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Emissions from traditional cooking practices in low- and middle-income countries have detrimental health and climate effects; cleaner-burning cookstoves may provide “co-benefits”. Here we assess this potential via in-home measurements of fuel-use and emissions and real-time optical properties of pollutants from traditional and alternative cookstoves in rural Malawi. Alternative cookstove models were distributed by existing initiatives and include a low-cost ceramic model, two forced-draft cookstoves (FDCS; Philips HD4012LS and ACE-1), and three institutional cookstoves. Among household cookstoves, emission factors (EF; g (kg wood)⁻¹) were lowest for the Philips, with statistically significant reductions relative to baseline of 45% and 47% for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO), respectively. The Philips was the only cookstove tested that showed significant reductions in elemental carbon …