What is the best 3D printing slicer?

What are the best slicers for 3D printing?

By: Eric Franck

What slicer should i use? We’re glad you asked, today we’re going to break down our top picks for 3D printing slicers in 2022. You may have just gotten your 3D printer or wanting to change slicers but wondering which to pick. There's so many options, but how do you tell the good from the bad? Here at Ultimate, we understand this struggle so that’s why we made a list of our top picks for you
First let's breakdown what makes a good slicer:

• Viewing ability: good software should offer the ability to turn and zoom to any point of your 3D model flawlessly and fast.
• STL repair: good 3D slicer software won’t deny the ability to slice. If there are broken areas in your 3D model, it should bring them to your attention and repair them at the click of a button.
• Usability: How easy or hard a slicer is to use, does it cater to beginners or experts or even better, both. Is the user interface easy to understand without complex menus that you can get lost in like a maze?

Our picks for best slicer:

Ultimaker Cura

Ultimaker Cura is our number one pick. Ultimaker Cura is not limited to just Ultimaker printers! Cura 5.0 comes with pre-configured settings for nearly all entry level printers on the market such as Creality, or Anycubic. It also comes with a huge library of preconfigured filament selections ranging from PLA to Carbon Fiber filaments.
Cura’s slicing engine has improved over the years and recently it made a huge breakthrough, prints that used to take 3 hours have seen reductions up to 1 and a half hours in print time. This will not be the case for everyone, but it will certainly guarantee the best prints in the least amount of time.

Pursa Slicer

Our second pick is Prusa Slicer by Prusa Research. Prusa Slicer was originally designed for Prusa printers, but the easy-to-use user interface and customization of setting made it rapidly gain popularity. With time, Prusa Research added premade configurations for many 3rd party printers. This slicer uses Cura’s new powerful slicing engine in Prusa Slicer 2.5.0 so you can get the same amazing results. Prusa Slicer also comes equipped with hundreds of premade filament profiles and supports network-based printing which means no more SD cards.

Chitubox

Chitubox is also another reputable slicer however it is for MSLA or resin 3D printing. This slicer is packed full of features in the free version. Some features include automatic part hollowing to save resin, hole digging to drain and an assortment of resin settings, print settings, and support settings.
When slicing, this slicer will estimate the time the print takes to complete, how much resin will be used, and the estimated cost! This slicer also supports .zip and .ctb exports.

Simplify3D

Our final pick is Simplify 3D. This slicer is definitely more for the advanced users but welcomes beginners with a bit of a learning curve. Unlike all of the other slicers mentioned above this one is not free, it is priced at $149 for a lifetime license and 2 weeks money back guarantee if you change your mind.
This slicer is always improving and gives its users chances to grow as they discover more settings and adjust their prints. This slicer has the ability to repair partially broken STL files and supports imports and exports of printer and filament profiles so you can take advantage of pre-tuned settings in the community. Simplify 3D also has an amazing support team willing to assist you with any issues you may run into while using their software.