The performance investigation of natural and forced convection indirect type solar dryer (ITSD) setups was performed by drying ivy gourd. With the average solar radiation of 652.9 and 669.75 W/m² for the successive drying days, the collector's average efficiencies were estimated to be 62.56% and 77.2% for the natural and forced convection setups, respectively. These figures indicate that the forced convection setup showed 23.4% improvement as compared to natural convection. The average drying efficiencies for natural and forced convection ITSDs were evaluated to be 6.62% and 7.8%, respectively, where almost a 17.82% improvement of drying efficiency was noticed. The moisture content (MC) of the product was reduced from an initial moisture content of 15.32 (db) to a final average MC of 0.144 (db). The forced convection setup performed well with a faster rate and saving almost 3 h of drying time. The average values of activation energy, effective diffusion coefficient, mass transfer coefficient and heat transfer coefficient were estimated to be 39.85 and 35.54 kJ/mol, 7.06 × 10^-9 and 8.35×10^-9 m²/s, 0.0033 and 0.0043 m/s, and 3.85 and 4.93 W/m²K, respectively, for natural and forced convection setups. The specific energy consumption and specific moisture extraction rate were evaluated where forced convection ITSD gave the best results.