Should You Pay For A 3d Printer Slicer? Simplify3d Dive

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With the recent release of Simplify3d v5, I wanted to take a dive into the software. In this video, we will cover the history of the company, why I never purchased a license back in 2015, my thoughts on v5, and lots of additional info along the way.

Find out more or purchase Simplify3d here:

Joel's video on Simplify3d v5:

Grant from 3D Musketeer's Video on Simplify3d:

3D Printing Professor's video on Simplify3d V5:

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Lets Get Social!

[cemmy]

Anyone who's been watching the recent Prusa Live streams knows that Prusa-slicer (and therefore cura and SS if they want to, due to the magic of open-source) is about to get a lot of really cool things. Organic supports, in-slicer measurements, and as of this week embossing text directly onto STLs.

Those last two on their own are maybe not the most useful things, but that level of model editing/interaction being right there in the slicer really is unique and hopefully a sign of things to come (imagine, for example, being able to push/pull faces and holes to adjust tolerances right there in the slicer instead of having to keep going back and forth between it and CAD? Or how that would allow non-designers to adjust tolerances without having to know CAD? etc.)

What is S3D doing besides playing catch up? And they have the nerve to charge $200? I just can't imagine backing that horse in 2023

[ajc]

It's stupidly expensive and I really wouldn't trust them as a company at this point.

[Demento]

I've been a long time S3D user (I paid into it when it was at version 3). Over the years, the S3D slicer has been good to me and always produced nice results as far as prints go.

So when v5 FINALLY arrived, I took the plunge to see what's been updated. Let me tell you that the bulk of the "updates" have been done "under the hood" and aren't readily accessible for tweaking/modding. Also, many features in the last version (4.1.2) were removed from the GUI/workflow in v5 (i.e. infill % slider bar, check boxes to show/hide STL models).

And as a "bonus"... the software crashes any time that I go to slice a model that uses supports. I've tried every single combination of settings in trying to narrow down if it was a particular setting/group of settings causing the crash but no joy. S3D v5 at this point is still very much a poorly-tested, beta version. Hopefully with their "newfound commitment" to provide updates in a more timely manner, things will improve.

[odw]

1. They are dealing with a negative reputation due to long delays & broken promises regarding a free upgrade for existing license holders.
2. They don't really offer anything super unique. And there's so much left to innovate, both in terms of (non-planar & multimaterial/multitool) slicing and smarter profile management, and in terms of pre-slicing (CAD) and post-slicing (connectivity & monitoring) features. Instead, they just caught up to the status quo.
3. Maybe at $20 they could attract some curious new users, but $200 is an amount where most people carefully weigh all the pros/cons.

[DarrenGerbrandt]

Huge lag in updates + no innovation + huge price tag = 0 new customers. Also, remember that the price tag is in US dollars, so for me here in Canada, that price tag is $279, almost $300 and that pay first 2 week trial is a joke. I understand that developers need income but seriously they need to pull their heads out of their ass if they really want to bring in new customers.

[nicholasvonbriesen]

I’m not paying 200$ for a slicer that is arguably worse than the open source slicers out there such as Prusa slicer or Cura.

[johnnyhellfire]

It's a money pit honestly, $200 for software that hasn't been updated for a while (save now of course) and it doesn't even have pre set profiles for most printers. They rested on their laurels, thinking their product was only for "professionals". In retail, this happens all the time, companies sell over priced pos and other types of software they never update and are lacking so many features

[schm]

My S3D journey was over when their "no trial version, but a full refund if you don't like it" promise turned into some "half a dozen emails exchanged before we transition into the beginning of the refunding process which takes weeks to complete" BS.

[Joe_Galaska]

Six years ago I got into 3D printing when Walmart sold the Anet A8. After assembly I had little success getting good quality prints from the machine. I saw discussion on Simplify 3D and I purchased it. It managed to provide me with an interface that allowed adjustment to the prints but did not overwhelm me. You could say that Simplify 3D was taking me from nursery school to high school. I began reading about settings from watching YouTube and reading comments building my confidence and allowing me to print with success many of the those models that YouTube Creators have featured. So when the new version came out I went ahead and upgraded while watching as many YouTube videos about Simplify that I could find. The new software is buggy for some depending what features you work with everyday. I am not sure that V5 is ready for prime time but I hope the programmers at Simplify 3D are paying attention and release updates frequently. I purchased V5 as an upgrade and it cost me $59.00. V5 is not my daily driver as I recently received Bambu Labs P1P. The Bambu Lab software is my immediate focus.

[mairmatt]

I use SF3D since 2017, bought for 150 Euro as a boxed version in a retail store. Now I'm expected to pay 55 Euro for an update for a not-so-bleeding-edge-software that sells for 185 Euro. But the offer for the update has an expiration date to put pressure on me. And as the cream topping I could only purchase it over the US-based webshop that doesn't even come close to the minimum of legal requirements in the EU. I lost all trust in this company. Game over.

