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Big boss glass air fryer vs Instant Pot Omni Plus — it’s a comparison that comes up often for families who’ve already ruled out PTFE-coated baskets and are deciding between two large-capacity PFAS-free options at similar price points.
Both use cooking surfaces with no fluoropolymer coating concerns. Both handle full family meals. But the cooking surface material, design philosophy, and practical performance differences between them are significant enough that the right choice depends heavily on how your family actually cooks. Here’s the full comparison.
The Core Difference: Glass Bowl vs Stainless Steel Oven
The Big Boss 16Qt uses a large borosilicate glass bowl as its primary cooking vessel. The lid unit sits on top and circulates hot air down through the bowl. Food cooks inside the glass, which means you can see exactly what’s happening throughout the entire cook — no opening the unit to check, no guessing whether the chicken has browned.
The Instant Pot Omni Plus 18L uses a stainless steel oven-style cavity with a door that seals during cooking. Food sits on removable stainless steel trays or the included air fry basket. The interior is not visible during cooking without opening the door.
That design difference — transparent glass bowl versus sealed stainless steel oven — is the most fundamental distinction between these two appliances and shapes almost every other practical comparison between them.
Cooking Surface Safety: Both PFAS-Free, Different Materials
Both appliances are PFAS-free, but through different material choices worth understanding.
The Big Boss uses borosilicate glass — chemically inert at all cooking temperatures, no coating of any kind, no polymer chemistry involved. Glass is the most straightforward PFAS-free cooking surface because it simply isn’t in the same material category as any coated surface. There’s nothing to degrade, nothing to scratch through to a concerning layer beneath.
The Instant Pot Omni Plus uses stainless steel — an alloy with no polymer coating. Like glass, stainless steel is entirely outside the fluoropolymer category of PFAS concern. It has no coating to degrade and handles repeated high-temperature cooking without chemical migration concerns.
For families where the PFAS-free requirement is the primary driver, both options meet that standard definitively. The choice between them on safety grounds comes down to preference rather than meaningful difference — both cooking surfaces are as clean as cooking surfaces get.
According to EPA guidance on PFAS compounds, the category of concern centers on fluoropolymer-based coatings. Neither borosilicate glass nor stainless steel falls within that category.
Glass bowl versus stainless steel tray — both PFAS-free, both without coating concerns, meaningfully different in cooking behavior and practical use.
Capacity and Format
The Big Boss is a 16-quart glass bowl. That’s a large cooking vessel, but the bowl format means capacity is measured differently than in an oven-style unit. The usable cooking area is the circular interior of the bowl — you can fit a whole chicken, a large roast, or a generous pile of vegetables, but you can’t run multiple flat trays simultaneously the way an oven-style unit allows.
The Instant Pot Omni Plus is 18 liters — slightly larger in total volume — with a rectangular oven-style cavity. The flat tray format allows you to use two racks simultaneously, running a protein on one level and a vegetable side on another at the same time. That multi-rack capability is a meaningful practical advantage for cooking complete family meals in a single cook rather than sequential rounds.
For families cooking complete dinners — protein plus sides — simultaneously, the Omni Plus’s multi-rack format is the stronger choice. For families cooking one large item at a time — a whole chicken, a large roast — the bowl format of the Big Boss is adequate and the cooking visibility advantage is meaningful.
Cooking Visibility: Big Boss Wins Clearly
The transparent glass bowl of the Big Boss provides complete cooking visibility throughout every cook. You can watch the chicken browning, see when vegetables are reaching the right color, and monitor doneness without opening the unit and releasing heat. For families learning air fryer cooking, for cooks who prefer visual monitoring, and for cooking delicate items where timing precision matters, this visibility advantage is real and consistent.
The Omni Plus requires opening the door to check on food — which releases heat and adds a few minutes to the effective cook time if done repeatedly. The door has a small window, but it’s not large enough for meaningful visual monitoring of what’s happening inside.
