Perfection in Polymers: The Best 3D Printers for Home, Workshop or Business in 2025

I’ve reviewed nearly a hundred 3D printers since joining the Tom’s Hardware team, putting each through rigorous testing for speed and accuracy. But a 3D printer can quickly turn into a fancy doorstop if it's not easy to use, maintain and upgrade. I’ve traveled the globe, talking to both makers and manufactures about what features make their favorite 3D printers the very best the world can offer.

Consumer 3D printing is a rapidly evolving industry, going from bare wires and handmade nozzles to fully automatic plug and play machines in a mere dozen years. One of the most popular 3D printers on the market right now – the Bambu Lab X1C – launched as a Kickstarter project in 2022. This is why I review every 3D printer I can get my hands on, constantly marveling as manufactures break records each and every year.

Of course, not every 3D printer is a technological wonder. Some are down right lemons and not worth your hard-earned cash. This is why we made the Tom’s Hardware Best 3D Printer List. There is no one size fits all in 3D printing, so we’ve picked the best machine to fit your needs and budget. Whether you’re looking for an entry level machine for the home or a multi-material business workhorse, we can help you find the perfect match.

It’s never been more affordable to get into 3D printing, with budget machines starting at $200 or less. But not every printer is right for every job. High precision prototyping calls for a 3D printer like the Prusa Original MK4S, while colorful toys and games can be printed on your coffee table with a four color Bambu Lab A1 Mini. Artists and table-top gamers should check out our recommendations for high def resin printers, which measure resolution in the microns. If you're looking to crank out prototypes as fast as possible, we have a 3D Printer Speed Hierarchy that ranks printers according to speed alone.

Not every 3D printer makes the cut, so keep reading to see our top picks for the Best 3D printers on the market today.

Quick List

Denise Bertacchi

Denise has been using 3D printing as a creative outlet since 2020 when she got her first Creality CR10s. She’s been a freelance newspaper reporter, online columnist and craft blogger with an eye for kid’s STEM activities. She’s added YouTube to her social media skills and has traveled cross county and overseas to talk 3D printing with fellow makers. She's analyzed nearly 100 different 3D printers, from a tote bag sized delta to a meter wide Elegoo OrangeStorm Giga currently camped out in her living room. When she’s not building 3D printed RC cars or stirring glitter into a batch of resin, you’ll find her at the latest superhero movie with her husband and two sons.

The Best 3D Printers You Can Buy Today

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Best 3D Printer Overall

2025 is going to be the year of speedy color FDM 3D printers, and Creality’s K2 Plus has nailed it. This printer has a cruising speed of 300mm/s with a 30000mm/s² max acceleration rate, and easily prints in four colors with its new “Creality Filament System.” It can handle much larger prints than its rivals, with a 350mm cubed build volume.

It has a high flow nozzle that can heat up to 350 degrees, and a heated, which means it can handle nearly any filament from PLA to PC. TPU must be run through a side port on a traditional spool holder – but no one has managed to make soft filaments run through all the tubing needed for a color swapping 3D printer.

Some would say Creality is merely cribbing off Bambu Lab and their wildly successful X1-Carbon. But Creality has brought many improvements to color printing that we’ve yet to see from upstart Bambu: a bigger print volume, a heated chamber and the ability to easily print offline with full open source Klipper. Creality remembers its roots as a scrappy DIY 3D printer for enthusiasts, and remains faithful to the open source community.

The machine retails for $1,499 as a four color combo, which may not fit everyone’s budget. But the K2 Plus is easy to use right out of the box, so it's not limited to only experienced makers or small business owners. Its flexibility, paired with quiet fans and carbon filtration system, makes it a worthwhile purchase for home or office.

My only fault with the printer is one that’s hard to avoid – the CFS wastes a bit more filament than the Bambu AMS due to its high flow hotend with a larger melt zone and lack of fine control in the custom slicer. It also needs to be properly warmed up, as it uses a thick aluminum plate to ensure a flat print surface.

