4 ms·

Who are some 3D printer vendors that are worthy of support?

sottol 5mo ago
I would have said Prusa a year or two ago but they've reneged a little on their open-ness. That was probably in response to Bambu being fully closed and gaining so much market share. The Core line of printers seems promising and a big leap towards closing the gap towards Bambu's corexy printers but haven't used one yet and I've been out of the game a little. Bambu though is probably more of a high-end appliance type than Prusas more utilitarian feel.
- gmueckl 5mo ago
  I splurged a while ago and got a pre-assembled Core One. It worked great right out of the box and is has been worry-free so far. So far, I've treated it very much like an appliance with no tinkering on my part yet. The machine is still quite hackable. Prusa publishes the firmware and CAD files for their printers, although the CAD files aren't under a fully open license. The support is generally nice to people who tinker with their printers and sometimes even seems to be genuinely invested in seeing tinkering projects succeed.
GuB-42 5mo ago
I'd say Prussa. I am not going to say they are perfect, but I think they have a good balance of ethics, openness, product quality, innovation, availability and price. By that I mean their are the best in none of them, but I don't think of anything better as a combination.
- nullstyle 5mo ago
  Prusa sat on its haunches for a decade, happy to leave progress on the table as long as their salaries got paid. Bambu actually got non-technical people into the hobby and has always had more bang per buck. Buy a bambu; use Orcaslicer Edit: didn't mean to say "held the industry back"; I would categorize my opinion more along the lines of "were happy to get fat on past offerings" or the like.
  - stavros 5mo ago
    How did Prusa hold the industry back? Were they suing other printer manufacturers who innovated? "Not innovating myself" isn't the same as "holding other's innovations back".
    - nullstyle 5mo ago
      I didn’t say Prusa held the industry back; I said they sat on their haunches. Even the basic differences in stepper motors between what bambu chose and what prusa or ultimaker chose demonstrates my point. Edit: whoops! guess i did say they held the industry back... my bad /facepalm.
  - sottol 5mo ago
    My thing with bambu was always that they polished whatever the industry (and hobbyists) had invented and closed it all off, then also innovating on top of that but never giving back unless they _had_ to. Polish and mechanical design are great but corexy kinematics, input-shaping are imo what made the X1 stand out as the fast+good-qual printer when it launched. A lot of what they added on top was then to build a moat. This may be a controversial take, but imo it would be Bambu to set the industry back by a decade if they "win" and lock up the market. That's clearly their strategy afaict. Does anyone remember Bambu patenting existing open inventions as their own? I can't seem to find good links anymore (?!) but there's some details here https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5134/8/6/141 https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5134/8/6/141
    - nullstyle 5mo ago
      If no one else is willing to give a polished experience, they have no one to blame but themselves. My father doesn't want to be a 3d printer expert or filament researcher; he wants to print things in 3d as a hobby. Looking back at the reprap, ultimaker, and prusa — the big boys of the maker-oriented printers that i remember — none of them made any progress on making the hobby more accessible to someone like my dad. Bambu deserves some recognition for that.
      - 5mo ago
Lukas_Skywalker 5mo ago
I have a Prusa MK3S and it has been very very reliable. There's also a ton of mods you can download and print, which modify or extend the printer for specific use cases. They are a bit more expensive then their Chinese counterparts, but in my opinion, it's definitely worth the extra cost for the peace of mind.
stavros 5mo ago
Prusa is the most open of the printer manufacturers. They did have to backtrack a bit because Bambu copied their slicer to use for themselves and undercut them, but they're still as open as you can get in a capitalist economy.
kennywinker 5mo ago
I just bought a qidi printer. It arrives in a few days, so I can’t speak to the machine’s quality beyond saying it’s reviewed pretty well - but the software is all open source klipper with no locks preventing you from modifying it. The hardware itself is closed source, but if you want an open hardware machine in 2026 you need to build your own voron.
cjbgkagh 5mo ago
Obviously it depends on what you’re doing and what is importante to you. It’s hard to beat Bambi Labs H2D or X2D for versatility, practicality, and price. Engineering filaments are getting a lot cheaper as the market expands so it helps to have a printer than can handle those. Given Bambi Labs is so cheap compared to the alternatives customers would probably be better off putting aside the savings to buy a second printer from a different supplier when one starts to catch up.
- kennywinker 5mo ago
  As I mentioned in a sibling comment, I bought a qidi q2 because i am gambling that they have caught up in terms of quality. The price is comparable to the bambu p1s, while the specs are closer to the x1c. Reviews seem to put it roughly on par with the p2s, which costs 30% more. It’s clear nobody’s caught up in terms of ux / user friendliness - but as an experienced printer i don’t need my hand held quite as much - and the openness is worth a lot to me. Being able to define custom klipper macros alone makes it worth it to me to stay away from bambu
the__alchemist 5mo ago
Prusa. And my Raise3D E2 has been solid for ~5 years. I can't directly compare it to Bambu, but it was a massive step up from the Creality Ender it replaced. It's a "Just works" machine.
lawn 5mo ago
Get a VORON printer and get a kit. They're completely open (both software and hardware) and you can mod and do whatever the hell you want with them.
- scronkfinkle 5mo ago
  +1, my wife and I have been working on a VORON 2.4 together and it's been a blast!

