The Anoxomat®system provides an automated evacuation–replacement technique to create an anaerobic or microaerophilic environment in a jar. We evaluated the Anoxomat®system for the growth of obligate anaerobes and for the recovery of anaerobic organisms from clinical specimens, and compared its performance to that of an anaerobic chamber and the GasPak®System. Of the 54 stock strains tested, the Anoxomat®, the chamber, and the GasPak®recovered 95%, 95% and 93% at 24 h, respectively. On 29 occasions (51%), the colonies on the Anoxomat®plates were slightly larger than those in the chamber and on 17 (30%) occasions larger than the colonies on the GasPak®jar plates. At 48 h, the Anoxomat®, the chamber, and the GasPak®recovered 93.5%, 94.4% and 88.9%, respectively; of 108 anaerobes isolated from 31 clinical specimens. Methylene blue indicators became decolorized (average of 10 tests) within 2 h inside the Anoxomat®jars, 2 h 10 min inside the anaerobic chamber, and 2 h 30 min inside the GasPak®jars.