Prusa are pretty much plug and play these days, especially the Core One line-up.

You're right that they're expensive but you get free human support 24x7, you get an open platform, lots of contributions to open source (even Bambu Studio is a fork of Prusa Slicer), and they pretty much go on forever.

My Core One+ started its life as an original MK3 and went through each iteration of upgrades, and it works like new. I'm now waiting for an INDX upgrade for it.

IMO the main drawback of consumer Prusa offerings is the lack of good chamber heating for more advanced materials. I can print PC on my Core One+ in the summer with the chamber at 45℃ (good enough for most uses, but 60 would be better), but in the winter it becomes a lot harder.

The Core One L is supposedly better in that regard but I've seen reports that it's still not ideal.

Other than that, I feel the extra cash pays itself back in the long run.

Prusa is still the most 'open source-ish' choice, but they're no longer a polar opposite to Bambu, in 2023 they started making efforts to stop commercialization of their designs, stopped sharing source/design material for their PCBs, etc.

Then in 2025 they changed their 'open community license' to say users may not:

“Sell complete machines or remixes based on these files, unless you have a separate agreement…” and “The Restriction: You cannot commercially exploit the design files…”

https://blog.prusa3d.com/core-one-cad-files-release-under-th...

Maybe this is more a comment on how open source has had to change in the face of commercial exploitation of the vulnerabilities traditional open source licenses create for the businesses doing the R&D.

If you decide to get a Bambu anyway, let me heartily recommend against an H2D.

It did "just work" for a while, but then the print cooling fan went bad. On my home Voron, this would be a 5 minute fix. On the H2D, it is this [0]. You basically have to take the entire toolhead apart, removing the mainboard inside it with no less than 11 very tiny and fragile custom ribbon cables that connect to it. Most minor fixes are like this. Another time, I had to remove a stuck piece of filament, which involved taking apart the whole front of the toolhead and dealing with even smaller and more fragile flex PCBs.

[0] https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/h2/maintenance/replace-cooling-...

Isn't this just a Bambu marketing point? I have a Prusa MK4S and a Centauri Carbon - they both print without any fuss and can be operated without any deep technical understanding.

I don’t know if bambu is easier than Prusa. Bought myself a Prusa core one, having absolutely no idea whatsoever what is 3D printing, plugged in, the included filament in, just as the 10 pages manual says, click click, and I made my first print (no internet connection, no wifi, no registration, no app).

Then I installed the app (open source in github) and started using the “cloud” services. I consider myself pretty stupid with such things, and it was absolutely the easiest thing I’ve done in 10 years.

The price is very high though. But at least you OWN the damn thing.

I have an Elegoo Centauri Carbon which is cheaper than Bambu Lab's and it has been plug and play so far. I have no experience with 3D Printing and I've been printing on it without any problems so far.

Creality has printers that are straight-up clones of the Bambu printers and are just as easy to use, but they've historically been somewhat okay at working in the open source ecosystem, unlike Bambu.

Prusa is, of course, the gold standard, and their more recent printers are super easy to use, too.

I have a P1S. Putting it together and running it was about IKEA level of difficulty. Very easy. If money weren’t a problem, which Prusa printer comes closest (assuming we’d want something like the Bambu AMS2)?

Given how I'm not sure there are 2D printers that really "just work" and don't throw opaque hard to track down errors at random - I actually like open 3D printers that do break, but you can be sure any issue is fixable & you will learn something new in the process. :)

I'm still rocking my Ender 3 Pro, I printed a part 13 hrs straight and it came out fine

not saying it can't be better eg. faster, multi-color/material but yeah works for me right now with Cura

I have an Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 and it “just works”. It’s a Bambu clone but with much less safeguards (for now) and is also 1/3 the price

I’ve gotten some really good prints with a Qidi Q1 Pro. Have read good reviews about some of the other/newer versions by the same brand as well. They are very cheap for the features they have, and excellent quality

My P1P at my work is having wifi issues. I'm considering just getting a Core 1, mostly because it has an ethernet port.

