The FFF slicing tool market has consolidated, and not around Cura.
Let’s wind the clock back a few years and take a look at the software situation in desktop FFF 3D printing. Then you would have seen basically two software tools at play: PrusaSlicer and UltiMaker Cura.
Because both of these tools are open-sourced, you’d also have seen several manufacturers produce their own customized version of the slicer. Typically, this was done to wire in their own 3D model repository or include some special features for their specific equipment.
Some tools were PrusaSlicer-based, and some were Cura-based.
Now reset the clock to today.
At this point, basically all major desktop FFF are based on PrusaSlicer. I can’t find any currently available that are based on Cura, aside from LulzBot’s Cura LuzlBot Edition, which isn’t particularly new.
The rest of the tools seem to be based on PrusaSlicer, which itself was originally based on the open-source Slic3r tool.
- PrusaSlicer itself, originally from Slic3r, remains active and current.
- BambuStudio is based on PrusaSlicer.
- OrcaSlicer is based on BambuStudio, and therefore indirectly on PrusaSlicer.
- Creality Print now explicitly says in its GitHub licensing notes that it is based on Orca Slicer, which is based on Bambu Studio, which is based on PrusaSlicer.
- Anycubic Slicer Next says it is “developed based on Orca Slicer.”
- AnycubicSlicer also says it is based on PrusaSlicer/Slic3r.
- Snapmaker Orca says it is built on Orca Slicer and tuned for Snapmaker printers.
Meanwhile, UltiMaker Cura continues and is actively updated. In fact, a new release just appeared this week. However, new features tend to be related to the UltiMaker ecosystem and less general-purpose slicing features.
It seems that the future for Cura is very likely only for UltiMaker equipment.
If you were to launch a new slicing tool today, which would you base it on?
