So what kind of stoves one should get. There are many kind of stoves from homemade alcohol stoves, butane stoves etc. To give you a clearer picture, visit this website and they will explain type of stoves.
Before you buy a stove, you need to know your usage such as hiking / mountaineering or RV camping as weight will be a factor. Next you need to know where to find fuel source.
Butane Stoves
Currently now popular in Taiwan are Butane stoves, brands like Snow Peak, Primus, Brunton etc. We used to owned such stoves before, they are lightweight and uses a disposable gas cannister. The setback about these stoves is that you can't always find a replacement cannister easily and most branded stoves can't fit another brand gas cannister so you probally end up using the same brand gas cannister. That was one my reason to ditch such stoves and the other is that I can't bring on a flight. So what the heck I pay so much for such stove and I faced so many problems.
Last 2 years I found this stove in Taiwan and is not really expensive. The Iwantani foldable stove weighs around 300g. The beauty about this stove is that you can find replacement gas cannister almost anywhere including 7-11 stores. The Iwantani replacement gas cannister are very popular in Aisa and is far more cheaper compare to those branded butane gas cannister. We only use this stoves when we decided to have a steamboat or we needed another extra outdoor stove for cooking. I am no longer a big fan of butane fuel stoves as most of them uses a disposable gas cannisters that are not enviromentally friendly.Multi Fuel Stoves
My primary stove is a MSR Dragonfly multi fuel stove. This is my second stove from MSR, my first was MSR WhisperLite Internationale which I had used for 8years. Both stoves are great stoves, the reason I sold away MSR WhisperLite because I needed a stove that can adjust the flame for simmering like cooking rice for example. However I later came to understand the newer model you are able do that. Multi fuel stoves are definitely heavier and take up more space compare to butane gas stove. The beauty of it is that you have less worries of finding fuel source. My current stove is able to use diesel, kerosene, white gas and auto gas. So looking for such fuel source even in a Third world country is not a problem, there is always a petrol station somewhere. Another beauty is that you can self field service the stoves, so far in the last 10 years, both stoves I only had self serviced 4 times. Never did one time it failed me.
There are many brands that make multi fuel stove such as Brunton, Coleman etc. My preference is still MSR, they design and make stoves for the US army so their reliability is pretty good and their after sales services are great.
There is another stove that is able to use both butane and multi fuel and is by Primus. I had it for 2 weeks and I decided to sell it off. I was looking for simmering purpose but the MSR Dragonfly did a better job.
To summarise both type of stoves
Butane Gas Stove Multi Fuel Stove
weight lighter heavier
cost lesser more
Packing size smaller bigger
replacement fuel harder to find there's car, there's fuel
serviceable not really yes
enviromentally friendly no, proper disposal of cannister yes, nothing to dispose
Flight friendly yes but without gas cannister yes but need to empty bottle
Burn rate avg 100g fuel 35mins avg 100g fuel 30mins
Now you decide which kind of stoves you want to own.