[paintballercali]

I don't see why you would use anything other than prusa and cura. The next update of prusa looks to make it the best slicer. I'm a cura user.

[Apophis-enpi]

I used s3d v4 until it became outdated compared to PS and SS. I'd never even consider paying for it or paying for the new version. Super slicer is all you need and more. Honestly Cura, PrusaSlicer, and Super slicer are awesome.

[johan]

Don't know if you did it already (if so, oops sorry!😅). But is it possible that you make a beginners guide for SuperSlicer? 🤘

[LetsJeep]

Invested $170 for S3D with the promise of free upgrades. The interface was great for direct motion control and slicer combined with preset material profiles. Worked decent from day one on the Marlin/reprap based Leapfrog Creatr. When other printers came along, I sadly discovered S3D was not directly compatible with MakerBot Z18 or the Voron 2.4 with different interface systems. Sure, it will slice and spit out G-code with limited features for newer capable hardware. But then each printer required separate software for user motion/auxiliary control interfaces. Which brings a sense of damned if I do pay $65 with taxes for the "free" questionable upgrade - or damned if I don't - making it worthless.

[peircedan]

In general I will use open source software when reasonably possible. So far I am happy to stick with my first slicer which is Cura. If I had to pay $200 for a slicer I would not have purchased my budget printers.

[strictnonconformist]

I’m in the software development field as well as a 3D printer user, and some of my past employment involved CNC controller software before RepRap existed, shortly after, 3D CAD software that supported generating CNC machine toolpath generation from CAD files, and there was one important difference compared to this company: the software was always supported and being updated regularly. If you’re wanting to compete against free, you’d damned well better support your software and keep on relentlessly improving it, while also keeping a good track record with your customers, lest you lose to open source software done out of passion for no pay, but to scratch an itch.

History has shown that on average, open source software doesn’t progress as fast as commercial software that has a budget and is popular in the market, but if the commercial software doesn’t keep moving forward, a fixed target is much easier to hit and then shoot past. Part of the problem for commercial software creation, even if it innovated and created new solutions, is that open source re-creations are at least a little bit simpler to achieve the same result, if only because it’s been shown how it can be done because it has been done: it’s not rocket science to analyze things from an existing solution and reproduce it, and having the original vision and making the original decisions to solve the problems is harder, as what isn’t seen in the end result is how many false starts were made and abandoned. It’s fairly rare for something truly innovative to be created, start to finish, with no issues along the way.

Simplify 3D 5.x I predict is their last version as they sail away into bankruptcy: they’ve not played the game correctly, and the free options are more than good enough that they’ll not likely get new customers and have already burned all the bridges with their past customers. They’ve committed slow-motion business suicide. They’d need to pull many rabbits out of their hats to make their selling price a compelling value for solving problems for enough users, by making notably better solutions to problems than the free slicers, and they need to do that while also making stable software at the same time. In theory, it might happen, in practice, their window is closing very rapidly.

[chrisryan]

It looks "good" but I won't be upgrading my license. I originally went with them as they are one of the few slicers that supported X3G directly without any conversion needed (the joys of using an early Makerbot clone back in 2014 when I first started). I have a terrible feeling that this could be a last minute cash grab before they go under given the years of stagnation. I hope I am wrong but it seems odd to come out with something that brings it to near parity with other free options without anything really new.

[stabbyronnie]

Hell yeah! $200 for a unnecessary slicer with minimal features and nothing additional to add over slicers costing $0! And you'll get updates at least every 3 to 5 years!!! Makes total sense!

[bcrx]

I have used the software since 2015 after I spent a few years using other software that were available at the time. They have really missed the boat with this update. Back then, they promised future upgrades were going to be all free. Then a few years later, it changed to only updates within one year. $60 for an update that is barely trying to get in par as far as the features out there and then dropping the number of seat from 2 per license to 1 is going to prove to be a big mistake and it is going to be the final nail in their business practices as far as I am concerned. They should've given this update to all current license holders as a free upgrade and they need to provide a 2 week trial for new customers.

[woodwaker]

Good video and spot on comments. I purchased S3D about 2 1/2 years ago so that I could print some specific parts that needed variable layer height and the best supports possible. Even then is was supposedly close to a new release and I was going to get it at no additional charge. I switched back to Prusa Slicer this summer when they announced the 2.5 version. It seems to do everything I need and is easy to use. I feel that S3D abandoned us, no communication until they said we want money for the update that will get us close to CURA and Prusa. I think current registered users should get a no cost trial period of at least a month. If it is as good as they say, then we would pay, but at this point it is more of the principal that I'm not interested.