eSun’s larger PLA range spans a wide variety of colors, as well as an assortment of different properties and finishes.

While the company does still make “standard” PLA, PLA+ appears to be eSun’s bread-and-butter offering. A formulation of PLA including additives to enhance its toughness and layer adhesion properties, eSun’s PLA+ has a stated dimensional accuracy of ±0.03 mm and is available in either 1.75 mm or 2.85 mm diameter. Performance is claimed to be close to that of ABS, with the ease of printing typically associated with PLA.

Beyond PLA+, eSun offers a mind-boggling assortment of PLA types, including Matte PLA, wood-filled PLA, stone-like “eMarble” PLA, silk, rainbow silk, dichromatics, trichromatics… the whole kit and caboodle.

Most eSUN PLA comes as a 1 kg spool, though it also offers standalone PLA filament refills for anyone who makes use of reusable spools (which you can also buy from them – or even print your own).

Sunlu is a popular filament manufacturer widely known for the large variety of materials it offers at affordable prices.

Standard Sunlu PLA is offered in a number of colors and variants, including Silk, Marble, and a special PLA-PETG blend, which it calls SPLA. Reviewers across the web attest to the excellent printing performance of Sunlu PLA: it prints with crisp detail, great adhesion, vibrant color, and little-to-no warping.

What's PETG?

The Main 3D Printer Filament Types

All Sunlu’s filaments come neatly packaged in vacuum-sealed bags and include desiccant packets to control moisture during shipping. The community notes these spools are neatly wound, assuring a tangle-free 3D printing experience (for those who have experienced mid-print filament tangles, this is a welcome feature). Sunlu’s PLA filaments conform to a standard tolerance of ±0.02 mm and are available in a 1.75 mm diameter. Spools are sold at a weight of 1 kg and are available in bundles of up to 6 kg.

PrintedSolid’s house-brand filament line is named after a dog, and features a sophisticated choice of colors for your printing. What’s not to love?

The pricing is also pretty competitive, starting at $20 for a 1 kg spool and incrementally rising for fancier filament effects.

Other key features include a dimensional tolerance of ±0.02 mm and recyclable cardboard spools that contribute to Jessie Premium PLA’s positive reputation. Free shipping is available on domestic US orders over $50.

If you’re not fussy about the color of your PLA, you can also pick up a Jessie Premium PLA Transition Roll – a color mishmash resulting from the filament production line changing colors – it’s a matter of chance to get your hands on one of these, so make sure to order some when they are available.

In addition to offering a wide variety of printers, filaments, resins, tools, and other companies’ creative tech, MatterHackers also makes its own stuff. Chief amongst this stuff is its daily-driver range of PLA filaments.

Read Our Review

Matterhackers MH Build Series PLA 3D Printer Filament Review

With its maker-centric MH Build Series PLA, MatterHackers provides a filament with a dimensional accuracy of ±0.03 mm, which it claims is “designed and priced for every maker.” A 1 kg spool of MH Build Series PLA is available in both 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm sizes and comes in a large variety of colors and finishes. The basic MH Build Series PLA colors are available for below $25 per kilogram, with bulk pricing dropping this down closer to $20 when ordering a dozen or more spools. Bulk pricing applies to all of the company’s filaments, including the fancier variants such as the dichromatic Quantum PLA, which combines two silky colors for a color-changing effect.

If you’re after something of professional quality, MatterHackers also offers Pro Series PLA and Pro Series Tough PLA, which both have a tighter tolerance of just ±0.02 mm and enhanced material properties over regular PLA.

Overture is another producer of affordable, reliable 1.75 mm filament that has gathered thousands of positive reviews on Amazon.

Besides a wide variety of colors of PLA, there are also PLA variants ranging from the increasingly popular matte effect, to silky, tough, and, for budget-conscious buyers, an eco-PLA, which uses waste produced from the filament-making process.

What’s more, each spool comes with handy little indicators, showing you the length and weight of the filament left.

The basic PLA filament has a tolerance of ±0.03 mm and is available in 1 kg spools. Overture also offers a PLA Professional (formerly PLA Plus), which it claims is “five times tougher than regular PLA.”

Dutch filament manufacturer FormFutura has an extensive material portfolio consisting of specialized PLA and other blends.

Its most general-purpose PLA includes EasyFil PLA, an easy-to-use, warp-free blend for your day-to-day print jobs; and Premium PLA, a high-end, more rigid filament with excellent thermal stability geared towards professional applications and prototyping.

Among the most interesting of FormFutura’s PLAs are Volcano PLA, a high heat-resistant filament designed for high-flow printing that boasts properties similar to ABS, and more exotic blends such as the glittery Galaxy PLA, plus metal, cork, or even stone-filled PLA.

