How we make money. We earn a commission when you buy through links on this site, at no extra cost to you. Those commissions come from affiliate programmes run by the brands and by third-party networks, not from you.
How that affects this list. Products from brands we have a commercial relationship with are listed first. Products we earn little or nothing from can still appear, lower down, when they belong in the comparison.
How the order is set. The top three slots are named picks — best overall, most popular, best value — and each states the measurement it won on. Every product after them is ordered by one fixed formula: the Amazon star rating and review count, applied identically. No brand can pay for a slot, a badge or a score.
We do not test products in a lab. Read the full method on How We Rank.
1
What 1,020 buyers talked about
“This is an excellent 3d printer for the price.”
2
What 494 buyers talked about
“As the headline says - great for beginners. Easy to setup and to use.”
3
What 284 buyers talked about
“Great printer for a great price.”
4
What 134 buyers talked about
“Incredible printer for the money with great speed and print quality!”
5
#1 Best Seller
What 1,025 buyers talked about
“Great 3D printer, started printing in 10 minutes after 15 min setup. Prints came out better than expected.”
6
What 340 buyers talked about
“Great 3D printer! Easy peasy setup! Love it!”
7
What 80 buyers talked about
“Works amazing. Its my first 3d printer and it was super easy to set up.”
8
What 980 buyers talked about
“Absolutely a great 3D printer. This thing has virtually been running night and day for 45 days now.”
9
What 235 buyers talked about
“Good printer for the price. Easy to use and easy setup. Was hooked up and set up within an hour.”
10
What 514 buyers talked about
“Amazing printer for the money. Is very user friendly. Would recommend to anyone pro or beginners.”
Why trust this list
Every ranking below is a count, not an opinion. Here is the size of the sample behind this page.
WinnerReviews counted 70 mentions of bed adhesion across the printers on this page and only 17% were positive — and the rate was identical for Creality, FLASHFORGE and ELEGOO, at 17% each. This is not a brand problem, it is the craft: a first layer that lifts ruins the print, and no amount of auto-levelling removes the need to get the nozzle height and bed surface right.
12 of 70 mentions, 3 brands
Durability drew 103 mentions across three brands and just 19% of them were positive — FLASHFORGE at 14%, ANYCUBIC at 15%, Creality at 33%. Nozzles, PTFE tubing and belts are consumables on every machine here. Budget for spares in year one rather than treating a failure as a defect.
20 of 103 mentions, 3 brands
This is the largest complaint sample on the page. WinnerReviews counted 733 mentions of reliability and only 49% were positive, and the three brands land within four points of each other — FLASHFORGE 48%, Creality 52%, ANYCUBIC 52%. A failed print at hour nine is a normal part of this hobby, not a sign you bought the wrong machine.
361 of 733 mentions, 3 brands
We counted 733 mentions of reliability across the printers on this page and only 49% were positive. What is striking is how little the brand moved it: FLASHFORGE landed at 48%, Creality at 52%, ANYCUBIC at 52%. Three different companies, three different price brackets, the same outcome.
| Brand | Share of mentions that were positive | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| FLASHFORGE | 48% | 213 of 448 |
| Creality | 52% | 87 of 168 |
| ANYCUBIC | 52% | 61 of 117 |
Read that as a description of the hobby rather than of these machines. Consumer 3D printers run for hours unattended with a molten plastic extruder tracking a path to fractions of a millimetre, and a nozzle clog or a lifted corner at hour nine wastes the whole print. If a failed print would genuinely upset you, this is the wrong purchase at any price.
Two of the printers here are resin machines and the rest are filament. They are not competing products. Resin gives detail a filament nozzle cannot reach, which is why miniature painters use it — but it means liquid photopolymer, gloves, isopropyl alcohol for washing, a UV station for curing, and ventilation you actually mean.
Filament is the one to buy if you want to make brackets, boxes and replacement parts and then walk away. Resin is the one to buy if you want detail and accept a wet, smelly workflow with disposal rules. Decide which of those two people you are before comparing any specs.
Several machines here advertise multi-colour printing through a filament changer. What the listings do not lead with is the purge: at every colour change the printer flushes the old filament out of the nozzle, and that plastic goes in the bin.
On a model with frequent colour changes the waste can rival the weight of the part itself. It is still the only practical route to multi-colour at this price, but budget filament accordingly and expect a growing pile of purge blocks.
If you have researched this category you will notice Bambu Lab is missing, and it is currently the brand most often recommended for exactly this use case.
The reason is the one stated in our disclosure: we build these lists from brands we have an affiliate relationship with, and we do not have one with Bambu Lab. That does not make it a worse machine, and if it is the right printer for you, buy it. We would rather tell you that than pretend a list built from our commercial relationships is a survey of the whole market.
