Here we describe a compact and efficient strontium oven well suited forlaser-cooling experiments. Novel design solutions allowed us to produce acollimated strontium atomic beam with a flux of 1.0\times10^13 s^-1 cm^-2 atthe oven temperature of 450 {\deg}C, reached with an electrical powerconsumption of 36 W. The oven is based on a stainless-steel reservoir, filledwith 6 g of metallic strontium, electrically heated in a vacuum environment bya tantalum wire threaded through an alumina multi-bore tube. The oven can behosted in a standard DN40CF cube and has an estimated continuous operationlifetime of 10 years. This oven can be used for other alkali and alkaline earthmetals with essentially no modifications.