Caraway vs Our Place: four pans or the Always Pan

Caraway and Our Place both make aluminum pans with a ceramic nonstick coating, and both say the coating is made without PFAS. Both work on every stove, induction included, and both ask for the same care: hand washing, wood or silicone tools, and low to medium heat. Our Place adds a 90-second limit on preheating an empty pan, and both say to skip aerosol cooking sprays.

Caraway's 12-piece set is four classic pans with three lids: a 10.5-inch frying pan, a 3-quart saucepan, a 4.5-quart sauté pan and a 6.5-quart Dutch oven, plus four magnetic racks and a canvas lid holder to store them.

Our Place builds around two shapes. The Always Pan is a deep 10.5-inch pan that holds 2.6 quarts, with a domed lid, pour spouts, a steamer basket that doubles as a colander, and a wooden spatula that rests on the handle. The Perfect Pot is a 6.5-quart pot. Our Place's 13-piece set has each in two sizes (8.5- and 10.5-inch pans, 2.75- and 6.5-quart pots) with their lids, two spatulas, two spoons and the steamer basket.

Caraway rates its ceramic pans to 550°F in the oven, not under the broiler; Our Place rates its ceramic Always Pan to 450°F. The frying pans weigh about the same: 2.7 lb for Caraway's 10.5-inch and 2.8 lb for Our Place's. Caraway's 6.5-quart Dutch oven weighs 6 lb; Our Place gives 4.5 lb for its 6.5-quart Perfect Pot, lid included. Our Place gives a 3-year limited warranty on its ceramic cookware, Caraway one year.

Choose Our Place if you have little storage and like one deep pan that sautés, steams and boils a pound of pasta. Choose Caraway for separate pans with straight jobs, a sauté pan that holds 4.5 quarts, and the higher oven limit for finishing dishes in a hot oven. Either way, the coating wears with use: replace the pan when food starts to stick.