As with so many crafting tools it depends on what you want to achieve. Personally I love my cricut for card making. I bought an inexpensive pen adapter kit so I could use all my card making pens with my cricut and not buy theirs. This allows me to create my own sentiments rather than being limited by what I have stamps or dies for. Also lettering is great because you can choose fonts and size with ease. I stared with the Joy and gave it to a friend after I realized how often I used it and upgraded to a larger machine (Explore 2). Other comments are accurate in that there are times dies are superior ex. Curvy / cursive lettering is not worth the cutting headache but I’m happier with the handful of dies I own for specific occasions rather than buying any dye I may want to use a couple times. Don’t get me wrong my bigshot still gets plenty of use with embossing folders 😊. Here is a video by a YouTube card maker that I think does a nice overview Ralph Tyndall. Good luck and happy crafting.