It’s no surprise an online retailer like Amazon has a booming trade in 3D printers, with over 100 3D printer brands available.
While a broad choice is generally a good thing, it doesn’t make the decision-making process easier. So, if you do want to order a 3D printer from Amazon, which is the right one?
Amazon provides a list of the top performers in its 3D printer category based on sales. Of course, while X-amount of people buying a certain 3D printer might be a good indicator, it doesn’t automatically make it a worthwhile recommendation — at least not in our book. Plus, some of the machines ranking on that list aren’t really up-to-date anymore, and some of the alternatives settled lower down the list probably out-perform some higher up the list.
Of course, we could have just rattled off the top listed 3D printers from Amazon’s list, but that isn’t much use when you can just look at it yourself.
We’ve gone a step further here: We test 3D printers day in, day out, so we’ve used our insights to skim through the list and come up with our own shortlist of top recommendations we can stand behind.
So, if you’re looking for a great 3D printer that’s available at Amazon, go ahead and dive right in.
Best FDM 3D Printers at Amazon
All3DP’s curated picks of the best FDM 3D printers available at Amazon (in no particular order).
Creality Ender 3 V2
Ever since Creality released its first Ender 3, the Ender series has been one of the most popular 3D printer choices in the low-cost range. In fact, on Amazon’s all-time bestseller list, the Ender 3, the Ender 3 Pro, and the Ender 3 V2 have each made it onto the podium. Both predecessors of the V2 are great machines in many respects, but it’s the V2 that seals the deal for us.
The second generation is an easy recommendation: It builds on the printers that came before it by adding hardware that makes it easier to live and work with. Whether you’re entirely new to 3D printing, or an experienced veteran, the Ender 3 V2 is one of the best options out there if you want clean prints without hassle.
Like the original Ender 3, the V2 here is well-regarded for how easy it is to set up, use, and get good quality prints flowing off your tempered glass print bed. The V2 features a better design than the printer that came before it, as well as a 32-bit mainboard and silent stepper motor drivers. You get a respectable 220 x 220 x 250 mm print area to work with, plus a 250°C hot end and Bowden extruder.
One of the biggest strengths of choosing this printer is it makes a great base to get into modifications: The Ender 3 community is widespread, which pretty much guarantees there’s a forum somewhere where someone can help you troubleshoot an issue, or improve the machine with add-ons and upgrades.
The Ender 3 V2 is one of the top entries on the Amazon seller list, and it also remains one of our all-time favorite 3D printers at All3DP HQ. It performs well, implements small-but-meaningful upgrades, and remains affordable at ~$260.
In short, the Ender 3 V2 is a reliable desktop 3D printer with a simple build experience and a short time to set up. The out-of-the-box printing performance is good, and you can leave it to do its thing without encountering major issues. If you want the printer to grow with your ambitions, you also have a vast range of upgrade options to consider.
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Elegoo Neptune 3
Elegoo started out manufacturing resin 3D printers, but then it expanded into FDM. Since doing this, its range of FDM 3D printers have become increasingly popular. While the Elegoo Neptune 3 may seem like another Ender 3 clone, it offers a taller build volume of 220 x 220 x 280 mm which can get you a lot more printing value.
Automatic bed leveling is right at the top of the Neptune’s feature list. This works using an inductive probe, which accounts for any unevenness by probing 16 points across the print bed and automatically adjusting the Z offset for you. The Neptune 3 doesn’t come with any manual leveling knobs like other similar printers out there, so if the bed is somehow too uneven for automatic leveling to fix, you’ll need to use the provided wrench to adjust the nuts under the bed. But since Elegoo have opted not to include manual knobs, they seem confident this won’t be needed much, if at all.
The PEI-covered spring steel plate is another noteworthy feature. This type of build plate is widely considered to be the best by the 3D printing community: it attaches magnetically, offers superb adhesion with most 3D printing materials, and because its flexible, it’s effortless to remove prints afterwards — even the delicate ones.
In terms of extrusion, the Neptune 3 comes with a dual-geared Bowden extruder and a hot end capable of 260°C, making it ideal for printing PLA, ABS, TPU, and PETG.
Overall, Elegoo has built an affordable FDM printer with features you wouldn’t typically see in this price range. We’ve put the Neptune 3 through our testing hoops and we’re pleased with its overall performance. Sure, at times we found using it wasn’t quite as effortless as it could be, but with a little fine-tuning we managed to get it working consistently.
Our verdict: The Elegoo Neptune 3 is capable of churning out beautiful prints. It’s available for as little as $230, offering excellent value for money.
