I feel conflicted. On the one hand, Prusa seems to be a good and reliable brand. On the other hand, it seems overpriced compared to the competitors. Bambu seems to be a no-go but mostly for ethical open source reasons, not for price or quality reasons. At the same time, I’ve seen this article that says Prusa is even falling back on their open source principles. But not sure how up to date that is any more.
If we look beyond Bambu or Prusa, there’s a variety of smaller brands that I have trouble distinguishing. With these other brands, it’s hard to tell whether they’re worth anything or just cheap knockoffs.
If we do consider Prusa, there’s also the question of MK4S vs Core One. The Core One is much more expensive, to the point where it is ridiculously expensive compared to the competitors. The MK4S is slightly cheaper, but it seems like Prusa is focused on the Core One development going forward, so I’d be slightly worried of being “left behind” with the MK4S.
What do you think? Which printer should you get in 2026? Or perhaps there is some upcoming release or something to wait for?
Look into a Snapmaker U1. Multi toolhead under a grand by a company that is very open source friendly.
Do you know anything about the Ai print monitoring on the U1? I’m so tired of Ai being crammed into everything.
Stock it has spaghetti detection, which is generally marketed as AI. You have root out of the box though so you could always just flash whatever firmware you want if you really want to not use it. Also comes with a cover for the camera that you can flip over to block that out.
If I could afford it, that would be my choice.
I’d probably get the Creality Sparx i7 right now, as an entry-level multicolour 3D printer. I got the Creality Hi Combo last year, and it’s been a great printer for me, and it sounds like the Sparx i7 is mostly just better.