Slicer Summary

Slicer Comparison

History

The current series of releases of Cura on the open source repository GitHub dates back to August 2, 2016 with version 2.1.3 - but as the version number implies, Cura goes back further than that. Before it was hosted on GitHub, the first reference to the very beginning of Cura is a post on Ultimaker’s forum dated November 1, 2011 by developer Daid who stated very humbly “I’ve started work on a new Slicer for 3D printers.” Daid later says as of October 14, 2012 that he works for Ultimaker.

On February 26, 2020, Ultimaker took over the project and renamed the slicer Ultimaker Cura with the first release being version 4.5.0.

Ease of Use

Cura will hide its hundreds of settings so it will not overwhelm the user. It groups visibility of these settings in 4 levels - basic, advanced, expert and all. Each grouping exposes more and more settings. Cura’s default settings are excellent and will give you good results without you having to alter any setting at all. This makes the software easy to use for new users while still allowing experts full control. If you can remember the name of a setting, you just type it into the search box and it will be revealed to you for editing or modification.

The user interface is clean and uncluttered, showing mostly the printer bed with the print object on it. The settings box can be hidden. This makes the software easy to use because it is so direct.

Features

Cura’s main feature is the absolutely complete fine-grained control it gives the user, with nearly every setting imaginable available to the user. It sets itself apart from other slicers in the sheer number of options and controls available.

Another standout feature of Cura is the use of plugins. There are currently 64 plugins available from companies and individual users. They add customized functionality to the slicer and can extend its capabilities considerably.

Compatibility

Cura has extensive compatibility with many printers from many manufacturers. The printer profiles may be official from the printer manufacturer or they may be unofficial, supplied by the community. Many manufacturers do not develop their own slicers and instead recommend Cura to their customers, supplying official printer profiles.

It is safe to say that due to its long term popularity, continuous development and extensive user base, Cura offers the widest compatibility of any of the slicers.

Community Support

Cura is one of the oldest and most popular slicers and has a large user base. It is openly developed online with community involvement at GitHub. There is an extensive forum and 3 unofficial Facebook groups, one with 85,600 members, one with 16,400 members and one with 268 members. The Cura subreddit has 9,700 members.

PrusaSlicer

History

PrusaSlicer is a fork of the early open source slicer Slic3r. PrusaSlicer’s first release was on June 20, 2016, with version 1.30.0-prusa3d. It was renamed Slic3r Prusa Edition on November 1, 2016 with version 1.31.2. On May 15, 2019, the project was renamed PrusaSlicer with version 2.0.0-rc since it had deviated so much from Slic3r. Prusa wanted to avoid confusion with the original software.

Ease of Use

PrusaSlicer has simple, advanced and expert modes which expose more and more settings, but also adds to the controls for dealing with the object on the print bed. Only the most essential settings are visible when the “plater” tab is open, showing the print bed and object(s) to be printed. More detailed settings are organized in the print settings, filament settings and printer settings tabs, each with simple, advanced and expert modes with more and more settings visible.

PrusaSlicer has a very helpful feature which gets new users going quickly and easily: a configuration wizard. This configures all the settings for a new user to get a good first print just by answering some simple questions.

Features

PrusaSlicer has extensive settings, allowing extremely detailed control over every aspect of the slicing process. It even has detailed settings controlling how the slicer program itself behaves - nearly every function can be altered.

There are some interesting features when dealing with models placed on the print bed. Supports can be enforced using the paint-on supports tool, which allows the user to place supports exactly where they want them. There is also the seam painting tool, which allows users to have full control over where seams are placed on the model - where each layer starts and stops. These tools and the icons that identify them derive from the program which PrusaSlicer was originally based on - Slic3r.

PrusaSlicer also handles multiple objects with ease, allowing different settings per object, like infill, number of walls, supports and even layer height.

PrusaSlicer can easily add text to a 3D model. It can render it either raised (embossed) or carved into the model (debossed). The text can just be imprinted or it can take on the surface finish of the model. Text can also be added standalone to the print bed.

