The best hobby 3D printer will enable you to create your own, tools, jigs, models, crafts, miniatures and more.
To help you choose I've extensively tested, reviewed, and rated the best 3D printers overall – but as with any focused group, there's a type of 3D printer that is specially suited to hobbyists and that's a machine that is a little more flexible than most. That flexibility is especially relevant if you're using a printer for modelling and crafting, where a combination of precision and material choice is essential.
Overall, I recommend the Creality K1C as the best 3D printer for hobbies, as it offers a superb balance of print quality, versatility, and speed. This printer never fails to impress with its fully enclosed design and exceptional quality prints – it's also available for a very affordable price, which always appeals. If you're hobby is jewerly or miniatures however, while this printer is a good all round choice, I would recommend a resin model such as the Creality HALOT-MAGE S 14K. Check out the reviews of both below, alongside my recommended round-up for anyone looking for a 3D printer for hobbies.
For more options, I've also tested out the best 3D printers for miniatures.
The quick list
Best hobby 3D printer overall
The enclosed design, large build platform, and ability to print with a huge range of materials make this an extremely versatile option.
Best hobby 3D printer for cosplay
The evolution of the K1 range has resulted in the K2 Plus, a huge multi-filament printer that offers one of the largest print platforms available at this price. Great for cosplay and other large-scale projects.
Best hobby 3D printer for enthusiasts
The latest iteration of the iconic machine is still hard to beat especially when it comes to speed and accuracy. Still open-source, this is the one for 3D printer hobbyists.
Best hobby 3D printer for precision
The best of a new wave of multi-filament machines, Anycubic has designed a solid, no-fuss machine with superb speed and accuracy.
Best 3-in-1 hobby 3D printer
This huge machine can 3D print with dual filaments and has a quick-swap tool head and bed that enable it to laser and CNC, making it the most flexible hobbyist 3D printer on the market.
Best hobby 3D printer for materials
This printer helped to disrupt the 3D printing industry by bringing high-end features to an affordable machine. It's known for its speed, accuracy, and ability to print with multiple materials.
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Best hobby 3D printer for home DIY
Able to print with a wide variety of materials and featuring a large print platform, the potential with this machine is huge. What's more, there's the option to add a multi-filament accessory if needed.
Best hobby 3D printer for fine-detail
Superb workflow and solid performance make this a great option for any hobby that involves modelling. The resin auto-fill system also goes partway to making this a cleaner resin printer.
Best hobby 3D printer for crafting
High-detailed prints, solid build quality, and ease of use make this a great option for jewellers or anyone wanting to print fine detail.
Best hobby 3D printer for large-scale models
A large print platform and easy workflow make the GKTwo a great option for artists wanting to express themselves in 3D. The high detail will also appeal to anyone looking for precision for their hobby.
Best hobby 3D printer overall
The Creality K1C has consistently impressed me throughout the tests, and while it may not offer the multi-filament printing seen in the latest crop of printers, when it comes to speed and reliability, it’s just hard to beat.
The K1C marked a turning point in the industry being one of the first fully enclosed Core XY machines that was accessible to all. While other machines are available at this price, which on the surface at least, appeared to match its specifications and performance, long-term testing has shown time and again that the K1C has set the benchmark from what we now expect from 3D printers alongside the BambuLab X1 and Original Prusa MK4S.
The K1C ultimately wins out due to its price over the competition, and when it comes to hobbies, it will suit a wide range of users as well as uses. For general modelling, the high precision and speed make it a great option for standard PLA, which can be worked with and painted. Meanwhile, for more advanced hobbyists, the ability to print with carbon fibre-filled filaments, nylon, and other materials means you can 3D print strong and workable parts.
Above all, as Creality is one of the leaders in the 3D printing industry, the design and integration of its software are exceptionally well thought out, making it easy to use as a single printer in the workshop or as part of a larger print farm.
Ideal hobbies here include, RC modelling, modelling, and product design where material strength is a key feature.
Read our full Creality K1C review
Best hobby 3D printer for cosplay
The K1 series impressed as general-use machines when they first arrived, but now the K2 Plus has landed, marking the start of a new wave of high-performance multi-filament machines. As the flagship of the new range, it’s the first to arrive, and we couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale, ease of use, and quality of the prints.
Following the fully enclosed multi-filament box design that we’ve seen from the likes of Bambu Lab and Anycubic, the K2 Plus features a build area that we’re more accustomed to seeing with open-frame machines. This build area is coupled with all the latest features, including a heated chamber that enables more accurate and reliable printing with many of the newer, more advanced materials.
Like the K1C, the print quality and range of compatibility are exceptional, but for hobbyists, it’s the absolute ease of use and cost that make this such a great choice. So, if you’re looking at creating cosplay costumes or props, the larger build area offered by the K2 Plus will make it an excellent option.
Creality K2 Plus is a great choice for cosplay and other large-scale projects due to the huge print platform and multi-filament compatibility.
Best hobby 3D printer for enthusiasts
The Original PRUSA MK4S and its predecessors have long been the go-to for 3D printing enthusiasts. If your hobby is 3D printing, then this printer is a must, and when it comes to speed and quality, it still can't be beaten for absolute versatility. It’s also the only machine out there that is still 100% available in the open-source community, so while the machine you buy is one of the best available, there are enough users out there producing upgrades for the machine that you’ll never get bored modifying it.
However, if you want to use the machine for something other than 3D printing parts for 3D printing, this machine enables some of the highest precision prints out there. With its advanced cooling system and high-temperature hot end, it offers a huge range of material options. It’s also completely future-proof, so once you invest in one PRUSA machine, you know you’ll be able to upgrade to the next generation for a small fee.
