Does the Prusa MK4 have what it takes?

Prusa has released a long-awaited successor to their legendary MK3 line of printers. But is it still enough in today’s market?

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[MrKeith]

I purchased the MK4 because Prusa has been more than willing to help me solve every problem that I have run into on my MK2 and my MK3. Even sending out replacement free of charge if it was determined to be a faulty part.
Prusa is the only printer company that I know of that offers upgrade kits throughout the life of the product as technology improves. That is why I choose to buy Prusa printers.

[nelsondcp]

I find it somewhat disheartening that Prusa's open-source approach is continuously being criticized as a drawback in your latest reviews. Not everyone is inclined towards an Apple-esque 'walled garden' experience. Yes, companies like Bamboo labs are undeniably driving impressive progress in the field, but that hardly renders open-source 3D printing obsolete. We can't simply overlook the likes of Voron, VZbot, and many other thriving open-source projects. They offer significant value and choices to a diverse range of users, and deserve fair acknowledgment.

[pinpetos]

The fact that they still publish under open source is reason enough for me to continue to support them.

[Indeed]

The printer (& software) being open source, utterly reliable & easy to maintain is far more important to me than print speed or a fancy UI. There's a line in the MK3 product passport that reads "We want your printer to last as long as possible." That speaks volumes.

[rDigitalA]

Prusa deserves credit for their open source DNA. So many startups are standing on the shoulders of giants (like Prusa) and closing off their gardens. This is a bleak future for the reprap movement.
Prusa is still a very high quality printer and a great choice.

[haenselundgretel]

Prusa might seem to now be behind other companies. But what they did for the whole community and what they provide still lets them be the industry gold standard for printers. Service and longevity are way more important for industry users than the machine's price!
As company we only own high price printers because of their reliability. And that's also one of Prusa's main selling points all the other companies yet have to show their worth at.

[PASquared]

I got the MK4 as a very expensive upgrade to my unmodded Ender 3 Pro. For me 3D printing is not a hobby as much as my 3D printer is a tool. I want the thing to work every time, always have access to parts and service, and have a seamless experience from slicer to print. The competition may have surpassed Prusa in terms of speed and tech, but its the intangibles that made me choose the Mk4.

[moonblad]

I got this printer as a kit, and finished building it yesterday. I can say, the building experience was worth the money. High quality parts and the improved building process over the MK3S+ was excellent.

[wtfusernamecrap]

Great review. One thing though: while I'm a tinkerer, I explicitly do NOT want to work on my 3d printer. In fact, I loathe it. Ideally, it just prints, so I can work on iterations of my own products for weeks, or their MCU innards. That's why I'm sticking with Prusa printers. They seem to hit a sweet spot for me when it comes to reliability and price.

[Etrehumain]

I chose my first 3D printer as a prusa mk4 because I want something solid for the next 15 years minimum. I support an european busness, the open source slicer, the internet connection with all the stats I can monitorize from my phone... I bought it in kit, it was incredibly fun to build, and it works on the very first try I was completely bamboozlied. I made a Benchy on PLA and then on PETG. Incredible emotion when you come from the wood industry like me.

[eriobis]

I purchased the MK4 because I have a MK2 upgraded to an upgradded 2.5S ans I was waiting for a bigger upgrade than the MK3 to upgrade. Also, although their software and hardware are open source, I am gladly buying prusa to encourage their business and their contribution to the makers community. Enjoy :)

[crasbee]

After owning my Sovol SV-06 for half a year now, I still want a Prusa. As you said, you have to tinker with the Chinese machines until they run reliably or even work for longer prints at all (yes, I'm looking at you, heatcreep).

But at this point I have three printers that need tinkering and I'm just tired. I just want a printer that prints for hours, days, weeks, months, years without tinkering. And that's what Prusas do best and seemingly nobody else achieves. My friend has a Prusa Mk2 and it still runs just perfect after all these years.

[hunter-iemv]

I am not such prusa fan, but the fact you yourself said it is going to become your main workhorse speaks volumes. Bamboo is cool for many things, but if I am printing something overnight I just want to have it in the morning.

[alexlandherr]

After nearly 2 full years of using my Mini+ with all the additions from Prusa (PINDA and filament sensor) I can confidently say it’s been overwhelmingly good.

Often when I thought something was wrong it was I who didn’t understand some nuances like large flat pieces tend to warp.

After I added an RPi4B 4GB with OctoPrint + OctoPi it’s been very useful too.

[swissfreek]

So, I got a MK2 when your review on that posted back in… late 2016? I have upgraded it since and it’s now a MK2.5S, which is only a couple steps short of the MK3. I converted my XL pre-order to a MK4 kit, and I have to say, on paper, there’s not a *huge* difference between even the MK2.5 and the MK4, but in practice, it’s vastly different to me. It’s way less fiddly to assemble, way more consistent in use, the interface is better, the load cell bed leveling thing is much much better than the PINDA, and it’s significantly faster (it’s not lightning, but it’s immediately noticeable. I have a way easier time getting good prints, especially large prints that cover a lot of the plate and struggle with adhesion in some spots if bed leveling isn’t spot on. So yes, same formula, and looks the same at first glance, but it’s not the same.

I saved money by building the kit, which I enjoy doing anyway. But still, yeah I could get a P1P. But that’s a whole new system with new issues to learn and solve. After 6+ years of printing on my Prusa, I’m comfortable with their philosophy and how they go about things, so I know where to start when I have a problem.

Expensive? Yeah a bit. Perfect? No. Bragging rights? Probably not (but I don’t really care about speed benchies etc.). But do I regret my purchase? I do not.

[JonathanKayne]

Honestly that load cell and prusa link are what got me to purchase the Mk4 (on top of the good experience I've had with my mk3)
I never really liked using octoprint so i really like the fact that i can load my gcode onto the printer's storage without having to physically plug in the storage device into my computer. I can operate everything from PrusaSlicer and/or the web interface.
Also, to me its an $800 printer since i like the fun weekend i get assembling the printer.
It may not be significantly better than all the competition out there but I don't have anything to complain about with this machine.

[hebijirik]

I think part of what your money buys you when you get one of these is also the promise that replacement parts and even upgrades for it will be available for a lot of years directly from the manufacturer. No hoping that some other company will make a compatible part 4 years from now when you accidentaly break something. You just know you can go to Prusa and have the exact spare part in a few days. Based on how they have supported previous iterations of this printer I can belive this a lot more than with any competition I can think of.

[blenderbuch]

My Mark 2 is still running FINE. Thats sustainable. It was expensive back then but obviously worth it.

[HotboiEngineering]

Honestly, Prusa is still number one in my book. They have enough goodwill I trust input shaping will come and their end user experience is still the best and the most intuitive.

[capitalinventor]

I don't believe that by opening its source code Prusa is killing itself. Say they took the Slic3r and built a closed source product around it. There is still Cura in open source that other printer manufacturers could use. Without Prusa slicer it's possible that Slic3r, or a fork of it, may have gotten more attention from open source developers.

I believe that people buy a Prusa when they want something that works and expect it to keep working. They also want to have someplace to contact if there are any problems with their product. It is similar to businesses paying for support licenses for Linux when one may just download the operating system for free.

( Perhaps having Prusa throw its resources into Prusa slicer and keep it open source we lost out on a lot of people contributing to the various open source slicer projects. They may have thought that things were going to get done by Prusa so they would live with any annoyances in the current version. A lot of people start on a project when there is something that is bugging them or they really want a feature but there isn't the resources to implement the fix or upgrade. )