PrusaSlicer has a shape gallery, a whole menu of built-in objects that you can add to the build plate with a single click. There’s a cone, a box, a cylinder, a pyramid, a Benchy, a bunny, PLA, PETG and OTHER recycling symbols, M3 screws and nuts and a “helper disk”.

Let’s not forget PrusaClippy, also known as “Clippy Jo”, wearing Josef Průša’s famous flat cap and glasses, giving helpful advice on startup. (He can be turned off.)

Integration with Printables.com was just recently introduced. If you set this in your Printables profile, a PrusaSlicer icon appears when you go to download files on Printables. Pressing this icon opens PrusaSlicer, downloads the file, and loads it into PrusaSlicer.

The software also has a standalone G-code viewer with analysis tools for viewing and analyzing G-code files made by any slicer.

Compatibility

PrusaSlicer’s emphasis is on Prusa printers, of course. But the company’s embodiment of open source extends to their slicer and means that it also supports a wide variety of other printers from different manufacturers. The community also develops printer profiles for PrusaSlicer and profiles are easy to import.

Community Support

Prusa Research virtually developed the consumer 3D printer industry. Their slicer has accumulated many users and fans over the years - it is very popular and has extensive community support. Since it is open source, community contributions are often incorporated into the software.

The Prusa Research forum, with 62,900 members, has a PrusaSlicer subsection with 4,583 topics and 24,900 posts. It is developed on GitHub, has 191 contributors and is starred 7,200 times. Their official Discord has 4,479 members and an unofficial Discord has 12,190 members. Prusa’s official Facebook group, with 157,000 followers, supports their company, their printers and PrusaSlicer. There are two unofficial Facebook groups just for PrusaSlicer, one with 29,600 followers and one with 4,600 followers. Prusa has a very large subreddit with 66,500 members but it’s not exclusive to PrusaSlicer.

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Bambu Studio

History

Bambu Studio is a fork of PrusaSlicer - this allowed Bambu Lab to release a well-established slicer customized for their needs in a short timeframe. Their first pre-release was on July 17, 2022 with V1.0.10.

Ease of Use

Bambu Studio’s user interface is somewhat cluttered, making it look a little intimidating for the new user. The default setting hides all but the most important settings - to see all settings, the user must select “advance” which then shows all settings. The settings are organized into categories - quality, strength, support and others. Between all these categories, there are at least as many settings as most of the other slicers we have listed. The printer settings and filament settings can be viewed and altered in other large dialog boxes, each with multiple categories. For example, the filament settings are divided into filament, cooling, setting overrides and advanced. This is a lot of settings to go through. Fortunately Bambu Studio’s presets lead to good results out of the box.

Features

Bambu Studio is based on PrusaSlicer so some object manipulation tools in the user interface resemble those in PrusaSlicer. It also handles multiple objects well, allowing different settings for each.

There are extensive settings if you go through all the menus. Bambu Studio introduces the concept of plate types - Bambu Lab printers can choose between cool plate / PLA plate, engineering plate, smooth PEI plate / high temp plate or textured PEI plate. These alter the Z offset and the bed temperature for each filament type. As well, multiple objects can be positioned on multiple plates with different settings per plate or per object and the entire project can be saved as one file.

Bambu Studio’s main feature is integration with a networked Bambu Lab printer. Multiple filaments are listed and can be synced from the Bambu Lab AMS or AMS lite. These can be assigned to different objects on the print bed or “painted” onto sections of an object. There is a device tab which allows full control of the printer, shows its current status and print progress, and displays the camera video.

A prominent “share” button shares the model with MakerWorld, Bambu Lab’s online model database. The current plate or all plates can be sliced, and sliced files can be sent directly to the printer, the printer’s microSD card or exported as G-code.

There is also a calibration tab which can trigger manual flow dynamics calibration, though this is normally done automatically. There is also a manual flow rate calibration. Normally this does not need to be adjusted for well-performing printers and filaments and in the Bambu Lab X1 this is automatic. But it is a unique feature and useful for Bambu Lab’s other printers.

Compatibility

As the name implies, Bambu Studio is designed to support Bambu Lab printers, so that’s where it’s greatest compatibility lies. However, Bambu Lab does want wide adoption of their slicer, and since it’s ultimately derived from the open-source Slic3r which did support a wide variety of printers, Bambu Studio does support printers from some other manufacturers.

