Bambu Studio
Ranked 5 of 5 3D printer slicers by recommenders
Free, open-source slicer people use to prepare prints and run printers without the cloud. Main caveat: critics say its networking plugin breaches the AGPL license.
Free, open-source slicer people use to prepare prints and run printers without the cloud. Main caveat: critics say its networking plugin breaches the AGPL license.
42 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 35
- approval share
- 17%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source, works without cloud
“The slicer is still open source, and you can still use their printers without the cloud.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract” Automatic model repair on Windows
“It's the automatic model repair that gives it a leg up on Windows.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft suspects some PCs might not boot after Windows 11 January 2026 Update” Add-ons improve the slicer
“The add-ons ("extras") simply make the slicer better”
Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Alleged AGPL violations over closed plugin
“Bambu's networking plugin is a tightly integrated closed-source carve out of AGPLv3 code they forked from the open-source community.”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “Why bambu_networking violates the AGPL in Bambu Studio” “put the networking part in a plugin that gets downloaded after you open it purely so they don't have to share the source”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract” “They threatened legal action against the author of a fork of their AGPL'd software merely for distributing said fork.”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Restore full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers” - Comment from 23 May 2026 in “BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork”
- Comment from 14 May 2026 on Hacker News
- Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Why bambu_networking violates the AGPL in Bambu Studio”
- Comment from 24 May 2026 in “'Fuck you, Bambu': How one private message could change the face of 3D printing”
- Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation”
- Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Why bambu_networking violates the AGPL in Bambu Studio”
- Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation”
- Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation”
Closed ecosystem and user agent DRM
“when Bambu started closing their ecosystem and claiming that user agent headers are DRM everyone got justifiably upset”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation” “instead of literally giving you the means of access AND the permission to use and modify it as you wish”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract” “Funniest thing is how this compares to web browsers impersonating each other in the user agent string.”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “'Fuck you, Bambu': How one private message could change the face of 3D printing” LAN mode restricted, slicer required
“you have to use Bambu Studio or Bambu Connect to send prints”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Restore full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers” “LAN mode requires you to still use their slicer because the majority of functions beyond the extremely basic are still restricted”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Louis Rossmann tells 3D printer maker Bambu Lab to 'Go (Bleep) yourself'” “Bambu Slicer is plagued by basic connectivity and usability issues that only affect LAN mode”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Restore full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers” Bugs and usability problems
“I found a bunch of bugs in their package, filed one in their github project, and never heard anything of it”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Restore full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers” “The slicer even introduces bugs in things that were working perfectly in the software they ripped off.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Grid: Forever free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer” “It took me so much time to setup the project in Bambu Studio just to switch between filament colors.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 on Hacker News - Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Restore full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers”
Other 3D printer slicers people recommend
The four most recommended other 3D printer slicers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OrcaSlicer | 32 | 9 | 78% | 6 | — | Approved |
| PrusaSlicer | 15 | 1 | 94% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Grid slicer | 9 | 2 | 82% | 1 | — | — |
| ColorMix for PrusaSlicer | 8 | 2 | 80% | 1 | — | — |
| Bambu StudioThis page | 7 | 35 | 17% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 50 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they abuse this closed source binary to lock away major features from other slicers”
“the moment software binaries for the slicer are distributed is when they have to ship source code”
“The add-ons ("extras") simply make the slicer better”
“There was issues since the beginning when they didn't release the sources of Bambu studio”
“They only dumped it (with prior git history squashed) onto GitHub months after the initial release”
“They also put in anti-reverse-engineering code in Studio, which I believe is also an AGPL violation.”
“Bambu Studio would pop up a request to download "a little more stuff"”
“when Bambu started closing their ecosystem and claiming that user agent headers are DRM everyone got justifiably upset”
“It took me so much time to setup the project in Bambu Studio just to switch between filament colors.”
“Funniest thing is how this compares to web browsers impersonating each other in the user agent string.”
“violating an OSS license that covers the software that they've built their commercial product on top of”
“BambuLabs is going to claim in court that it publishes login credentials to its network in its open source BambuStudio, and then complaining that people actually use them?”
“There is no reason to allow Bamboo to continue selling in North America or Europe if they’re out of compliance here.”
“Bambu was betting on easy support by painting the developer as a hacker”
“It was probably a lot cheaper to take some else's work and slap your customizations on it.”
“they made threats of using the DMCA which shows they are fully aware of "western" IP law”
“Bambu have been exceedingly bad actors around the AGPL and Open Source.”
“The illegality of Bambu Labs' actions results from the dependencies of the binary module on the AGPL app”
“carving out a chunk that you wish to keep proprietary and then dynamically loading it into AGPL code”
“Bambu's networking plugin is a tightly integrated closed-source carve out of AGPLv3 code they forked from the open-source community.”
“if you don't install it, large parts of the slicer are inaccessible”
“It is embarrassing that copying that one little thing made a third party fork able to connect to their cloud”
“given how useless Bambu Studio is without the networking plugin”
“They threatened legal action against the author of a fork of their AGPL'd software merely for distributing said fork.”
“I found a bunch of bugs in their package, filed one in their github project, and never heard anything of it”
“it's a long-standing bug in their proprietary networking plugin that they refuse to fix”
“Bambu Slicer is plagued by basic connectivity and usability issues that only affect LAN mode”
“Bambu studio in lan mode doesn't support it either, it requires the mobile app”
“put the networking part in a plugin that gets downloaded after you open it purely so they don't have to share the source”
“they are also terrible at software licensing, don't understand what open source is”
“they could have Bambu studio, the app, and the printer phone home too”
“you have to use Bambu Studio or Bambu Connect to send prints”
“It is very dubious way to subvert GPL, even GPL2, not to mention [A]GPL3.”
“The slicer is still open source, and you can still use their printers without the cloud.”
“instead of literally giving you the means of access AND the permission to use and modify it as you wish”
“LAN mode requires you to still use their slicer because the majority of functions beyond the extremely basic are still restricted”
“browsing the filesystem on the printer from the slicer is locked behind cloud mode”
“The slicer even introduces bugs in things that were working perfectly in the software they ripped off.”
“None of them produced the weird stuff I find with Bambu's pipeline.”
“It's the automatic model repair that gives it a leg up on Windows.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.