Anycubic Kobra Max
If large prints are on the agenda, cast your eyes towards the Anycubic Kobra Max. With a generous build volume of 400 x 400 x 450 mm, the Kobra Max stands out even among large-ish 3D printers of its price class. Whether you want to 3D print life-sized helmets, or scale-up your favorite models, the Kobra Max offers ample build volume to let your creativity run wild.
Be warned though: It’s big. The footprint of the machine is 720 x 715 x 665 mm, with a Y-axis that will sling outside this — because it’s a bedslinger. Make sure you’ve got the space before pulling the trigger on this behemoth.
Like Elegoo’s Neptune 3, the Kobra Max uses an inductive probe for bed leveling. The stain gauge nozzle will probe 25 points on the tempered glass build plate to map out any unevenness, which the firmware will then compensate for at the beginning stages of a print. Manual leveling knobs are notably absent on the Max, but we didn’t miss them one bit during our time with it. The auto-leveling worked perfectly, which is essential for a print bed of this size.
The hot end can reach 260°C, which means consumer filaments such as PLA, PETG, and TPU are on the menu for the Kobra Max. The Volcano-style hot end allows for generous volumetric flow, in theory making this printer suitable for larger nozzles, such as 0.6 or 08 mm (although we haven’t tested this).
It’s worth noting the default slicing profiles for the Kobra Max are set rather ambitiously at 80 mm/s. To our surprise, the printer produces great results even with these high-speed settings. How is this possible? The printer has a rigid frame made possible by structural braces on the frame, which cuts out unwanted Z-wobble caused by print head movements. In testing, we found very few print defects caused by frame stability, even at the top end of the Z gantry.
All in all, we feel Anycubic has produced a great 3D printer which offers solid performance and an impressive set of features for its price. In fact, if you want to print big without spending big, the Kobra Max should be your go-to option. At around $580, this printer is not a small investment, but for its build volume, features, and overall print experience, it’s a good bargain.
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Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro
Creality’s Ender 3 S1 Pro is another top-ranking option in Amazon’s best-seller list. For anyone looking to expand outside of run-of-the-mill materials, this is a hot tip.
The S1 Pro has a generous 220 x 220 x 270 mm build volume, giving you plenty of room to print lots of interesting things. It’s fitted with a Creality Sprite Extruder: A specially developed dual-geared extruder for excellent extrusion consistency. We’ve been impressed by this extruder when we encountered it on the Pro’s siblings, the Ender 3 S1 and the Ender 3 S1 Plus. The all-metal hot end can reach temperatures up to 300°C, so it can print a whole bunch more materials, including nylon, PC, and ASA.
If you want to work with abrasive filaments, it’s advisable to fit an abrasion resistant nozzle, as the standard brass nozzles will wear away over time. This is an easy and inexpensive upgrade that will make the machine much more capable. Creality has even released a liquid-cooling heatsink kit that can be retrofitted to ensure constant cooling for high-temperature print jobs over a long period of time — although this upgrade will cost you a little more.
The Ender 3 S1 Pro has similarities to the Ender 3 V2 listed above. It’s equipped with a “CR Touch” — Creality’s own auto leveling probe solution. This metal probe pokes 16 points on the print bed, creating a mesh to account for any unevenness. The print bed itself is a PEI-covered spring steel plate that provides excellent adhesion and allows you to take prints off with a little flex.
So, in summary: for $499, you get a fine-tuned machine, advanced material capbilities, and did we mention it comes with an LED light bar fitted to the top of the gantry? This means your print bed is well-lit when you check print progress in the middle of the night! What more do you need?
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Sovol SV04
The SV04 is a large, IDEX-wielding 3D printer with a 300 x 300 x 400 mm build volume. Independent dual extruder (IDEX) 3D printers are a rare sight in consumer 3D printing and even more so at the SV04’s price point.
But the SV04 has got more going for itself than just its price tag. First, the extruders are both direct, which typically allows for better retraction control and easier filament handling – especially with flexible filaments. Like others on this list, the auto bed leveling system on the SV04 makes use of a touch probe to calculate the general perpendicularity of the bed and its 32-bit mainboard factors in the unevenness. It also has a magnetic flexible PC-coated print surface, which allows you to remove it from the printer easily and flex it to get prints off the surface.
You can probably see that most printers on this list have automatic bed leveling now. It’s nice to have printer features that make life easier, but when every printer has them it’s not the USP it once was. What stands out with the Sovol SV04 is its IDEX capabilities. With two separate print heads working together, dual color and multi-material prints are on the table, as well as printing two models simultaneously in “Mirror” or “Duplication mode”. This allows for seemingly endless possibilities, as well as relatively fast batch production.
