Creality ender 3 vs Anet A8 plus

The Ender 3 and the Anet A8 Plus are two of the best-known budget 3D printers ever sold — and two of the most misdescribed. Older write-ups (including the previous version of this page) have called the Ender 3 a “delta-style” printer — it is a conventional Cartesian bed-slinger — and quoted the A8 Plus with the build volume of the older, smaller A8. Both machines belong to a discontinued era now, so this comparison is written for the people cross-shopping them today: used buyers choosing between secondhand listings, and owners deciding whether theirs is still worth upgrading.

The short version

The A8 Plus is the bigger, more mechanically generous machine: far more build volume, a direct-drive extruder, and twin Z motors. The Ender 3 is the smaller machine with the vastly larger support system around it — parts, profiles, fixes and upgrade kits for every problem it can develop. In one sentence: the A8 Plus wins on hardware generosity, the Ender 3 wins on everything that happens after you own it — and with any used kit printer, the machine’s condition matters more than either spec sheet.

Specifications, side by side

	Creality Ender 3	Anet A8 Plus
Released	2018	2019
Build volume	220 × 220 × 250 mm	300 × 300 × 350 mm
Frame	Aluminium extrusion	Aluminium extrusion
Extruder	Bowden	Direct drive
Z axis	Single motor, single leadscrew	Two motors, twin leadscrews
Bed levelling	Manual (four knobs)	Manual (probe upgrades possible)
Power-loss recovery	Yes	No
Electronics	Creality mainboard, Marlin-based firmware	Anet mainboard, Marlin-derived firmware

One row deserves emphasis, because the A8 name causes endless confusion: the original 2016 Anet A8 had a laser-cut acrylic frame. The A8 Plus does not — its frame is aluminium extrusion, like the Ender 3’s. They are different machines that happen to share most of a name.

Size and frame: the A8 Plus is playing a different game

On build volume there is no contest. 300 × 300 × 350 mm works out to roughly two and a half times the Ender 3’s printable space, and that changes what you can make: helmets and large parts that an Ender 3 owner would have to split and glue. If your projects are big, this alone can settle the comparison.

The cost of that volume is physical size. The A8 Plus occupies roughly 612 × 462 × 573 mm of desk, so it needs a genuinely large, stable surface. The Ender 3’s smaller frame is also inherently easier to keep rigid and square; the A8 Plus’s bigger gantry has further to flex, and its two Z motors must stay in step to keep the X axis level.

Assembly: two kits, two philosophies

The A8 Plus shipped largely pre-assembled, in two main modules — a base carrying the bed, and an upright frame carrying the axes and electronics. Joining them, wiring up and levelling is a short job compared with a full kit build. The Ender 3 arrived as a partial kit of subassemblies; a careful first build typically takes a few hours, which doubles as a tour of how the machine works.

On a secondhand machine, the previous owner’s build quality is part of what you are buying: check the frame is square, the wheels or bearings run without wobble, and the connectors are fully seated before judging anything else.

Extruders, levelling and everyday printing

The A8 Plus feeds filament with a direct-drive extruder mounted at the hotend, which gives it a genuine edge with flexible filaments and needs shorter, simpler retraction settings. The Ender 3’s Bowden setup keeps the moving print head light — a real advantage with ordinary filaments — but flexible filament through a long Bowden tube is its known weak spot: possible with care and slow speeds, never its strength.

Bed levelling is manual on both. Neither machine has automatic bed levelling in stock form, whatever old listings claim about “auto calibration” — both rely on four knobs and a proper first-layer routine; the workflow in our Ender 3 calibration guide applies to both machines almost word for word.

Print quality, correctly tuned, is a draw. The practical difference is consistency of information: every Ender 3 symptom already has a documented diagnosis and fix, while A8 Plus owners more often adapt advice written for other machines.

The safety question, stated fairly

Anyone researching the A8 name will run into its history, so here it is plainly. The original 2016 A8 shipped with stock firmware in which thermal runaway protection — the feature that cuts heater power when temperature readings stop making sense — was not enabled, and its heated bed drew power through a mainboard connector that became a known weak point. The community’s standard fixes were flashing Marlin with the protections on, and adding an external MOSFET module to take the bed’s current off the board. A small number of fires were attributed to machines of this era, which is how the model earned its reputation.