If cooking visibility matters to your household, the Big Boss wins this comparison clearly and consistently.
Cooking Functions
The Big Boss operates primarily as an air fryer and roaster. The lid unit circulates hot air at variable temperatures, which covers roasting, air frying, and dehydrating. It’s a more focused appliance than the Omni Plus.
The Instant Pot Omni Plus offers eight cooking functions: air fry, bake, broil, roast, toast, dehydrate, warm, and rotisserie. The rotisserie function — included with the spit and forks — is a capability the Big Boss doesn’t match. The toast and bake functions extend the Omni Plus into territory a bowl-style air fryer doesn’t cover.
For families who want one appliance to handle breakfast toasting, weeknight air frying, weekend roasting, and rotisserie chicken, the Omni Plus’s multi-function range is a meaningful advantage. For families whose air fryer use centers on roasting and air frying without the additional functions, the Big Boss covers that scope without the added complexity.
Cleanup Comparison
The Big Boss glass bowl is dishwasher safe and straightforward to clean — the smooth glass surface releases food residue easily and the bowl’s shape makes it accessible for hand washing. The lid unit requires careful wiping around the heating element but doesn’t produce the grease buildup that an oven-style cavity does for high-fat cooks.
The Omni Plus requires cleaning the stainless steel interior walls, the crumb tray, and each accessory after every cook. High-fat cooks like rotisserie chicken produce grease splatter on the interior walls that requires regular attention to prevent buildup. The cleanup is manageable but more involved than the Big Boss for equivalent cook types.
For families who prioritize cleanup simplicity, the Big Boss glass bowl is the easier-to-clean appliance for equivalent cooking tasks.
Both handle full family dinners without PFAS concerns — the choice comes down to cooking format, visibility preference, and function range.
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Factor | Big Boss 16Qt Glass | Instant Pot Omni Plus 18L |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking surface | Borosilicate glass | Stainless steel |
| PFAS-free | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Cooking visibility | ✅ Full visibility | ❌ Door window only |
| Multi-rack cooking | ❌ Bowl format | ✅ Two racks simultaneously |
| Cooking functions | Air fry, roast, dehydrate | 8 functions including rotisserie |
| Cleanup ease | ✅ Simpler — glass bowl | More components to clean |
| Rotisserie function | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Counter footprint | Circular, compact footprint | Rectangular, larger footprint |
Which One Is Right for Your Family
Choose the Big Boss 16Qt Glass Air Fryer if your family values cooking visibility, prefers simpler cleanup, cooks one large item at a time rather than multiple dishes simultaneously, and wants the most chemically straightforward PFAS-free cooking surface. The glass bowl design is ideal for families who roast whole chickens, large cuts, and generous vegetable batches and want to monitor cooking without interruption.
See Big Boss Glass Air Fryer on Amazon →
Choose the Instant Pot Omni Plus 18L if your family needs to cook protein and sides simultaneously on multiple racks, wants the rotisserie function for whole chickens, or needs the broader 8-function range that extends beyond air frying and roasting into toasting, baking, and broiling.
See Instant Pot Omni Plus on Amazon →
Big Boss Glass Air Fryer vs Instant Pot Omni Plus: The Bottom Line
Both are definitively PFAS-free. Both handle full family meals. The Big Boss wins on cooking visibility and cleanup simplicity. The Omni Plus wins on multi-rack simultaneous cooking and function range. Neither is the wrong choice for a family that has ruled out PTFE-coated baskets — the decision comes down to how your household actually cooks and which practical advantages matter most day to day.
For a full breakdown of the Big Boss glass cooking surface, see the guide on whether the Big Boss glass air fryer is PFAS free. For the Omni Plus surface verification, see the guide on whether the Instant Pot Omni Plus is PFAS free. And for families also considering a compact ceramic basket option for smaller daily cooks, the guide on the Ninja AF150AMZ ceramic basket covers the third PFAS-free option in our lineup.