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?
Wife and I bought a Prusa core one late last year (on sale) as an upgrade to our entry-level cobra neo, which we had rapidly outgrown.
We disqualified Bambu for largely the same reasons you did. We had a look at many different brands, but settled on Prusa because it’s the brand that we can reasonably expect to be supported the longest. Both on the software, but also availability of spare parts.
Many of the shipped parts are 3d printed, and there’s no shortage of spare parts on their own website. I’m fairly certain I will still be able to figure out replacement parts 10 years from now if something breaks, either through Prusa directly or by ordering a printed part from a domestic print-shop.
From my understanding, you have the option of starting with the MK4S (or earlier) and upgrading to the core one later. Not sure I’d recommend it given how long assembly takes, but having this level of repairability and reduction in waste appealed to me: I don’t want to throw out perfectly good hardware.
Prusa wasn’t an easy choice (pricing, open source pull-back), but we felt it was the most reasonable choice since we could afford the premium.
@polakkenak @SorteKanin While you *can* “upgrade” the MK4S to a Core One, it’s more like a complete rebuild with very little parts carryover. It takes a lot of time and doesn’t really make any financial sense.
The MK4S is competent at being what it is, which is an un-enclosed bed slinger. It inherently isn’t going to be as fast as the Core One, it will struggle more with materials that want a stable printing environment, and it’s less suited for printing tall things.
For the time being it uses the same technology the Core One does, though it almost certainly will not support INDX ever. If you really want to do multi-material/color stuff, the MK4S probably isn’t the right choice.
As far as the open source stuff, IMO it’s only a step backwards if one wants to be an absolutist about such things. I’m not here to say whether that is right or wrong, but in practical terms I don’t think there’s much of a difference with the new licensing, if one is not trying to sell knock-off printers.