Looks like a real hot item....

This is all appealing to the young pyromaniac in me. I love making fire.

If only I got a stove every time I said that.
Oh, wait...I DID get a stove every time I said that.
-Blast

How are these better/worse than a woodgas stove, a la the Solo Stove or similar?

I assume you mean this solo-stove/. That looks good for some applications but it doesn't fold up flat and would probably not fit in my smaller packs. Still, it looks like a very good stove.

Not impressed. There are some very misleading statements in their advertising. A fuel canister and my Pocket Rocket is lighter than the 9 oz they claim as the weight of their stove, just for starters.

Still, there are situations where it would work just fine. I believe home made versions can be built for far less. Our stove guru (HJ) would have very useful information.

That's only one canister of fuel. Since the solo uses fuel available on the ground, you may have a lot of fuel available, enough to far surpass your ability to carry canisters. But that's why I like a wood stove that folds as a back-up. What I like is that there are lots of options out there.

Having options is good, no doubt about it. I hiked for my first few years carrying no stove at all. We would always stop, gather wood, and light a fire to heat up our can of beans or whatever. I then progressed to carrying a gas stove (Svea type) for winter situations. Over the years, especially after several wet, soggy trips, I carried a light backpacking type stove routinely. I have been very happy with a canister stove for the last several years - with canister, about half a pound; boils water is about three minutes; and is dead simple to operate. One small canister is plenty for the typical trip of three days or so. If and when your stove messes up, you can always light a wood fire, just like the old days - unless the fire danger is too high or the woods are too wet. If weight is really important, a home made alcohol stove (CAT) and fuel is simple and quite reliable. However you manage,I think it is important to have more than one way of getting fire and cooking a meal.

In a situation other than backpacking or other situations where weight is significant, this is all irrelevant - the more, the merrier.

I expect that the Solo-Stove and the original version Bush-Baby (Bush-Buddy? I can't remember the name) would be more efficient and probably hotter burning than the folding/take-apart wood stoves. But the folding/take-apart stoves would win out in packability due to their small size when disassembled.

I bought the stove I did not because it was the lightest, or the most efficient, or the cheapest - I bought it just because I wanted it (not "needed" it). Just like we put skylights in our house when we built it. Those are not as efficient as a solid roof, but we wanted them anyway. There's just something neat about a small wood burning stove that makes me like them. And I like elegant mechanical designs, like the fold-up one I bought.

For those of you who have actually used one of these folding thingees, how does it compare to the traditional open/semi-enclosed campfire?