Grills vs Traeger.

Which is easier to clean and live with?

Camp Chef, decisively. All three Woodwinds scored 8.5/10 for cleaning, the best marks I have given in this class, on the strength of ash cleanout you operate with a lever instead of a shop vac. Both Z Grills scored 7. Ease of use goes the other way: the 450A's 8.5 beats everything here.

Ash disposal is the chore that actually decides whether you cook on a weeknight, and Camp Chef's cup-and-lever cleanout is the best quality-of-life feature either brand offers. Pull the lever, dump the cup, done; even Woodwind Pro owners who complain about other things praise the pellet purge and ash system. Cleaning a Z Grills means the classic ritual: cold grill, grates out, vacuum in. As for apps, Camp Chef's is a livable 7.5, occasionally cranky about connections. Z Grills sidesteps the whole question by not having one, and the 450A's dial-and-go simplicity is exactly why it took the best ease score on the page.

Which is built to last, and what do owners complain about?

Camp Chef builds heavier: 7.5/10 on the standard Woodwinds and 8.5 on the Pro, against 6.5 for both Z Grills, where thin metal is the standing community complaint. Neither brand is trouble-free. Camp Chef's gripes cluster around controllers and app connectivity, Z Grills' around sheet metal and augers.

Rock both lids and your hands learn the build scores before you read them. The Z panels flex, the Woodwind barrel does not, and the Pro's 8.5 build score is genuinely stout. But step-up money does not buy immunity from problems, and I would rather you hear the pattern from me than from page three of a forum.

Read those two complaint piles honestly and the shapes differ. Z Grills problems are cheap-grill problems: thin steel, small-part inconsistency. Camp Chef's are smart-grill problems: electronics and connectivity on otherwise solid metal. I find the second kind easier to live with, since a flaky app never ruined a brisket, but a warped barrel eventually does.

Which gives you more grill for your money?

I have no verified street prices on file for either brand, so the printable value math is capacity against coverage: the Woodwind 36 delivers 412 square inches per warranty year, the Woodwind 24 gives 270, the Z Grills 700 gives 232. My scored verdict is blunter: Z Grills 700 at 9/10 value, 450A at 8.5, Camp Chef 7 to 8.

Notice the tension in that table. Camp Chef wins the physical math, more barrel for every year of coverage, while Z Grills sweeps the value scores, because value is what you paid weighed against what you got, and nobody undercuts Z Grills on the first half. The 36's 7/10 is the cautionary row: at some point more Camp Chef stops being more value. If I were spending my own step-up money today it goes to the Woodwind 24, the best-balanced grill on this page. And for the record, my overall top pick is not in this matchup at all: the Weber Searwood XL leads the full pellet grills ranking, and if you are stretching anyway you should check the current price before settling either of these arguments. How Weber stacks against the budget king directly is its own story, told in Weber vs Z Grills.

Which one should a first-timer buy?

Z Grills, if the alternative is waiting another season to afford the Woodwind. The 450A's 8.5 ease score, no-app simplicity, and honest 7.5-grade temperature control make it a fine teacher, and your first twenty cooks are about learning meat. Buy Camp Chef first only if searing is already on your wish list.

I tell beginners the same thing every time: the grill is the tuition, the brisket is the class. Nothing the Woodwind does better will save an over-trimmed flat or a panicked 3 a.m. wrap, so the cheaper tuition is defensible. The catch is trajectory. New pellet owners turn into smoke chasers and steak searers faster than they expect, and the Z has no dial for the first and a 5.5 sear score for the second. If you already know that person is you, skip the intermediate purchase. If Camp Chef money is available but you are eyeing the other mid-tier badge, the fight most shoppers actually run is Traeger vs Camp Chef, and it is closer than this one.

Who should spend the extra money on Camp Chef?

Anyone who already knows what their cheap grill cannot do. The step-up buys a Smoke Number dial, a 9/10 smoke ceiling on the Pro, 500°F direct-flame searing, lever-pull ash cleanout, WiFi, and heavier steel. If two or more of those name a frustration you have felt, the upgrade pays for itself in cooked dinners.

The Camp Chef buyer I recognize is the second-grill buyer. They ran a budget machine for two seasons, loved smoking, and started keeping a list: wished the ribs were smokier, hated vacuuming ash in the cold, seared the steaks on the kitchen stove like a person hiding something. The Woodwind answers that exact list, item by item, which is why it feels less like a purchase and more like a correction. If your list is instead about price above all, Camp Chef is not your answer and the honest budget fight is Pit Boss vs Z Grills, where Z Grills faces someone playing its own game.

How do they score on our weighted test method?

Every grill on this site runs the same ten-part method, weighted by what actually changes your food. Here is Camp Chef Woodwind WiFi 24 against Z Grills 700 Series (ZPG-7002), row by row, with the weight each test carries.

Verdict: Camp Chef or Z Grills?

Camp Chef is the worthwhile step up. You get controllable smoke and an 8 or 9 score to show for it, 500°F searing against a 5.5-sear machine, the best ash cleanout I have scored at 8.5, and heavier build. Z Grills wins only when the budget is the budget, and then it wins cleanly: the 700's 9/10 value is the best on the page.

The step-up question usually hides a harder question, which is whether the extra money buys cooking or just buys features. Here it buys cooking. Smoke you can turn up, steak you can crust, cleanup that takes seconds: those show up on the plate and in how often you bother to light the thing. So Camp Chef takes the matchup, with the Woodwind 24 as the pick. But I keep a Z Grills 700 on the bench and it has never once felt like a mistake, because a grill that holds 225°F and costs the least of anything comparable is not a compromise, it is a strategy. If that is your strategy, run it without apology.