3D Printing Predictions for 2025: Desktop 3D Printing

Desktop 3D printing is arguably the most challenging market for vendors right now. Resellers, materials firms, and OEMs are grappling with intense competition. Companies like Prusa, Polymaker, and Bambu are putting significant pressure on the filament market, while Bambu and Creality dominate in printers. Resellers are thriving or exiting, Formlabs continues to grow in the Pro segment, and many others are shifting toward higher-value systems.

The entry of Bambu and Creality’s strategic response have spurred a wave of innovation, making desktop printers more ambitious and capable. Businesses are increasingly adopting these machines, with larger print farms producing end-use parts emerging as a notable trend. Despite the greater diversity in machine architectures, electronics, and price points, the open-source ecosystem is under threat as fewer dominant players take larger market shares with more integrated offerings.

By 2025, many vendors, including some beloved names, may not survive. Despite these challenges, desktop 3D printing seems poised for a revolution in business applications—and possibly the consumer market within a few years. The competition is fiercer than ever, with larger players reshaping the landscape.

Philippe Carrier, Chief Research Officer at high-flow nozzle maker DYZE DESIGN—a company specializing in pellet extruders, high-reliability industrial extruders, and desktop system upgrades—shares his perspective on the evolving landscape:

“2025 will be a challenging year for desktop 3D printers. The industry has already undergone significant shifts since the rise of Bambu, with many filament manufacturers shutting down. We’re seeing clear signs of market consolidation. Ease of use and self-calibration are becoming standard features—and increasingly, non-negotiable requirements. The user community seems fatigued from the endless testing and tweaking often needed to achieve satisfactory results. Pellets are gaining traction: small-format pellet extruders are becoming more prominent. While Pollen3D once stood alone in this space, it was surprising to see so many new entrants at Formnext. That said, the overall print quality from pellet extrusion still doesn’t consistently match that of filament extruders. However, they shine in niche applications, especially when working with specialized materials that are difficult to produce in filament form.”

The transition towards pellet extrusion suggests a significant shift in the industry, opening up new possibilities for manufacturing larger objects at potentially greater speeds and significantly lower costs. This shift could unlock many new business opportunities for additive manufacturing.

Slice Engineering’s proprietary Mosquito Hotend. Image courtesy of Slice Engineering.

“US tariffs on Chinese goods will decrease demand in the US, particularly for machines that cost between $800 and $10,000. This may allow Prusa Research to recapture some market share with the Core One. Application development is going to accelerate, particularly in the medical and aerospace/defense sectors, driving the continued slow drip of adoption of industrial and professional machines. This in turn will drive further niche-carving among non-Chinese machine OEMs; however, the Chinese ones will continue to dominate the desktop market. There will also be further consolidation of the industry via M&A or bankruptcies, while more IP lawsuits are expected.”

“2025 will be the year of the agricultural revolution for printing farms. As more consumer products feature 3D printed parts, the synergy between advanced, reliable materials and low-cost precision desktop printing has enabled this new wave of localized manufacturing. I’ve bought two separate products in the last month that featured a 3D printed component.”

Colorfabb founder Ruud Rouleaux, who has long driven the development of innovative filaments such as lightweight and foaming materials for drones and orthopedics, believes that:

“Looking ahead to 2025, I see desktop 3D printing pushing other manufacturing technologies away from SMEs. Affordable, good quality, easy-to-use systems will drive growth. Advanced scripting and AI will enable common users to achieve complex design products and advanced texturing. The need for functional and custom materials will grow, activating different producers in the materials supply chain. Public awareness about plastic pollution will also increase the demand for truly sustainable and/or circular materials.”

We can’t predict the AI developments on the horizon, but significant funding is likely to yield advancements beneficial to our industry. While I remain an AI skeptic, there’s potential for democratizing design in some form. Ruud’s emphasis on textures is noteworthy, as they are poised to play a crucial role in creating more functional parts.

Patrick Duis of high performance filament maker Tectonic expects that,

Ric Real, founder of Generative Machine, which aims to revolutionize how 3D printers are built (see above), believes that:

“Multi-axis and non-planar 3D printing, I think, will start to break through more into the research markets, alongside the development and commercialization of advanced slicing tools at a more consumer-friendly price point. I’m not sure it will go mainstream just yet, but there’s definitely going to be more demand for such multi-axis desktop tools.

“The biggest breakthrough in the desktop market, I think, will be closed-loop control and increased precision/verification of printed products on home production machines. Now more than ever, people are turning to 3D printing to manufacture goods or make money on the side by selling printed goods. With so much competition, businesses need to assure the quality of the products they’re manufacturing. Closed-loop control is one way of doing this; for every printed part, you can generate a report using data from the motor encoders that shows if the print is accurate, without much effort from the user. This level of quality control is what the industry needs as there are increasingly more home printing businesses now offering services that may be very out of specification. It’s also now fairly easy to implement closed-loop control with platforms such as Duet3D’s 1HCL expansion boards and their calibration plugin. It costs roughly £70-£100 to implement per motor as an upgrade, so not cheap, but also not inaccessible to someone running a print farm that requires high precision. I imagine more machines will start shipping with closed-loop control and more software applications for this coming out too. On the materials front, many of the materials coming out recently, such as PPA CF/PAHT CF, need to be very dry at the point of printing. I think we’ll start seeing more machines ship with modular/built-in dryers specifically designed for these engineering filaments. Also, more competition in the standalone dryer markets, for example, more efficient, faster, cheaper solutions for drying these filaments.”

Non-planar printing offers the potential for entirely new properties, enabling the creation of conformal and organic parts. Slicing has been the bottleneck in this area, but hopefully, it will become more widespread. I’d also love to see closed-loop systems become more common in 3D printing, though I’m not confident we’ll see that happen soon. The point about driers is crucial—they could significantly enhance the overall 3D printing experience. At home, I often struggle with hygroscopic materials, highlighting the need for better storage conditions and filament temperature control to ensure a more reliable process.

Overall, it’s clear that affordable precision is generating widespread excitement. Advancements in textures, slicing, nozzles, and printers are poised to provide a significant boost to the desktop 3D printing industry in 2025. Desktop 3D printing is making substantial progress in enterprises and large-scale, high-volume production, and this trend is likely to accelerate over the next 12 months.