Although we haven’t had the chance to put the SV04 through our torture tests yet, we’ve taken to the forums and checked out some user reviews before making an informed decision to include it in this list. Besides considerable positive reviews at Amazon, the machine seems to have a very good reputation among users and reviewers throughout the community. At a price point of $599, it’s one of the most affordable IDEX 3D printers out there — and worth consideration for anyone looking to mix things up a bit.
Best Resin 3D Printers at Amazon
Fancy a resin 3D printer from Amazon? Here they are, in no particular order.
Elegoo Saturn 2
What Creality is to FDM 3D printing, Elegoo is to the resin space — or at least they’re trying to be. The company that initially started out with the Mars series has one of the largest user bases, and its Mars and Saturn series are top-rated and all-time top sellers.
The Saturn 2 is the latest version of its mid-sized resin 3D printer series. While only just recently hitting the market, it has already cemented itself within the list of top sellers at Amazon. And for good reason, we might add.
If you’re looking for a resin 3D printing experience, the Saturn 2 offers one of the easiest introductions. This is an exceptionally nice-to-use 3D printer.
Besides it’s slick look with a stylish creased design — which gives rigidity to its bucket-style lid — the 219 x 123 x 250 mm build volume is large for a resin 3D printer, with a decent resolution at 28.5 microns. This is an absurd level of detail to have across a large build volume like this. In short, everything about the Elegoo Saturn 2 feels premium. The oversized print plate release knob is easy-to-handle when wearing gloves. The improved light engine pairs a Fresnel lens with COB, giving greater light uniformity across the plate. The wholesale focus on improving the Saturn 2’s status as a resin workhorse also sees a 9H hardness screen protector landing on the LCD, saving you from untimely LCD replacements should your scraper slip too far.
If you ever run into any hiccups, a large community base will get you back on your feet in no time. The Saturn 2 is not only popular on the Amazon seller list, but also within the 3D printing community. The evidence can be seen in many Facebook groups and subreddits related to the Saturn 2.
Our recent review concludes that the Saturn 2 knocks it out of the park. For a reasonable price of $600, you get exceptional detail and a generous build volume. Unbeatable.
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Elegoo Mars 3
The Mars 3 is the sixth iteration of Elegoo’s popular budget printer product line. It combines all the best parts of previous Mars printers into a well-rounded package, preserving the same workhorse characteristics we’ve always enjoyed. It just works; no fuss. Besides what we think is the slickest-looking Mars yet, the printer also makes some significant steps forward in usability and performance. With its 143 x 90 x 165 mm build volume, it’s pretty big for a smaller resin 3D printer. It’s also packing 4098 x 2560 pixels, so it can print at an ultra-fine resolution of 35 microns.
The Mars 3 is flush with small, user-friendly features. Its 3.5-inch color touchscreen sits stylishly flush to the front of the machine. The resin vat is metal with neat screws to fix it in place and feet on the bottom to keep the delicate FEP from making contact with your workbench. Elegoo also states its FEP film is thinner than ever – something for better print adhesion when combined with the sandblasted surface of the print plate. We certainly didn’t experience any delamination or print plate failures when testing it.
At the time of writing, the price tag is hovering around $230. Its specs, looks, and the fact that it comes with a one-year subscription to ChiTuBox Pro (worth $169 by itself) makes the Mars 3 one of the best budget 3D printers currently available. Like its larger brethren, the Saturn 2, the Mars also has one of the largest user bases with many Facebook groups or subreddits – offering lots of helpful insights for newcomers.
If you want high-detail prints with little effort and without breaking the bank, the Mars 3 should be on top of your list. Elegoo also recently released the Mars 3 Pro, which features a Fresnel lens for even greater light uniformity alongside an activated charcoal filter, scratch-resistant glass, and an extra 10 mm Z-axis height. Not bad upgrades at all, but not quite justifying the price difference (the Mars 3 Pro is currently around $350). Bang for buck, the base version has the edge.
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Phrozen Mighty 8K
Phrozen’s Mighty 8K is another mid-sized resin 3D printer packing an 8K LCD screen. Ever so slightly smaller compared to the above-mentioned Saturn 2, with a build volume of 218 x 123 x 235 mm, the Phrozen Sonic Mighty 8K is not short on space to create. Stuffed with a 10-inch 8K mono LCD, the Mighty 8K spits out prints at a 28-micron resolution – effectively the same as the Saturn 2. The similarities end there, though, as the Sonic Mighty 8K comes with bells and whistles notably absent from others in its weight class.