More: Creality K2 Plus Review

Fastest Budget 3D Printer

The Centauri Carbon is everything you want in a budget-friendly, speedy printer. It’s a fast, enclosed Core XY with a bed slinger price tag, launching at $299.99. Its speed and build size is similar to the top-of-the-line Bambu Lab printer, with a top speed of 500mm/s and 20,000mm/s² acceleration. It uses an Elegoo fork of Klipper to reduce vibrations and optimize pressure advance to produce excellent prints.

We were able to print an absolutely perfect PLA 3D Benchy in 18 minutes and 19 seconds. The Centauri Carbon’s high flow hotend handled PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS and ASA without any issue. The top lid must be removed to print cooler filaments, but that’s a common design issue with low-priced machines. It does a good job of retaining heat when the lid is on for printing ASA & ABS – it wasn’t quite enough to print more tricky PC Blend filament. But for average users, it handles more typical filaments without any trouble at all.

It’s perfect as a beginner machine or a print farm workhorse. It’s preassembled, so you just unbox and go. The easy access spool holder, simple filament loading routine and USB port front and center make the machine a breeze to use. The Centauri Carbon doesn’t require cloud access and runs off an Elegoo fork of Klipper, meaning you can control your own data security.

More: Elegoo Centauri Carbon Review

Best Premium 3D Printer

The long-awaited Prusa Research Core XY machine has arrived — and it doesn’t disappoint. Engineers took the best parts of the highly rated MK4S and encased it in a slim steel exoskeleton with a cooling system that allows the printer to operate safely with the door shut, even with PLA. The CORE One is 20% faster than the Prusa MK4S, with slightly better print quality.

The CORE One has a dozen seemingly small but extremely thoughtful tweaks that make for a better machine when taken as a whole. For example, the steel case does double duty as the printer’s frame. The walls are punched in to make the space smaller and easier to heat, and the indents serve as a discrete place for a side-mounted spool holder. The other side is left empty, which is cheaper for Prusa to produce and creates a customizable storage space to suit each user’s needs.

The doors are lightweight, unbreakable, and can be mounted with the hinge on either side. Clunky cable chains have been thrown out in favor of a simple swing arm that keeps the printer’s tubes and wiring in place. And that special cooling? It’s all made possible by placing a manually operated vent in the printer’s top panel, so you don’t have to take it off or leave the door open.

And since it’s a Prusa, it has fully automatic bed leveling, sets its own z height, and comes with factory-set input shaping. Its native slicer program is a gold standard many other companies have used for their “custom” slicers. And because of Prusa Research’s attention to detail, the CORE One has dozens of slicer profiles for every filament imaginable.

The CORE One retails at $1,199, which is only $200 more than the MK4S. You can save money by building the kit version for $949 or converting a MK4S for $449.

More: Prusa CORE One Review

Best 3D Printer for Beginners

If you want to squeeze as much printing power into a small space (and tight budget) as possible then Bambu Lab’s A1 Mini checks all the boxes. It’s a bed slinger style mini 3D printer with the option of adding a “lite” AMS (Automatic Material System). It’s the fastest bed slinger we’ve clocked so far and nearly as fast as Bambu’s larger Core XY machines.

Retailing at $299 for the printer and $459 with the AMS Lite, it packs more features than the competition for significantly less money. It has an intuitive color touch screen, quick change steel nozzles and a blazing 10,000mm/s² acceleration speed for fast, clean prints. The A1 Mini can level the bed and set its own Z height with the touch of a button.

The AMS for the A1 Mini spoils the compact footprint a bit, as it has to be set next to the printer rather than on top. It makes up for the inconvenience by being superior to the full-sized AMS with sensors that detect tangles and a spindle for each spool that can accommodate filament with odd sized or cardboard spools.

More: Bambu Lab A1 Mini Review

Best Budget 3D Printer

There has never been a more user-friendly, budget 3D printer than Creality’s Ender 3 V3 SE. Say goodbye to scratch builds and manual leveling. This machine takes no more than 15 minutes to assemble, then self-levels and sets its own Z height. Its modern LED interface makes the machine simple to use and comes complete with guides to walk you through filament changes and more.

It’s faster than previous Ender 3s, with a max speed of 250mm/s, which is mainly due to a robust build, with linear rods on the Y axis and dual Z axis, rather than speedy firmware.