The A8 Plus was Anet’s hardware answer: a metal frame, a redesigned mainboard with over-current and short-circuit protection, additional fuses, and a 24V electrical system. A materially better starting point than the original A8 — but no reason to skip basic checks on a used example of either brand:

• Confirm thermal runaway protection is actually active in the firmware. On any used A8-family machine, if you cannot confirm it, update to a current, correctly configured Marlin build before long prints, not after.
• Inspect the heated-bed connector and wiring for heat discolouration, looseness or damaged insulation.
• Do not run any printer of this generation unattended until those two checks have been done.

The Ender 3’s record is cleaner — but verification costs ten minutes on any secondhand machine, and it is worth it on both.

Electronics, firmware and upgrade paths

Anet fitted the A8 Plus with its own mainboard and a Marlin-derived firmware build. Community Marlin configurations exist, but the path is less travelled: on some board revisions, modern firmware first means dealing with bootloader limitations, and Plus-specific documentation is thin. Its saving grace is generic hardware — standard extrusions, 8 mm rods, common stepper motors — so mechanical spares need not come from Anet.

The Ender 3 sits at the opposite extreme. Creality’s boards spawned an entire upgrade industry: silent stepper-driver boards, auto-levelling probe kits, direct-drive conversions, replacement screens — nearly all of it Ender-specific and documented step by step.

Community and support: the decisive difference

In 2026, this is what really separates the two machines. The Ender 3 has a ready-made profile in every major slicer, troubleshooting threads for every fault, a deep secondhand parts market, and a manufacturer that still sells spares for the family. The A8 Plus inherits some of the enormous original-A8 knowledge base, but Plus-specific help is much thinner, Anet’s own storefront and support have faded in recent years, and long-term ownership leans on generic components and your own resourcefulness. First-time owners usually underestimate how much a documentation mountain is worth until the first fault appears at 11 pm.

Verdict, by buyer

• You print big things: the A8 Plus, provided you find a clean example that passes the safety checks above. Nothing in the Ender 3’s era of Creality machines touches 300 × 300 × 350 mm in this class.
• This is your first printer: the Ender 3. Smaller, simpler, and backed by the largest pool of guides, profiles and spares any budget printer has had.
• You mainly want flexible filament: the A8 Plus, stock for stock — its direct drive is the easier starting point for TPU.
• You already own one of them: keep it. The other machine is not an upgrade, just a different bundle of trade-offs; your time is better spent on calibration, maintenance and the safety checks than on switching sideways.
• Either way: buy the machine, not the model name. A well-kept A8 Plus is a better purchase than a neglected Ender 3, and the reverse is equally true.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Anet A8 Plus the same printer as the Anet A8?

No. The 2016 A8 was an acrylic-framed kit with a 220 × 220 × 240 mm build volume. The 2019 A8 Plus is a larger redesign — aluminium extrusion frame, 300 × 300 × 350 mm volume, direct-drive extruder, twin Z motors and a revised mainboard. Shared name, substantially different machine.

Does either printer have automatic bed levelling?

No. Both level manually with knobs in stock form. Both can be fitted with a bed probe, but the Ender 3’s probe upgrades are far better documented and easier to source.

Which printer is better for flexible filament?

The A8 Plus. Its direct-drive extruder pushes soft filament a short distance into the hotend, while the Ender 3’s Bowden tube lets flexible filament buckle and compress — Ender 3 TPU printing works, but slowly and with more tuning.

Is the A8 Plus safe, given the original A8’s reputation?

The Plus addressed the headline issues in hardware — protected, redesigned electronics, fuses, a metal frame and a 24V system — and no equivalent pattern of incidents attached to it. On a used unit, still verify that thermal runaway protection is enabled in the firmware and check the bed connector, exactly as you should on any used printer of this era.

Which one should a beginner buy today?

For most beginners, the Ender 3 — not because it is the better hardware (the A8 Plus is bigger and drives filament better), but because every beginner problem on an Ender 3 has a findable answer. Pick the A8 Plus if you need its build volume and are comfortable supporting yourself.