FormFutura is a big proponent of sustainability. Its filament ships on fully-recyclable cardboard spools and the company goes an extra step by offering its ReForm rPLA: EasyFil PLA made from residual extrusion waste re-processed into usable PLA filament.

All FormFutura PLA spools are available in 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm, with spools ranging from 250 g to 8 kg.

Polymaker is a well-known filament manufacturer that sells a variety of different PLA options, among other materials. According to the consensus of user reviews, Polymaker’s PLA filament shows barely any stringing when printing and performs well when printing overhangs and bridges.

The PolyTerra PLA variety has gained popularity for its easy printing properties and vibrant range of colors. It also takes a unique approach to eco-friendly materials: Instead of just touting how PLA is compostable, PolyMaker offers compostability details, only ships filament on cardboard spools, and plants a tree for every purchase. You’d expect this would drive the cost up, but the material is still relatively inexpensive at just ~$22 per kg. For these reasons, it’s regularly in rotation in the All3DP print lab.

Besides this, Polymaker offers a general-purpose PLA filament known as PolyLite, and a more enterprise-focused PolyMax PLA. PolyMax has the desirable properties of ABS without the downsides, so you can expect the easy-to-print properties of regular PLA without the undesirable toxic fumes of regular ABS. According to PolyMaker, this PLA also has nine times greater impact resistance than standard ABS.

Each spool of Polymaker PLA ships in a resealable plastic bag and is available in 1.75 and 2.85 mm formats which can be purchased as 0.5, 1, or 2 kg spools.

For a long time, Hatchbox held a reputation as the go-to cheap filament. While it’s not necessarily the cheapest option anymore, it remains popular.

Base colors start at ~$24.99 a spool, with gradual steps up in pricing for various finish effects such as matte, metallic, glow-in-the-dark, sparkle, and so on.

There’s a huge variety of colors available, offered at 1.75 mm diameter and with a high-quality ±0.03 mm tolerance. If you’re particular about your colors, Hatchbox PLA is available in a number of Pantone colors.

Read Our Review

Hatchbox PLA 3D Printer Filament Review

Hatchbox filament comes on a plastic spool, sealed in a plastic bag, and packed in a recyclable cardboard box.

In addition to a couple of forgettable 3D printers, Eryone produces a wide variety of popular filaments that take in the run of finishes and effects including silk, marble, translucent, and multicolor.

Eryone PLA enjoys favorable reviews on Amazon, with plenty of users praising its quality, features, and smooth surface finish. We’ve chewed through a number of spools in the All3DP print lab and can attest to its qualities. Eryone PLA is available in 1 kg spools, in 1.75 mm diameter, with a stated tolerance of ± 0.03 mm.

It’s difficult to have a hard-and-fast rule for ideal printing temperatures – your own testing will be required to find the optimal settings for your machine.

Paramount 3D isn’t as well-known as some other filament manufacturers on this list, but this US-based firm has received some good community feedback and offers unique colors (Iron Red, Tuxedo Midnight Blue, and British Racing Green, anyone?) at reasonable prices. Community prints demonstrate excellent layer adhesion with clear detail and consistency.

Paramount 3D PLA is available in 1.75 mm diameter. No information is given for the manufacturing tolerance. If you want to try it, small samples are available to order, or you can get a sample pack of six colors to test out. Typical 1 kg spools go for ~ $26.99, or you can order a bulk case of eight 1 kg spools at a discount.

ProtoPasta launched after a successful Kickstarter campaign way back in 2013, and has long been an established filament manufacturer, garnering popularity with users for its high-quality filament blends.

Known early on for its interesting specialty filaments, such as Rustable Metal PLA, Stainless Steel PLA, and Composite Conductive PLA filament – and yes, the latter does work for basic circuitry – the company keeps things fresh with a dazzling variety of HTPLA colors, with many the result of collabs with figures from the maker community.

ProtoPasta’s basic PLAs are available in 1.75 mm diameter and spool sizes ranging from 50 g to 1 kg. More complex PLA variants, such as the Carbon Fiber Composite HTPLA are available in 2.85 mm diameter, too, with larger 3 kg spools also an option.

Fillamentum is a manufacturer based in the Czech Republic. It’s probably best known for its extravagant range of colors. Its general-purpose blend, Extrafill PLA, comes in 40+ astonishing colors with names as vivid as the colors themselves, such as Vertigo Chocolate and Everybody’s Magenta. The community has noted the material’s ease of printing, and great visual quality and details.

Read Our Review

Filament Review: Fillamentum "Vertigo Starlight" Extrafill PLA

In our own testing, we’ve found Fillamentum PLA shows little-to-no signs of warping and only needs a slight bump in retraction settings to give spectacular prints in the fanciest color versions. (Of course, every 3D printer is different, so your mileage may vary.)