Obviously, Creality had to cut a few corners to produce this machine. It only has one Z stepper motor – the second Z axis is synced with a belt. The bed has a cheaper PC surface, and there’s no Wi-Fi.

More: Creality Ender 3 V3 SE Review

Best Multicolor 3D Printer

We’re finally seeing 3D printers catch up with Bambu Lab’s Automatic Material System, first launched in 2021 and capable of producing four color prints with a single unit. Prusa Research’s XL has surpassed the X1 Carbon with a five-spool tool changer system that is faster and far less wasteful. Because each spool has a dedicated filament path and its own hotend, the XL can rapidly change colors without having to load and unload materials. Instead, each color is on standby at 175° and only needs a quick heat up and prime before going to work.

This system is not only faster, but it doesn’t waste material. The Bambu Lab AMS system is infamous for piles of “filament poop” that plague users. Because the AMS system shares one nozzle, it has to be cleaned of melted filament with each color change. Only cold filament can go back on the roll.

This is not Prusa’s first attempt at color, having developed a multicolor attachment for their MK series as far back as 2017. Sadly, the MMU is quirky and never quite caught on. However, it allowed Prusa to adapt PrusaSlicer to multicolor slicing and gave them ample time to perfect the software before the XL launched.

The Original Prusa XL is a true “multi-material” 3D printer that can handle up to five different materials. Because each spool of filament gets its own hotend, users can mix and match filament types as well as colors, and adjust temperature and flow accordingly.

The only downside to the Prusa XL is its price, which is a hefty $3,999 when fully equipped with five tool heads and shipped assembled. Users can start with a less expensive two-head machine and purchase more tool heads later as upgrades.

If you want a more affordable multicolor system and don't mind a smaller build volume, there are a couple of 3D printers to consider. We recently reviewed the Kobra 3, Anycubic's first four-color bedslinger, which comes with input shaping and impressive speed. The slicer still needs work, though. It launched with an MSRP of $549 and is currently on sale for $489. Alternatively, the Bambu Lab P1S is a solid option with speed, quality, and an AMS system that can print up to 16 colors. The combo costs $849, and the stand-alone machine is $599.

Read: Original Prusa XL Review

Best Professional 3D Printer

One look at the polished aluminum shell of the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon with AMS and it is immediately clear that this printer stands out from the competition. With a 256 x 256 x 256mm build volume, 300-degree Celsius hot end, and four-color AMS, the X1-Carbon brings a new level of polish to the consumer market. The first layer inspection alone is a feature that would justify the cost of this printer to professional users, and the rest is icing on the cake.

Bambu Lab has listened to the feedback of the 3D printer market, and the LIDAR-enabled flow calibration, automatic bed leveling, and first layer inspection of the X1-Carbon are features individually worthy of a “Best Of” entry. Taking all of that and adding in a four-color AMS system that can automatically change materials during printing, a fully enclosed build volume, and an intuitive slicer app results in a refreshingly powerful and intuitive machine.

The Bambu Lab X1-Carbon with AMS is a powerhouse of a machine, but the $1,449 price tag is at the high end for printers in the consumer market. While it’s not an inexpensive machine, the X1-Carbon impressed us at every turn during our review and is likely to remain a popular selection for high-speed multi-material desktop FFF 3D printing.

More: Bambu Lab X1-Carbon 3D Printer Review

Best 3D Printer for Props and Cosplay

The SV06 Plus ACE is a “helmet class” large scale 3D printer that is both fast and affordable. Though not as big as some of the max printers out there, this one has plenty of real estate for human scale prints without needing to rearrange your whole workshop.

This printer is based on Prusa’s open source i3, with a few extra touches added by Sovol. It has a high flow hotend, built-in camera for monitoring prints, and of course the vanilla Klipper for speed and precision.

Bigger printers have been getting more complex and it’s refreshing to find a large 3D printer that keeps it simple. During testing, I printed a highly detailed, super strong, dragon shelf in PLA that maxed out the bed plate but still printed in one day.