For one, it has Wi-Fi connectivity. You also have Ethernet and a USB 2.0 connection, giving you flexibility in how exactly you want to tell the Mighty 8K to get on with its job.
Uniquely, the Mighty 8K also includes a camera that sits at the back of the printer. You can tap into this camera feed via a mobile app to monitor and record your prints from afar. The app isn’t quite ready at the time of writing, though (early 2023 should see it go live). Wi-Fi and a print monitoring camera are relatively rare in such printers.
The Mighty 8K has one of the slickest UIs, too. Served up on a vibrant 5-inch display, its large, colorful illustrations and slick layout elevate the printer to a new level of sophistication. Not to mention ergonomic improvements, including moving the print plate to the desired height using a graphical slider. No more tapping on the screen 24 times to get it to rise to the max – what a treat.
In other regards, the Mighty 8K comes with a linear projection light source, promising 90% light uniformity (meaning dimensional stability in prints across the build area) and a laser-etched build plate that looks like a whole bottle of cool (and also adheres really well).
If you are looking for a mid-sized resin 3D printer that makes life a little bit easier on your end, the Mighty 8K could be the 3D printer for you. It’s coming with a bevy of features that you won’t find on its current competitors. Currently priced at $799 at Amazon, it is well worth consideration.
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Anycubic Photon M3
Anycubic’s Photon M3 is another standard-sized resin 3D printer, suitable for anyone looking to get into resin 3D printing without breaking the bank.
With a build volume of 163 x 102 x 180 mm, it’s pretty big for its class and offers quite a bit more room to print with over its competitors, such as the Mars 3.
With its 7.6-inch monochrome LCD screen also being 4K and housing 4,096 x 2,560 pixels, the larger build area results in a slightly more granular print resolution of 40 microns. On paper, you might hold that against the M3, as it is about a 5-micron difference to some of the other 4K-touting resin 3D printers of its weight class. In practice, you quite likely won’t be able to make out a difference, though. Let’s put it into perspective: A red blood cell is about 8 microns in size – good luck spotting that with the naked eye.
What you can spot on the M3, though, are all the necessities for successful resin 3D printing. It comes with a laser-etched checkerboard-style textured print plate that provides decent adhesion of prints, and the 28-UV LED parallel light matrix in the printer’s trunk provides a uniform UV-light transmittance for an evenly print performance across the screen. Said screen also comes with anti-scratch protection, which should prolong the lifespan, at least when it comes to unwanted keying.
Anycubic’s proprietary slicer, Photon Workshop, might not be the most versatile, but you are not locked in and got the full range of community-popular slicers to choose from.
Similar to Elegoo, Anycubic enjoys a large user base and there are plenty of Facebook groups and subreddits with thousands of users, that can help get on your feet in resin 3D printing and exchange experiences, knowledge, and ideas.
Minor annoyances such as the small UI, and the USB port being in a sub-optimal location aside, this is a machine that won’t disappoint. Don’t expect any bells and whistles, but for $249, you get a solid resin 3D printing platform with a beefy build volume that produces detailed prints with minimal effort and fuss.
Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K
Phrozen’s Sonic Mini 8K is the best in the league regarding resolution of prints. It is the only printer of its size out there featuring an 8K mono screen, making it capable of producing prints at an absolutely mind-blowing accuracy of 22 microns. To this day, this is unmatched, although it comes at the cost of print volume. With a 165 x 72 x 180 mm space to print with, the Mini 8K offers a decent but no gargantuan capacity to produce those highly detailed prints.
Further enhancing the print quality is the use of the linear projection light system that uses mirrors to project the UV light from the LED evenly and uniformly onto the LCD screen, resulting in sharper prints.
Besides its benchmark performance, the Mini 8K also offers an excellent haptic. Features like a metal vat, a sturdy print plate mount, and a laser-etched print plate let the Mini 8K also check off usability factors. There might be some dialing-in of first layer settings required, as we found, during our time with it, that initial settings tend to adhere prints a little too well, but as the printer enjoys a large user base, you should find help and guidance immediately on one of the many forums online. In fact, Phrozen is – to our knowledge – the only company that provides many and more resin profiles, specifically fine-tuned to each resin in use, instead of the one-type-fits-all approach we see on other machines out there. Especially for professionals looking to use specific resins, this eases up print preparation quite a bit and reduces the risk of print failure down the line.
For the stellar performance of the Mini 8K, you’ll need to spend a bit more than your average consumer resin 3D printer. At Amazon, you can currently get it for $599. Hobbyists might question whether the 22-micron resolutions for their models really is needed, but professionals surely will get a kick from the 8K’s abilities and price point.
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