While the base machine is single filament and of an open-frame design, the MMU3 is available for multi-filament printing, as well as an enclosure. Alternatively, you can upgrade to the new enclosed Prusa Core One using the upgrade kit. This is the only 3D printer that is a hobby in itself.
In my opinion, the Original PRUSA MK4S is an ideal choice for those who just love 3D printing - this machine was the start of many 3D print enthusiasts journeys.
Read our full Original PRUSA MK4S review
Best hobby 3D printer for precision
The Anycubic S1 is one of the leaders of the latest range of 3D printers. Like the K2 Plus, Original Prusa Core One, and many other recent releases, it features multi-filament printing with up to 8 colours—4 in the standard package, with the option to increase as your budget allows. It also features a fully enclosed design, a slick touchscreen interface, and everything you’ll need to get started.
While on the surface and during operation the machine is matched by the competition when it comes to speed and usability, during the review process I found that the quality of the prints was exceptional. It's the first machine that, on print quality alone, holds its own against the Original PRUSA MK4S and the exceptional and affordable AnkerMake M5S.
The quality of prints from this machine and its relatively compact footprint make it a great all-round choice, capable of printing in a variety of materials with a precision that is hard to match. If you’re looking for a 3D printer to complement any hobby where high accuracy is required and you don’t want the mess of resin, the Anycubic S1 is a great option.
This model is an ideal choice for general crafting and modelling where multi-filament printing and precision is key.
My full review is coming soon
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Best 3-in-1 hobby 3D printer
The Snapmaker Artisan is the most flexible machine on the market, with the ability to 3D print, CNC, and laser engrave. Whilst it offers unparalleled flexibility in terms of materials and the type of machine it is, it also requires a significant amount of space.
When it comes to the 3D printing feature, the machine utilises Snapmaker's superb Luban software, which works through a browser-based interface. It’s one of the most intuitive machines to use, and while it’s limited to dual filament printing rather than the now more common quad filament, it can still hold its own when it comes to precision, if not speed.
Print quality is excellent, and the large build area enables hobbyists to print at scale. What’s more, if you want to engrave or cut woods, plastics, and other materials, a quick swap of the build platform and modular tool head allows you to easily adapt the machine to your needs. Since I originally reviewed the machine an upgraded 20W laser module has been released which makes a huge difference to the power and versatility of the machine. For modellers, product designers, and inventors, the Artisan has to be the model of choice.
The Snapmaker Artisan is a good choice for all workshop hobbies, so if you into RC, working on the car or any hobby that requires the 3-in-1 functionality that offers 3D print, Laser and CNC.
Read our full Snapmaker Artisan review
Best hobby 3D printer for materials
This is the printer that has essentially disrupted the 3D printing industry and set the bar for all other 3D printer manufacturers to aim at. You do have to dig a little deeper into your pockets to afford this one, but for ease of use, reliability, speed, and quality, this is the printer dominating the hobbyist scene at the moment.
What makes this machine the one to beat is its absolute ease of use, with the AMS system housing all filaments neatly in a box that sits on top of the machine. This means that once the filament has been threaded into the AMS, you don’t have to worry about it. If a filament runs out, all you need to do is pop in another. While at the time I reviewed this machine, this feature was unique the likes of the Anycubic S1 and Creality K2 Plus now also feature multi-filament systems that match this ease of use.
Other ease-of-use features, such as the touchscreen, software, and range of usability functions, make this a solid choice if you’re looking for a good mix of the best of everything and don’t want to deal with unnecessary hassle.
A good choice for RC modelling, modelling, product design alongside the ability to utilised multi-filament prints, this just takes the bar up a level from the Creatlity K1C, but does come at an additional cost.
Read our full Bambu Lab X1 Carbon review
Best Hobby 3D printer for home DIY
QIDI are one of the lesser-known 3D printer manufacturers, but recently their machines have taken a huge leap forward in terms of print quality and speed. The design also follows the recent trend for fully enclosed systems, making them suitable for both workshops and schools or educational environments.
While the interface is a little slower than most, if you’re willing to overlook this, the machine itself is absolutely superb, consistently producing solid prints. The scale of the print platform, combined with the design and solid construction, makes this an ideal option for any home DIY hobbyist, with a decent range of features perfectly suited to creating brackets, jigs, and tools for use around the workshop and office.
Another appealing feature of the QIDI Plus4 is the option for QIDI Box, essentially a multi-filament accessory.
Top hobbies for this unit include home DIY, where the precision and speed enable you to build things big quickly.
Read our full QIDI Plus4 review
Best hobby 3D printer for fine-detail
One of the best next-generation resin printers available, the M7 Pro is ideal for any hobbyist looking for a printer capable of producing highly detailed models. The M7 Pro packs in a range of features that make the process of resin printing significantly easier, with a mid-range print platform size and a user-friendly interface.
What really stands out about the M7 Pro is the autofill capability, which uses a simple tube system to extract resin from the bottle and replace it in the resin tank as needed. This helps to avoid resin spills and makes the entire clean-up process much easier and quicker, allowing you to spend more time focusing on the hobby this resin printer is designed to complement.
The Anycubic Mono Photon M7 Pro is an ideal choice for miniatures where fine detail is essential. Likewise, for jewellery and other small to mid-sized 3D modelling, the M7 Pro is an excellent choice.
Read our full AnyCubic Mono Photon M7 Pro review