I own a California home that's midcentury modern-ish, think old Palm Springs style.

The electric cooktop which is located against an interior wall was built without ventalation to the exterior. It currently has an under cabinet ductless hood that captures smoke in some sort of carbon filter tube.

Would be great to install an exterior vent but there's budget issues. Not going to knock down walls and rebuild everything for this. There's also NO ATTIC !!! just a flat ceiling. Aren't attics needed for doing a ceiling mounted hood that blows out the roof??

Anyways an option i've seen is something like a Jenn-Air downdraft, that's also duct free but sucks a portion of the smoke down below the cooktop.

I've read downdrafts are not ideal but assuming I can't put a ceiling mounted vent here. So which would you do?

Install a ventless downdraft? or just keep my ventless hood? (and try to find a better one)