rPET is essentially just a name used for PET manufactured using recycled PET material.

Using recycled materials is excellent for the environment, but often avoided due to an assumed lower quality. While it’s true some recycled filaments can be something of a stringy mess, there’s at least one exception we swear by: FormFutura’s ReForm rPET.

As with all FormFutura’s ReForm filaments, this material is produced entirely from recycled filaments from FormFutura’s own manufacturing waste streams — rPET specifically from its HDglass filament.

ReForm rPET surprised our editors, finding little to no issues with stringing. Shocking, since you can usually expect PETG to be stringy on its best days, and recycled material does this behavior no favors. We’ve also observed surprisingly little warping from the material and generally regard it to behave like PLA. Bliss.

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ReForm rPET also goes for a fantastic price of just $20 per kilogram – around the cost of an average PLA. FormFutura says a big part of that is down to the fact it is produced from recycled filament, stating on its website that “Sustainability and affordability can go hand in hand”.

Due to the fact that it’s sourced by a waste stream of various colors, rPET’s color can vary significantly, including in base white and black. So, you may not want to use it for projects that eat multiple spools — though it is also available in a wide variety of sizes. If you’re prepping for a large project, you can purchase bigger spools of 2.3, 3.5, or 4.5 kg for more material of the same shade and at a bulk price to boot. Or, if you’re worried about filament getting old, FormFutura sells rPET in smaller quantities of 250 and 750 grams.

Polymaker is another 3D printing material manufacturer held in high regard by makers. The company offers many product lines for different specializations, but we’re looking at PolyLite PETG here, PolyLite being the sub-brand of its general consumer materials that cover the most popular 3D printing filaments.

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Polymaker’s PolyLite PETG has a standard tolerance of ±0.05 mm and is priced at ~$22 for a 1-kg spool. The packaging is also smart, with lines on the label that tell you approximately how much material you have left on a spool – good for knowing when you need to order more.

MatterHackers has been selling filament for a long time, and is a trusted name for makers, particularly in North America. Its Build Series is the company’s entry-level consumer filament line, made to balance cost and quality. In short, we find it to be exactly what you’d expect; an affordable, good-quality material from a reputable company.

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MatterHackers Build Series PETG is certainly a good material for the low price, with a dimensional accuracy of ±0.05 mm for a retail price of ~$22 for 1-kg spools. It’s a reasonably strong material suitable for all kinds of uses that also comes in 27 colors. Meaning that, unlike some spools in this list, there’s a far larger array of finishes for consumers to choose from.

Pay a visit to All3DP’s print lab and you’ll discover that Eryone’s PETG is one of the materials we almost always keep a stock of.

Eryone PETG is a solid filament with a mid-range dimensional tolerance of ±0.03 mm and a competitive price of ~$25, for a 1-kg spool. Recently, Eryone has also expanded its color selection by around 50%, providing greater variety for consumers to choose from and countering what was perhaps our only real criticism of the filament.

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Eryone PETG was found to have consistent behavior in line with what we’d expect from PETG, but we find its performance superseded by FormFutura ReForm rPET on account of the latter’s superior handling. That said, it remains a great option, and we always have some on hand due to its higher-than-average dimensional accuracy and reasonable price.

Spend somewhere between five and ten bucks more, and you can also purchase a glitter-enriched “Galaxy” PETG from Eryone, or a Carbon Fiber PETG blend that’ll offer much greater strength.

A popular materials company, Hatchbox gets a lot right with its PETG filament.

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It keeps tolerances tight with a dimensional accuracy of ±0.03 mm, and the price is good too, at ~$25 for a 1-kg spool. There’s also a fantastic variety of 31 colors to choose from — which launches Hatchbox PETG into our Top Picks as our Budget Pick. If you like having plenty of interesting color options from your materials, this PETG is the way to go.

Polymaker positions its PolyMax sub-brand as a high-quality filament line, using what it calls “nano-reinforcement technology” to make a superior product. The claim? PolyMax PETG, like other materials in the category, has “exceptional mechanical properties and printing quality.”

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The company doesn’t necessarily seem to be targeting professional applications with PolyMax, and has an average tolerance of ±0.05 mm. Rather, it markets the filament as a generally superior variety of consumer material. For that, customers are asked to pay ~$30 for 750 grams of filament. It’s biggest downside, though? It’s available in just two colors, black or white.

As you might expect from the famously thorough Czech 3D printing powerhouse, Prusa Research has its own line of 3D printing materials dubbed “Prusament”. Like all of the company’s products, its PETG filament is produced to exact specifications.

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Prusament PETG has an exceptional dimensional accuracy of just ±0.02 mm and is still a reasonable price of ~$30 per 1-kg spool too. That’s pretty hard to beat, value wise, especially when you also consider the 22 colors available.

Prusament PETG is also available as refill only (saves $2-3) jumbo 2-kg spools (an additional $20), as well as its own “self-extinguishing” variant called V0. For those seeking extra strength, a carbon fiber-enhanced blend is also offered, as well as a matte black-finished spool. Options are certainly not endangered with this brand of PETG, that’s for sure.

A safety net is rarely needed with filaments, but Prusa Research is well known for its excellent support, so we’re confident any potential issues would be solved too.

Fillamentum PETG has a healthy reputation as a solid and dependable PETG filament available in an array of interesting and unusual colors.

Priced a little over $30 per 1-kg spool, Fillamentum offers its PETG with an average diameter tolerance of ±0.05 mm in single-kilo-weight spools only. It’s the colors that steal the show here, though. There are over 20 to choose from, almost all of them interesting or different in some way, and with names to match.

Lemon Yellow Transparent, Gold Cloud, Forget-me-not Blue, and Sea Wave, in particular, look cool, but our favorite is the Wizard’s Voodoo – a magical halfway house between dark blue and black.

Carbon Fiber-reinforced PETG is an exceptionally strong material suitable for use in all kinds of heavy-duty scenarios. There are more than a few blends of these two materials in one filament out there, but 3DXTech’s CarbonX filament has one of the best reputations among the pack.

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The Grand Rapids-based firm has close to 100 customer reviews left on the item’s product page, scoring it with an average of 4.9 out of 5; you can be pretty confident in pulling the trigger on this particular filament. Carbon Fiber filament blends are rarely cheap, but at $48 per 750 g, 3DXTech is more than competitive with its pricing.

This material will be more than suitable for users wanting an exceptionally strong blend of PETG that is suitable for practical use in high-demand applications. It can be printed on most standard consumer machines, but 3DXTech recommends using a hardened steel nozzle and a glue stick to help the print adhere to the bed.

MatterHackers doesn’t just sell to consumers; it also offers professionally-aimed products, such as its Pro Series PETG, which aims to deliver the most repeatable PETG printing experience possible. MatterHackers says this takes many forms, including rigorous  testing for strict dimensional accuracy standards and color consistency.

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At ±0.02 mm, MatterHackers’ Pro Series PETG certainly has highly consistent dimensions, and the product is also available in 15 colors. Billed as “exceptionally tough and sturdy,” and producing high-durability, consistently accurate prints, Pro Series PETG doesn’t come cheap. A 1-kg spool will run you $57 (with free shipping in the USA).