More: Sovol SV06 Plus ACE Review

Best Ultra High Resolution 3D Printer

Table-top gamers rejoice! The Elegoo’s Mars 5 Ultra makes 3D printing tiny orc armies and hordes of space marines a breeze. This resin printer has a Bag of Holding’s worth of automatic features: auto-leveling, tilt release, failure detection, and resin level detection. It also comes with a built-in camera to magically monitor your prints and a layer of tempered glass to protect the light source.

Its small size is perfect for printing miniatures, plus it’s fast and precise. Feed it high-detail resin, and you’ll get prints with razor sharp details. The tilt release aids print speed and reduces failure rates as it gently peels each layer off the bottom film before dunking the model back into the resin.

The Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra launched with a $338 MSRP but is currently available for $269.99 at Elegoo.

More: Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra Review

Best Large Resin

With its amazing speed and a huge build volume that rivals most FDM 3D printers, the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Max will produce high quality prints in just a fraction of the time other machines use. You can print entire armies of gaming miniatures or full sized sculptures with excellent detail using ordinary resin is used. If you want to crank up the speed, switching to a thinner high speed resin will let the machine run twice as fast.

The Photon Mono M7 Max is packed with smart features to monitor resin levels and watch out for print fails. It comes with a resin pump to keep the vat full of resin, though on our test unit this feature did not work. It also has a heater pump built into the vat which slowly circulates warm resin throughout the build plate to improve speed and quality. The factory leveled build plate lets you go from unboxing to printing in 15 minutes.

The Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Max launched with a $899 MSRP, but is currently available for $849 at Amazon and $799 at the Anycubic store.

More: Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Max

How We Test 3D Printers

We thoroughly review and test every 3D printer that enters our workshop using the following methodologies:

• After unboxing each 3D printer, we run several test prints, such as the 3D Benchy, a well-known calibration print. The results are documented and added to our list of the fastest 3d printers.
• We slice prints with the provided software to test the new user experience, then see if the printer is supported by well-known 3D party slicers like Cura, PrusaSlicer, and OrcaSlicer.
• We test the printer’s Wi-Fi capabilities and, if there is an app, see how easy it is to use to send files and monitor prints.
• The printer is also tested using typical models popular with our readers, from practical prints to toys.
• Multiple filaments are run, including PLA, PETG, and TPU.
• Enclosed printers are tested with high-temperature materials such as ASA and nylon.

Finding the Best 3D Printer for you

There are several factors to consider before buying the best 3D printer for you, so be sure to consider these questions before making a choice.

✅ Resin MSLA or Filament FDM?

The two most popular styles of desktop 3D printing, resin MSLA and filament FDM 3D printers offer various strengths and weaknesses, and choosing the style more suited for your application will help you get better results. For many , especially beginners, filament 3D printers are a better choice because they are easier to use and work with a wide variety of materials. They are also far safer for anyone with children or pets around.

Resin 3D printers can provide a bit more detail, so they are popular among folks printing out game pieces. However, you need to handle toxic chemicals and wear a mask when setting up a print and, after the printing is over, you must wash and cure your prints. We have some resin printers on this list but also maintain a more detailed article where we name all of the best resin 3D printers.

✅ How much build volume do you need?

If you want to print out large parts in a single print, you’ll need a printer with ample build volume. This is usually directly tied to the price of the machine, so a larger printer is going to cost more money. Printers with a 100mm cubed or less build volume are on the smaller side, 150 to 220mm cubed are average, and 250mm inch cubed and above are considered large format.

✅ Manual or automatic bed leveling?

Leveling the bed of a 3D printer is an important but very annoying part of the process. Many printers have auto-leveling capability, which saves you most of the work and, considering that you can now find printers with this feature for less than $250, you should consider it a must-have.

✅ What materials are you printing with?

If you're buying an FDM printer, you'll want to use one of the best filaments for 3D printing so you can get good models. However, some substances require higher temperatures that not every printer can achieve. PLA filament, the most common type, can print on anything but more durable or flexible plastics such as PETG or TPU need extruders that can hit 220 to 230 degrees Celsius while ABS and Nylon require 240 or 250-degree heat. Also, note that if you want to print in TPU (a flexible material), you should get an FDM printer with a direct drive system that pushes the filament more directly through the extruder. Resin printers have fewer material choices.

MORE: Best Resin 3D Printers

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MORE: Best Filaments for 3D Printing