Running costs are modest but not zero, and they are where the durability complaints on this page come from. Nozzles wear, PTFE tubing degrades with heat, belts stretch and build plates lose their coating.
None of that is expensive individually — most are a few dollars — but treating them as defects rather than consumables is what turns an ordinary maintenance job into a one-star review. Buy a spare nozzle set with the machine.
One block per product, built from the review themes Amazon publishes for that listing. We do not test these — every figure below is a count of what buyers wrote.
Positive 66%245 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Well liked, with a catch worth knowing before you order. Adhesion is the weak link — only 17% of the 18 people who raised it were positive.
Everywhere else it does the job: 66% of 245 comments positive, led by print quality at 87%.
I would still buy it, but I would want you to know about adhesion first. Everything else about it holds up, which is the only reason it made #1.
Positive 70%346 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Well liked, with a catch worth knowing before you order. Durability is the weak link — only 33% of the 27 people who raised it were positive.
Set that aside and it looks strong — ease of use at 88%, and 70% positive over 346 comments in total.
One caveat on all of the above: 494 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
Worth buying with your eyes open. It is genuinely good at ease of use — just do not expect much on durability, because 67% of the people who brought it up were not happy.
Positive 71%152 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Most people get on with this one. Where they do not, it is adhesion: 17% positive out of 6 comments.
Everywhere else it does the job: 71% of 152 comments positive, led by build volume at 100%.
One caveat on all of the above: 284 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
I would still buy it, but I would want you to know about adhesion first. Everything else about it holds up, which is the only reason it made #3.
Positive 72%76 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Most people get on with this one. Where they do not, it is reliability: 56% positive out of 27 comments.
Set that aside and it looks strong — value for money at 88%, and 72% positive over 76 comments in total.
One caveat on all of the above: 134 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
Worth buying with your eyes open. It is genuinely good at value for money — just do not expect much on reliability, because 44% of the people who brought it up were not happy.
Positive 66%925 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Most people get on with this one. Where they do not, it is adhesion: 17% positive out of 46 comments.
The rest holds up. Speed is the standout at 88%, and across all 925 counted comments 66% were positive.
What people actually talk about most is reliability — raised 260 times, positive 46% of the time.
Here is how I would put it: get this one if speed matters more to you than adhesion. That is the whole trade, and it is why WinnerReviews has it at #5 rather than higher.
Positive 79%203 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
This one splits on a single issue. Connectivity came back just 14% positive on 7 comments; everything else holds.
Everywhere else it does the job: 79% of 203 comments positive, led by suitability for beginners at 100%.
One caveat on all of the above: 340 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
I would still buy it, but I would want you to know about connectivity first. Everything else about it holds up, which is the only reason it made #6.
Positive 77%43 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Well liked, with a catch worth knowing before you order. Jamming is the weak link — only 20% of the 5 people who raised it were positive.
Everywhere else it does the job: 77% of 43 comments positive, led by value for money at 100%.
One caveat on all of the above: 80 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
I would still buy it, but I would want you to know about jamming first. Everything else about it holds up, which is the only reason it made #7.
Positive 64%626 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Read the themes on this one rather than the star rating. Only 64% of the 626 comments Amazon grouped were positive.
The complaints are not confined to one thing either — 4 of its 8 themes come in under 70%, led by durability at 14%.
It earns its place on ease of use, where 92 of 108 were happy. If that is the thing you care about, it still works.
The busiest thread is print quality: 169 comments, 82% of them positive.
I would think twice on this one. It has a real strength in ease of use, but only 64% of 626 comments came back positive, and that is not a number WinnerReviews likes to see.
Positive 54%272 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Read the themes on this one rather than the star rating. Only 54% of the 272 comments Amazon grouped were positive.
The complaints are not confined to one thing either — 6 of its 8 themes come in under 70%, led by clogging at 0%.
It earns its place on value for money, where 20 of 22 were happy. If that is the thing you care about, it still works.
One caveat on all of the above: 235 ratings is a small base, so these percentages can move a lot on a few hundred more.
I would think twice on this one. It has a real strength in value for money, but only 54% of 272 comments came back positive, and that is not a number WinnerReviews likes to see.
Positive 74%216 comments counted
Every theme Amazon counted
Good, not flawless. The complaints cluster on durability — 18% positive across 17 comments.
The rest holds up. Starter-friendly is the standout at 100%, and across all 216 counted comments 74% were positive.
Here is how I would put it: get this one if starter-friendly matters more to you than durability. That is the whole trade, and it is why WinnerReviews has it at #10 rather than higher.