In addition to all Bambu Lab printers, Bambu Studio supports printers from Anker, Anycubic, Creality, Elegoo, Prusa, Qidi, Tronxy, Vivedino, Voron and Voxelab. Unfortunately, it’s mostly older printer models that are supported.

Community Support

Bambu Lab printers are very popular and their Bambu Studio slicing software has risen in popularity. It was not developed from scratch so it was able to get started quickly and gain many users.

The Bambu Lab community support forum which supports the company, its printers and its software has 10,900 members and although there is a Bambu Lab Software section, it’s hard to tell how many members are only there for the software. Bambu Lab’s Discord has 17,905 members although it too is not solely devoted to Bambu Studio. Bambu Lab’s official subreddit has 78,300 members. The Bambu Lab official Facebook group has 54,500 members.

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OrcaSlicer

History

OrcaSlicer’s first release on July 16, 2022 was called “BambuStudio V1.0.10 - SoftFever” and was based on Bambu Studio 01.00.10.05 pre release. SoftFever is the lead developer of OrcaSlicer and the first release was a fork of Bambu Studio, which is open source. Note that this is a day earlier than the first stable release of Bambu Studio itself, so it’s just a little older than Bambu Studio. It was called BambuStudio SoftFever until it was renamed OrcaSlicer on March 17, 2023 with version 1.5.0.

Ease of Use

OrcaSlicer is closely based on Bambu Studio so it’s essentially the same in terms of ease of use for beginners, intermediate users and advanced users. But the calibration menu - see the features section - makes things easier for intermediate and advanced users. They don’t need to go elsewhere to conduct these important tests, it’s built right into the software.

Features

Since OrcaSlicer is very close to Bambu Studio, all of Bambu Studio’s features are present, but there are a few extra advanced features. OrcaSlicer adds a very comprehensive calibration menu, adding temperature towers, flow rate tests, pressure advance tests, retraction tests, tolerance tests, a maximum flowrate test, and a VFA (vertical fine artifacts) test. There is also a built-in link to a tutorial which explains all these tests.

One new feature that’s unique to OrcaSlicer is the “make overhangs printable” setting. This modifies the geometry of the model to make overhangs print without supports, based on a specified maximum angle. A covered hole with a set surface area can also be printed without supports.

OrcaSlicer can also apply “mouse ear” brims on sharp angles which might curl without a brim. These are small circles, not full brims, and are only needed at thin, sharp tips of objects. OrcaSlicer will automatically apply these if this type of brim is selected.

OrcaSlicer removes the “share” button which published models on Bambu Lab’s MakerWorld. These could be added manually but the .3mf files OrcaSlicer saves are not compatible with the .3mf files saved by Bambu Studio that MakerWorld expects.

Since OrcaSlicer is intended to be more universal and not limited to Bambu Lab printers, it adds network control for printers by IP address through PrusaLink, PrusaConnect, OctoPrint or Klipper, Duet, FlashAir, AstroBox, Repetier or MKS. This is accessed through the “device” tab. This allows integrated control of a networked printer directly in the slicer.

New, unique features coming for version 2.0.0 include scarf seams which can hide seams in circular objects by overlapping them and small area flow compensation which reduces over-extrusion at the edges of solid infill.

Compatibility

OrcaSlicer does not limit itself to Bambu Lab printers, so it supports not only all Bambu Lab printers and all the other printers Bambu Studio does but also adds a wide variety of printers from dozens of manufacturers. There is much wider compatibility than Bambu Studio.

Community Support

OrcaSlicer is developed by the community - unlike other slicers, there is no corporate sponsor, so it has attracted a lot of developers wanting to incorporate new ideas. It is new but rapidly gaining popularity. Most of the help and development occurs in their GitHub discussion, which unfortunately doesn’t list the number of members or discussions but the project has been “starred” 4,500 times. There’s an official Discord server with 12,500 users. There are 3 unofficial Facebook groups with 11,800 members, 2,700 members and 551 members. The OrcaSlicer subreddit has 1,400 members.

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