this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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The problem with Bambu is they are not trash at all. Their printers are high-quality, and the way they integrate with their proprietary slicer (that they totally stole from the community before locking it down) and MakerWorld is genuinely excellent.
I have 3 Bambu printers. I don't buy their products anymore (my newest printer is an SV-08 max), but I still use the ones I have and they're excellent, easy machines. And if someone new comes to me wanting a starter "just click print and it works" solution, I'm still likely to point them towards an A1 mini. They're cheap and work great out of the box with zero handholding from me required.
And that's why I kinda hate them. They don't have to be dickheads, but choose to be. Their products are fantastic, and I'd honestly be using Bambu Studio for them instead of Orca anyway.
That's the problem, it cannot be proprietary when based off slic3R. It's not their property to lock down.
The slicer is not proprietary, but the networking plugin for printer communication is
I don't know how their plugin work, but wouldn't AGPL "unproprietary" it?
From my understanding Bambu is playing "who has the bigger pile of money" while others are stepping up and playing "who has the legal right to fork AGPL code?"
I don't know but that isn't even the issue the guy took code that was in the Linux slicer and used that. They are saying he not sure what their excuse is but they are doing exactly what the Linux slicer does which is AGPL code. He didn't reverse engineer anything.
What I'm trying to say is AGPL has a clause that if you use AGPL code any code that you add also becomes AGPL and is required to be provided.
They sometimes call it a viral license for that reason.
Yes but unless they get challenged in court, they will continue to do so.
Especially the makerworld integration for casual users. My wife puts about 80% of the print time on ours and it's all from the android app, printing models she finds on the app. I though of getting a Prusa, but to be realistic I can't even put the P1S in LAN only mode because that part won't work, so I'm stuck with it for now.
I mean they pushed the industry forward. I have bought two of their printers and don't regret it as they still continue to function. My next printer well not be theirs though. I just hope by the time I am ready to get a new one printers have become as easy as theirs. I want to print not have to tweak my printer to print. And yes I have done that for decades but I don't want to anymore.
Exactly. And I think we need to be honest about our criticism of Bambu. A lot of it is legitimate complaints. They stepped into a community that built itself around sharing ideas and group effort. They benefited from the work of the community and made some great innovations, but refused to share those innovations with the community that had shared so much with them. That's a dick move.
But there's also an uncomfortable element of the Bambu hatred coming from people who have been part of the community for a long time. They tinkered and toiled using weed-eater line through modified hot glue guns and spent years buulding up shitty machines into something serviceable. They did awesome things, and they should be proud if it. But they can also be gatekeepers who are hostile to those who just want to print something without needing to understand g-code or what pressure advance is.
They don't want new users who haven't made the tinkering and fiddling the hobby. They see the confusion and technical knowledge required as a rite of passage all users need to experience. They were a huge part of making 3D printing what it is today, but (just like Bambu) hey don't want the next guys to benefit from it.