I would have said Prusa a year or two ago but they've reneged a little on their open-ness. That was probably in response to Bambu being fully closed and gaining so much market share. The Core line of printers seems promising and a big leap towards closing the gap towards Bambu's corexy printers but haven't used one yet and I've been out of the game a little. Bambu though is probably more of a high-end appliance type than Prusas more utilitarian feel.

gmueckl 5mo ago
I splurged a while ago and got a pre-assembled Core One. It worked great right out of the box and is has been worry-free so far. So far, I've treated it very much like an appliance with no tinkering on my part yet. The machine is still quite hackable. Prusa publishes the firmware and CAD files for their printers, although the CAD files aren't under a fully open license. The support is generally nice to people who tinker with their printers and sometimes even seems to be genuinely invested in seeing tinkering projects succeed.

GuB-42 5mo ago

I'd say Prussa. I am not going to say they are perfect, but I think they have a good balance of ethics, openness, product quality, innovation, availability and price. By that I mean their are the best in none of them, but I don't think of anything better as a combination.

nullstyle 5mo ago
Prusa sat on its haunches for a decade, happy to leave progress on the table as long as their salaries got paid. Bambu actually got non-technical people into the hobby and has always had more bang per buck. Buy a bambu; use Orcaslicer Edit: didn't mean to say "held the industry back"; I would categorize my opinion more along the lines of "were happy to get fat on past offerings" or the like.
- stavros 5mo ago
  How did Prusa hold the industry back? Were they suing other printer manufacturers who innovated? "Not innovating myself" isn't the same as "holding other's innovations back".
  - nullstyle 5mo ago
    I didn’t say Prusa held the industry back; I said they sat on their haunches. Even the basic differences in stepper motors between what bambu chose and what prusa or ultimaker chose demonstrates my point. Edit: whoops! guess i did say they held the industry back... my bad /facepalm.
- sottol 5mo ago
  My thing with bambu was always that they polished whatever the industry (and hobbyists) had invented and closed it all off, then also innovating on top of that but never giving back unless they _had_ to. Polish and mechanical design are great but corexy kinematics, input-shaping are imo what made the X1 stand out as the fast+good-qual printer when it launched. A lot of what they added on top was then to build a moat. This may be a controversial take, but imo it would be Bambu to set the industry back by a decade if they "win" and lock up the market. That's clearly their strategy afaict. Does anyone remember Bambu patenting existing open inventions as their own? I can't seem to find good links anymore (?!) but there's some details here https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5134/8/6/141 https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5134/8/6/141
  - nullstyle 5mo ago
    If no one else is willing to give a polished experience, they have no one to blame but themselves. My father doesn't want to be a 3d printer expert or filament researcher; he wants to print things in 3d as a hobby. Looking back at the reprap, ultimaker, and prusa — the big boys of the maker-oriented printers that i remember — none of them made any progress on making the hobby more accessible to someone like my dad. Bambu deserves some recognition for that.
    - 5mo ago

Lukas_Skywalker 5mo ago

I have a Prusa MK3S and it has been very very reliable. There's also a ton of mods you can download and print, which modify or extend the printer for specific use cases. They are a bit more expensive then their Chinese counterparts, but in my opinion, it's definitely worth the extra cost for the peace of mind.

stavros 5mo ago

Prusa is the most open of the printer manufacturers. They did have to backtrack a bit because Bambu copied their slicer to use for themselves and undercut them, but they're still as open as you can get in a capitalist economy.

kennywinker 5mo ago

I just bought a qidi printer. It arrives in a few days, so I can’t speak to the machine’s quality beyond saying it’s reviewed pretty well - but the software is all open source klipper with no locks preventing you from modifying it. The hardware itself is closed source, but if you want an open hardware machine in 2026 you need to build your own voron.

cjbgkagh 5mo ago

Obviously it depends on what you’re doing and what is importante to you. It’s hard to beat Bambi Labs H2D or X2D for versatility, practicality, and price. Engineering filaments are getting a lot cheaper as the market expands so it helps to have a printer than can handle those. Given Bambi Labs is so cheap compared to the alternatives customers would probably be better off putting aside the savings to buy a second printer from a different supplier when one starts to catch up.

kennywinker 5mo ago
As I mentioned in a sibling comment, I bought a qidi q2 because i am gambling that they have caught up in terms of quality. The price is comparable to the bambu p1s, while the specs are closer to the x1c. Reviews seem to put it roughly on par with the p2s, which costs 30% more. It’s clear nobody’s caught up in terms of ux / user friendliness - but as an experienced printer i don’t need my hand held quite as much - and the openness is worth a lot to me. Being able to define custom klipper macros alone makes it worth it to me to stay away from bambu

the__alchemist 5mo ago

Prusa. And my Raise3D E2 has been solid for ~5 years. I can't directly compare it to Bambu, but it was a massive step up from the Creality Ender it replaced. It's a "Just works" machine.

lawn 5mo ago

Get a VORON printer and get a kit. They're completely open (both software and hardware) and you can mod and do whatever the hell you want with them.

scronkfinkle 5mo ago
+1, my wife and I have been working on a VORON 2.4 together and it's been a blast!