What range/cooktop are you planning? Where are you located and how often do you have a lot of windows open? How do you want to use your kitchen? What kinds of cooking and baking do you do? What do you want to do in the future? How often? For how many people? Do you entertain? How often? For how many people? How important is indoor air quality and your families health?

Yes you can get a ductless hood with a fan but I am not sure they work as well as venting. Of course if you have no other option. I believe they are similar to what you would find in a microwave above a range. If you can get to an outside wall it might be worth it to have a great quality hood above your range with a powerful fan to take the grease away.

AKDY 30” Under Cabinet Stainless Steel Range Hood 3 Speed Push Control · More Info

30 in. Ductless Wall Mount Range Hood with Permanent Filters, LED Lights · More Info

We currently have a ductless hood and we’re happy with the level of circulation/filter. I really like the look of the “wood encasing” that “hides” the hood. Is that possible? Or do I HAVE to have a ducted vent to have it encased in the wood trim? Looking to do something like this.

Using a ductless hood is a serious health risk.

The range/cooktop installation instructions will specify allowed distances to combustible materials. That is your primary hood insert covering limitation, and for some cooktops, will also be a limitation in allowable materials used in walls if a back guard is not installed. The image could be the illustration to a what-not-to-do message; we don't have enough facts to know.

Someone noted in another thread recently that cleaning wood over the long term will be more damaging than cleaning stainless steel over the long term, so there is that factor also.

You can do it with a convertible range hood insert. But why, if you are redoing the kitchen, wouldn't you plan for a ducted hood?

Juneknow...yes I’m referring to a recirculating hood. To add a ducted vent would require building out a wall so the budget doesn’t really allow for it. Would the grease be an issue only for a convertible vent or either way? if I stick with what I have now should I just do an above the range microwave or still splurge for a drawer microwave? My motivation was to get the nice looking wood hood cover.

Grease is the minor issue. CO, CO2, NO2, carcinogens, formaldehyde and other bits of effluent from cooking, over electric or gas, are serious health risks. If you are doing nothing but boiling water on an induction range then ductless might be OK but for anything else you want to exhaust the pollutants from your house.

@ayonev Those hoods are gorgeous. I can see why you want one. When I was house hunting a few years ago we saw this beautiful hood in the kitchen but when we looked further the home inspector showed us it was non functioning. It was a fan that ran but did not cycle the air outside. Now this is fine for some people. Years ago we had a microwave over our range and lived with it. It functioned okay but not nearly as fantastic as our current range hood. If you have no other choice and can't vent outside, yes it can be done. You can see on Houzz there are options to buy ventless hoods. Many beautiful ones. Find out what the building codes are for your area and if they are allowed. Some areas require a vented hood if you have a gas range. Some of the ventless hoods have charcoal filters that you can change often that might be helpful to you. Wishing you luck on this journey.

A few more articles to help

Vent hoods that don't need to be vented outside

Ventless Hood Discussion

Ventless hood discussion

Is a range hood necessary?

So far, only the VaH ARS system has been described by a forum user as meeting most of the desired performance one needs without venting to outdoors. However, as @opaone has again reminded us, there is some components of cooking that are not dealt with when recirculating the filtered cooking effluent, so it is desirable that they be addressed somehow, such as by good enough air exchange.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2347276/vent-a-hood-ductless-ars-range-hood-update#n=65

I think ARS might be better than other recirculating though I don't know that for sure.

Good ventilation (HRV/ERV) will help but it could take 24-60 hours to remove contaminants. And that's assuming good ventilation which something like 97% of homes in the U.S. do not have. Contaminants really need to be removed at the source. Once they spread in to the house it will take a lot to get rid of them.

These are gases and particulate matter that you are not necessarily going to notice in any way. But they slowly degrade people's physical and cognitive health. People can say that they've had a ductless for years and thought it worked great but I've not yet seen any of them provide measurements of VOC's nor medical test results from before and after.

We measure O2, O3, CO, CO2, NO2, and CH2O along with PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10 on a continual basis and the results can be quite scary.

Some of what's coming out of EU and LBNL recently is quite eye opening.

Given what we now know about indoor air quality and health it's irresponsible to not install a proper range exhaust system.