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Bambu Lab P1S vs. Creality K2 Plus: The 2025 Multi-Color 3D Printing Showdown
1.0 A New Era of 3D Printing
1.1 What 3D Printing Looks Like in 2025
Multi-color 3D printing used to be something only experts could do. Now in 2025, it has become normal and easy to use for both hobbyists and professionals. This change happened because early companies set high standards for how easy and reliable these printers should be. Now, any serious 3D printer company has to meet these same high standards.
1.2 The Current Winner vs. The New Challenger
The Bambu Lab P1S, working with its Automatic Material System (AMS), is currently the best printer in its category. It created the standard for multi-color printing by combining reliability, speed, and ease of use in a way no one had done before. This forced other companies to improve their own products.
Now there's a new competitor: the Creality K2 Plus with its Color Filament System (CFS). This isn't just another 3D printer - it's designed to beat the current champion. Creality built the K2 Plus to be better in the areas users want most: a bigger printing space and even faster speeds.
1.3 Our Detailed Review
This article goes deeper than just comparing technical specifications. We'll give you a thorough, user-focused analysis of both the Bambu Lab P1S Combo and the Creality K2 Plus Combo. We'll focus on what it's actually like to use these printers, how well their multi-color systems work, and the software that comes with them. Our goal is to help you understand which printer's approach and features best match what you want to do, so you can make a smart decision.
2.0 The Main Competition
2.1 How Multi-Color Printing Works Automatically
Both the Bambu Lab AMS and the Creality CFS work using the same basic idea. A separate unit holds multiple spools of different colored filament. When the printer needs to change colors, it tells this unit to pull back the current filament, cut it, and then feed the new color through a long tube to the print head. The printer pushes out a small amount of the old color to make sure the new color is pure, then continues printing. This automatic process lets you print complex, multi-colored objects without having to manually change the filament yourself.
2.2 Bambu Lab AMS
The Bambu Lab Automatic Material System is the proven leader in this area.
How It's Built and How It Works
The AMS is a sealed, enclosed unit that protects filament from humidity in the air. It actively selects filaments and has a built-in system to manage filament tension during the fast feeding and pulling cycles.
What Users Like About It
Its biggest strength is that it's been around long enough to work out most problems. Years of real-world use and countless software updates have made it highly dependable and predictable. This reliability works perfectly with Bambu Studio software. The slicer makes "painting" colors onto a 3D model easy to understand, with print settings perfectly tuned for the AMS. For users of Bambu Lab's own filament, the system's RFID readers automatically detect what type and color of material you're using, loading the correct settings without you having to do anything. The enclosed design also includes special ports for moisture-absorbing packets, actively keeping humidity-sensitive filaments dry.
Known Problems
No system is perfect. The AMS is very picky about spool sizes. Cardboard spools or spools that are too wide or narrow often require users to print adapter rings or move the filament to compatible plastic spools. The biggest concern users have is waste material. The amount of filament pushed out into a waste tower or flushed away during color changes can be significant, especially on prints with many color changes per layer.
2.3 Creality CFS
Creality's Color Filament System is the challenger's direct answer, designed with the AMS's history in mind.
How It's Built and How It Works
The CFS aims to fix the known problems of its competitor. Its design appears to work with a wider variety of spool types, including the cardboard spools that are becoming more common for environmental reasons. This removes a major frustration for users who buy filament from different manufacturers.
What Users Like About It
The most notable feature of the CFS is its expandability. A single unit handles four colors, but users can connect and stack up to four CFS units, enabling 16-color printing from a single printer. This modular approach presents a clear advantage for users who want to create highly complex and colorful models. Creality has also focused on the waste material issue. The system's purge process is designed to be more efficient, potentially using a smaller, more compact waste block or an alternative method to reduce the amount of filament thrown away during each color change.
New System Challenges
As the newer system in 2025, the CFS has a shorter track record. While Creality Print, the companion slicer, has improved rapidly, its multi-color workflow is still being refined and may not yet have the same level of polish and seamless integration found in the mature Bambu Studio environment. The long-term reliability of the CFS mechanism, particularly under heavy, continuous use in a print farm or small business setting, remains less proven compared to the battle-tested AMS.
3.0 Printer Head-to-Head Comparison
Beyond the color systems, the printers themselves offer different capabilities.
| Feature | Bambu Lab P1S Combo | Creality K2 Plus Combo |
|---|---|---|
| Build Volume | 256 x 256 x 256 mm | 350 x 350 x 350 mm |
| Multi-Color System | AMS (4-color, stackable to 16) | CFS (4-color, stackable to 16) |
| Max Print Speed | ~500 mm/s | ~600 mm/s |
| Kinematics | CoreXY | CoreXY |
| Enclosure | Fully Enclosed (Passive) | Fully Enclosed (Active Heating) |
| Hotend | All-Metal | All-Metal |
| User Interface | Physical Buttons & Screen | Large Touchscreen |
3.1 Build Volume
The difference in size is the most obvious distinction. The P1S, with its 256mm³ build volume, is perfectly suited for most hobbyist projects, producing detailed miniatures, functional gadgets, and multi-part assemblies with ease.
The K2 Plus offers a much larger 350mm³ build volume. This is a game-changing advantage for specific users. It enables the printing of large, single-piece objects like cosplay helmets, full-scale armor pieces, and large architectural models. For small businesses, this larger bed allows for printing numerous smaller items in a single run, significantly increasing production output.
3.2 Speed and Performance
On paper, the K2 Plus claims a higher maximum speed of ~600 mm/s compared to the P1S's ~500 mm/s. However, the practical reality of 3D printing is more complex. Advertised top speed is different from the achievable speed for a high-quality print.
