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?
There’s no single best answer for you and it mostly depends on your preference.
Bambu Lab are excellent, beginner friendly printers, but I would argue that lately they’re doing more harm than good. I have an A1 as part of a work print farm and it’s very reliable but I still kind of hate using it. If their business practices are a deal breaker for you, look elsewhere.
Prusa are also rock solid. The mk4s is great and even older mk3s are still reliable (I also run one and although slower, never fails). I don’t have hands on experience with any of their CoreXY machines but they are generally reviewed well. They have the non-chinese $$ premium, so if price is a deal breaker for you, look elsewhere.
There are many many solid smaller brands, I was partial to Elegoo for a while until recently they made some odd firmware decisions (I like Klipper). Right now my fastest and most reliable printer that’s not a frankenstein machine is my Sovol Sv06 Ace. It was a great price and with a hot end fan replacement for a noctua fan, it’s relatively quiet. Creality is still an option and some of their modern printers are also decent, they have a LOT of random models though so make sure you get solid reliable info if you go in that direction.
What’s the deal with Creality? Are they reliable/repairable?
I have an Ender 3 V3 and a K1 Max, both are incredible easy to use and maintain, the K1 Max has 2341hr’s of print time on it while my Ender3 V3 has 888Hr’s on it, both are very reliable in my uses.
The problem with Bambu’s Apple philosophy: when the consumable parts start wearing out, the " I just wanna press a button" consumers will abandon.