Fillamentum’s Crystal Clear PLA produces objects with clarity and gloss, as well as an improved heat resistance compared to standard PLA filaments. It can also be annealed to increase chemical, mechanical, and temperature resistance further.

The company also offers NonOilen, a PLA/PHB blend that offers increased toughness, temperature resistance, and superior biodegradability over regular PLAs.

All Fillamentum materials are available in 1.75 or 2.85 mm diameter, have a dimensional accuracy of ±0.05 mm, and each spool is available in 750 g spools.

Push Plastics doesn’t go overboard with PLA variants of all shapes and sizes. Instead, it offers a solid 40+ collection of standard PLA that has reviewed well, and has a generally solid reputation in online discussion about go-to PLA filaments. Stable pricing ( ~ $29.99 a spool) no matter the color is a bonus, too.

Other than standard PLA, Push Plastics also offers high-temp and tough high-temp PLA variants — albeit only in a small handful of colors.

Free shipping for domestic orders over $75 (basically, a three-spool order) is useful, and there’s also the intrigue of a monthly filament box subscription, giving you black or white PLA (1 kg or 3 kg) plus a mystery color sample for a 15% discount.

Prusament PLA is manufactured by Prusa Research in the Czech Republic. It’s available in 1.75 mm diameter and many vibrant colors.

Some Prusament PLA filaments have a pinch of glitter in them – this helps enhance the visual appearance and hide potential imperfections on the surface. Special variants of Prusament PLA, such as Mystic Green, have a unique ability to change color depending on the nozzle temperature and layer height, so you can create unique aesthetic effects, ideal for presentation models.

Prusa Research claims its PLA filament prints easily, provides reasonable toughness, and has an extremely low warping potential. Our review of Galaxy Black Prusament PLA and the community feedback it has received only confirms this.

Read Our Review

Prusament PLA Prusa Galaxy Black Filament Review

Prusa Research also guarantees a professional manufacturing precision of ±0.02 mm, making it one of the most dimensionally accurate PLAs available. As an extra quality assurance step, Prusa has made it possible to inspect every filament spool’s testing parameters by scanning the product’s QR code and reading the details online.

Atomic Filament is a popular name in discussions about PLA. Based in the US – Kendallville, Indiana, to be specific – and offering free shipping for domestic orders, Atomic Filament’s PLA runs the gamut of colors and modifiers, including extreme impact-resistant PLA (in gun-metal grey, if you need a clue about that’s particular filament’s usefulness), high-flow formulations for high-speed printing, plus other fun sparkly and translucent colors.

A dimensional tolerance of up to ±0.02 mm puts it close to the top of this list, although we’re really here for the bag of free gummy bears that ships in every box.

Hovering around ~$30 for a 1 kg spool, oversized 3.5 kg spools are available to bring the cost down a little. Alternatively, bulk pricing is available for larger orders, knocking up to 12% off the print per spool.

Filament manufacturer Amolen offers PLA in a gamut of colors and unique composites, such as a thermochromic PLA, which changes color as the temperature changes, or glow-in-the-dark filaments. Besides exotic blends, Amolen’s silk filaments often dazzle, with a lustrous finish and easy printability.

Amolen’s spools are available in 1.75 mm diameter, with a stated tolerance of ±0.03 mm. It’s not the cheapest, mind, but who could resist the shininess of some of the company’s silk PLA.

Read Our Review

Amolen Marble-Like White PLA Filament Review

We’ve had excellent results when testing Amolen materials at All3DP, having found it to provide good layer adhesion. But, like any filament, you may benefit from applying extra adhesion to the build surface. The only nitpick we have is that this spool comes in a non-resealable plastic bag, which means you’ll need a solution to keep your filament from going bad.

ColorFabb is a filament manufacturer in the Netherlands. The secret behind ColorFabb’s PLA is a little extra ingredient: PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoate). This makes the filament stronger and more durable than many other PLAs, with excellent layer adhesion properties and reduced warping tendencies — all while retaining ease of printing.

ColorFabb also offers a lightweight PLA (LW-PLA), which promises to reduce the weight of printed parts by up to 65% over regular PLA, making it especially suited to lightweight applications, such as RC planes and drones.

As you might have guessed, ColorFabb is available in a number of different colors. It also offers a unique “Color on Demand” service where you can buy color-matched filament according to the RAL color scheme. Since this service is effectively to-order, ColorFabb’s Color on Demand filaments cost significantly more than the company’s off-the-shelf spools ~ $55 for a 750 g spool, even.

As far as technical specs and quality control go, ColorFabb PLA filaments are top-notch, with chart-topping tolerances of ±0.1 mm. You can choose from both 1.75 mm or 2.85 mm diameters, and the spools are typically available in 750 g or 2.2 kg spools, though, in some cases, spool weight can go as high as 8 kg.