Final print quality at speed depends on several factors. Both printers use a CoreXY motion system for stability at high velocity. The effectiveness of their respective vibration compensation and input shaping algorithms, combined with the overall rigidity of the frame, determines how well they can maintain dimensional accuracy and a smooth surface finish while moving quickly. The true performance lies in how much of that top speed can be used without introducing problems like ringing or ghosting.
3.3 Build and Hardware
The P1S features a robust, passively enclosed frame. This enclosure is excellent for maintaining stable temperatures for materials like PLA and PETG, and it can handle ABS and ASA.
The K2 Plus improves on this with a potentially actively heated chamber. An actively heated chamber provides superior control over the ambient temperature, which is critical for printing high-temperature, engineering-grade materials like ABS, ASA, and Nylon. It minimizes warping and improves layer adhesion, making the K2 Plus a more capable machine for demanding technical applications out of the box. Both printers feature all-metal hotends, allowing them to handle standard filaments as well as more abrasive composites like carbon fiber-infused nylon, provided a hardened steel nozzle is used.
4.0 The Software Competition
4.1 Slicer Software
The slicer is the brain of the printing operation. Bambu Studio is known for its user-friendly workflow. It excels in simplicity, from preparing a basic print to the intuitive "painting" tools for assigning colors to a complex model.
Creality Print has made significant improvements to compete. Its interface is modern and powerful, but the multi-color workflow, being newer, may present a slightly steeper learning curve compared to Bambu's highly polished experience. On the cloud front, both platforms offer robust tools for sending prints remotely, monitoring progress via a built-in camera, and managing multiple printers from a web interface or mobile app.
4.2 Model Libraries
A printer is only as useful as the models you can print on it. Bambu Lab's MakerWorld and Creality's Creality Cloud are more than just model libraries; they are integrated platforms where users can share models that come with pre-configured print profiles, including all multi-color settings.
MakerWorld has a significant head start, featuring a vast repository of high-quality, pre-painted models that are ready to print on a Bambu printer with an AMS. The community is extremely active. Creality Cloud is growing rapidly, leveraging Creality's massive existing user base, and is quickly being populated with models optimized for the K2 Plus and its CFS.
4.3 System Philosophy
The two companies present different philosophies. Bambu Lab has created an "Apple-like" experience. The hardware, software, and cloud services are tightly integrated into a polished, proprietary ecosystem. This approach delivers exceptional ease of use and reliability but offers limited freedom for users who wish to tinker or use third-party tools.
Creality has a history of being more open. While the K2 Plus is part of a more integrated system than its predecessors, it is likely to offer more flexibility. The key question for technical users is the level of system access. The ability to gain root access to the underlying Klipper-based firmware or to easily use third-party slicers like PrusaSlicer or OrcaSlicer without losing core functionality is a major consideration for those who want to customize and push their hardware beyond its stock capabilities.
5.0 Matching Printer to Person
This section maps the features of each system to different user types to help with your decision-making process.
5.1 The Hobbyist
This user wants a smooth out-of-the-box experience, minimal tinkering, and access to a massive library of fun, ready-to-print models. For them, the maturity of an ecosystem is most important. The seamless integration between the slicer, the cloud, and the multi-color system, along with a proven track record of reliability, are the most valuable features.
5.2 The Small Business Owner
This user, often running a small business or print-on-demand service, focuses on output, reliability under constant use, and the cost per part. The K2 Plus's larger build volume for production batches and its higher theoretical speed are appealing. However, this must be weighed against the P1S's established reputation for consistent, round-the-clock performance. For this user, the efficiency of the multi-color purge process is a critical financial variable, as reduced filament waste directly impacts profitability.
5.3 The Large-Scale Maker
For cosplayers, prop makers, and creators of large functional parts, maximum build volume is often a non-negotiable requirement. The ability to print a helmet or a piece of armor in a single piece, avoiding the need to split models and glue parts together later, is a massive workflow improvement. For this user, the K2 Plus's 350mm³ build volume is the defining feature, making it a primary candidate for projects that are physically impossible to produce on the P1S in one go.
5.4 The Tinkerer
This technical user values system accessibility, customizability, and the freedom to experiment. They want to push hardware to its absolute limits and integrate it with their own custom workflows. This user will closely investigate which system offers more freedom from its proprietary "walled garden." The potential for Klipper access, the ease of using third-party slicers, and the ability to modify hardware and firmware are the most important factors for them.
6.0 A New Standard?
6.1 The 2025 Competition
The 3D printing market has fundamentally evolved. The Bambu Lab P1S Combo and its AMS established a new standard for what an accessible, high-performance multi-color printer should be. Now, in 2025, the Creality K2 Plus with its CFS has emerged. It is not a simple copy but a strategic challenger, arriving with distinct advantages in scale and speed that directly address user demands.
6.2 A Summary of Trade-Offs
We will not declare a winner, as the "better" printer depends entirely on the user's needs.
The Bambu Lab P1S Combo represents the path of proven reliability and ecosystem maturity. It is a highly refined, deeply integrated solution for users who value a seamless, predictable, and smooth multi-color printing experience right out of the box.
The Creality K2 Plus Combo represents the path of scale and ambition. It is the choice for those whose creative or commercial projects demand a larger canvas and higher raw performance, supported by a promising new multi-color system designed to compete directly with the established market leader.
6.3 Your Informed Decision
The best choice is not universal; it is personal. By understanding the core philosophies, distinct strengths, and specific trade-offs of each of these incredible machines, you are now equipped to decide which system will best serve your creative vision in 2025 and beyond.