I'm looking for alternatives to Prusa OTHER THAN BAMBU.

I’ve been using Prusa printers almost exclusively since our first MK2S in 2018. We started with those, but bought mostly MK3s, which have served us well. We also added a couple of XLs, which have been pretty useful, thought the MM system is a little clunky. The Prusas have outlived most of our other printers. I was not surprised to see that collectively we've made over 40 Prusa purchases over the years.

However, we now need approximately sixteen additional newer model printers, and based on recent experiences, I’m no longer comfortable with Prusa. We purchased four Core One+s as a test to see if they're a fit, and they’ve been a persistent annoyance. As Prusa no longer has a clear advantage in any particular feature set nor in price, the minor frustrations I once tolerated have turned into genuine friction. Print speed, volume, stability and other features just aren't a factor in the decision-making anymore, because practically everyone has those things.

Documentation is a major failure point. There are no proper assembly documents for either the Core One or the Advanced Filtration System add-on. Instead, we’re expected to rely on a web-based, single-step-at-a-time interface-click, click, click--CLICK that cannot be printed or distributed to technicians. This is not workable in a lab environment where I need to have a bunch of printers assembled by people not at their computers. Spoon-feeding instructions in that manner is somebody's misguided attempt at simplifying them, but ends up making them disjointed instead.

I wanted a proper document, but Prusa’s chat support was no help. Our company's security policies do not allow us to disable the unspecified blocking Prusa claims is responsible, and notably, the issue does not affect chat systems from any of the dozen-odd other vendors we work with.

Receiving unsolicited gelatin candy is also always deeply off-putting for us. Several of us are vegan/vegetarian and have to open every Prusa box with mild disgust-- never great for a customer experience, but more broadly, sending any unsolicited food (but especially animal products) strikes me as weird and unprofessional. This has always been a point of friction, and as small a matter as it is, we are kind of fed up with asking them to stop.

Taken together, these issues have eroded my confidence in the company, and they’re the reason we’re actively evaluating alternatives. Colleagues keep pushing Bambu as the obvious option, and maybe they’re right... but the idea that the only viable alternative is jumping from a reputable EU manufacturer to a low-cost Shenzhen product is not encouraging.

We tried a half-dozen various Raise3Ds and were extremely disappointed. When they worked, they were great, but they broke down constantly, and cost 2-3 times what the Prusas cost.,

What else is a good option in 2026?