Dusting off my HN credentials to plug Qidi.

If you can afford to pay more for less printer, get a Prusa Core One. I almost did, but at the time the cost would have included four months of waiting, and that was just too much.

But the Qidi Plus 4 has been just a beast for me. It had some growing pains, and the Internet is forever, so if you read up on it you'll see some scary-looking problems involving the heating element which have been completely fixed for more than a year. From everything I've been able to determine, the QC issues with the Plus 4 are over, and the newer printers like the Q2 and Max 4 have never had them.

I think the intersection of "reads HN" and "needs that tiny delta of convenience between Bambu and Qidi" is empty, basically. Qidi are good open source citizens, and you get a lot of bang for your buck, especially handling high-temp filaments. It's _possible_ to print nylon and ABS on Bambu hardware, but realistically you want something a little better.

Also they're cheaper than Bambu. Thought that was worth mentioning as well.

I'd seriously consider the Snapmaker U1 also, but not the K2 Plus. For one thing, Creality has had to be bullied several times to meet GPL obligations, and I don't like to reward that kind of behavior. For another, the Qidi Max4 is bigger, prints hotter, is more precise, and costs less. Pareto improvement on the K2 Plus.

I'm holding out on the Snapmaker because a) my Qidi Plus 4 is a great piece of hardware and at only 700 hours it's got a lot of life left in it, and b) The Prusa + Bondtech INDX is right around the corner. That's probably going to be my next printer. I find the waste and extreme slowness of AMS-style multimaterial too distasteful to invest in, and I think that entire paradigm will end up in the dustbin as tool-changing consumer FDM matures.

I don't think Prusa and Bambu compare well. Prusa printers aren't as cleanly designed as Bambu and they are more than twice the price. I consider them really poor value for money. And Bambu printers aren't clones. The AMS is something they came up with.

Also, Prusa copy from Bambu too. Like their own material switcher (much less sophisticated than the AMS) and the new Core printer is really more a Bambu copy than the other way around, honestly. In fact other brands are copying Bambu too.

I really like them, they are fair to me as a consumer. Spare parts are cheap, there's no consumable restrictions or subscriptions for their cloud service.

And they're really as plug and play as you can get right now. I don't really need that, I've owned printers since the first generation so I know how to deal with issues. But really they happen rarely. The worst I get is stuck filament in the AMS and I found I can prevent that by removing the bit of filament with gear bite marks after it's been through. It absorbs more water then and gets brittle.

Also I've learned from earlier printers not to mix materials in the same nozzle so I switch them too.

I think the Bambu social contract is pretty clear:

- they benefit from open source software work

- we benefit from their dirt cheap top performing machines

As long as they remain the lowest priced and the best, they can do whatever they want if you ask me. They provide insane social value through accessibility. Before them, it was Creality with the Ender 3.

My problem with Pruša as an European is that it turns us into the equivalent of being a Chinese citizen who can't afford the Temu product they make at work. Their machines are priced more or less only for US export, and not really something most people here can reasonably buy. They even refuse to use injection moulding out of some self righteous principle, which drives the price per unit up further all the while selling less durable machines cause they're half RepRap. I take it sort of as a personal insult and I will never buy one even though I can afford it, I see it as bad value. Like buying a gold plated watch or something.

Chinese printers, like Chinese drones, Chinese PV equipment, and Chinese electric cars are inexpensive but that's because the Chinese Communist Party loves to pick winners.

They subsidise the living heck out of designated national champions, dump oceans of cheap product onto the international market, kill off international competitors, and then seize control of markets. It is neither legal, nor morally defensible.

Want a printer that happens to not be made in China? Good luck. Pay more, or knuckle under, and accept Chinese control of your technology, and increasingly, what you are allowed to say and think.