# SimplyPrint vs 3D Filament Profiles

## About 3D Filament Profiles

- **Website:** [3D Filament Profiles](https://3dfilamentprofiles.com)

## Overview

3D Filament Profiles is a genuinely impressive thing: a huge, free, community-built filament catalogue, self-branded the world's largest, plus a personal spool inventory, HueForge-focused colour tooling and a deep hardware reference. If you want the biggest browsable list of filaments to look things up in, and you're happy to keep your own inventory by hand, it's a great free resource.

But it doesn't touch your printer. To keep a spool accurate you weigh it or log each print yourself, every time. SimplyPrint's filament manager works the other way around: it's connected to your printers, reads the G-code of every print, and deducts filament from the assigned spool on its own, with no weighing and no manual subtracting. Here's a fair, side-by-side look, first purely as a filament manager, then as the whole platform.

## Pros of 3D Filament Profiles

3D Filament Profiles has real strengths, and they're worth being honest about:**

- A huge, fast-growing catalogue:** a large community-built filament database, self-branded the world's largest, with thousands of filaments across hundreds of brands and growing daily.
- **Strong colour & HueForge tooling:** community-voted TD (Transmission Distance) values, hex and RGB matching, colour cards and a swatch system, a niche it serves better than most.
- **A broad hardware reference:** spec catalogues for printers, AMS units, build plates and dryers, with verified-versus-community status and live vendor pricing.
- **Genuinely free and community-driven:** no paywall, browsable without an account, and easy to contribute to through the UI, with an active Discord, Reddit and GitHub community.
- **It does print labels and scan codes:** direct thermal printing to Phomemo, Niimbot and Brother, plus QR and UPC barcode scanning from a phone or Bluetooth scanner.

## Cons of 3D Filament Profiles

Where 3D Filament Profiles falls short if you want tracking that just happens:**

- It isn't connected to your printers:** it never measures usage itself. To keep a spool accurate you weigh it or log each print by hand; there's no G-code deduction and no live link to the printer.
- **No NFC, no AMS link and no native app:** there's no NFC anywhere, the AMS pages are a hardware spec reference rather than a live integration, and it's a responsive web app and PWA with no native iOS or Android app.
- **The data is hosted-only:** your inventory lives in their cloud. You can export your own spools, but the catalogue is proprietary, with no licence, official bulk export or public API, so you can't own or run the platform yourself.
- **Fixed-schema fields, not arbitrary ones:** per-spool settings like nozzle and bed temperature and notes are built in, but you can't define your own free-form custom fields.

## Feature Comparison: SimplyPrint vs 3D Filament Profiles

### General

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Has free plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Max cost | Free | Free, or from $4/printer/mo |
| Free cloud storage | ✗ | 1GB |
| Usage based cost | ✗ | ✗ |
| Unlimited printing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Supports all printers | ✗ | ✓ |

### Features

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Remote access | ✗ | ✓ |
| Filament management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Knows your printer | ✗ | ✓ |
| Cloud files | ✗ | ✓ |
| Print queue | ✗ | ✓ |
| Livestream | ✗ | ✓ |
| Gcode analysis | ✗ | ✓ |
| A.I failure detection | ✗ | ✓ |
| AutoPrint / continuous printing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom fields | ✗ | ✓ |
| Staggered Start (for power draw) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Print job history | ✗ | ✓ |
| Print remotely | ✗ | ✓ |
| Built-in slicer | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-printer friendly | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-print | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-stream | ✗ | ✓ |
| Statistics | ✗ | ✓ |
| API | ✗ | ✓ |
| Slicer smart-rotation | ✗ | ✓ |
| Smart filament change | ✗ | ✓ |
| Bed level helper | ✗ | ✓ |

### Organizations

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Multiple users | ✗ | ✓ |
| User groups / ranks | ✗ | ✓ |
| User permissions | ✗ | ✓ |
| School plan | ✗ | ✓ |
| Shared files & folders | ✗ | ✓ |
| Shared slicer profiles | ✗ | ✓ |
| Hub | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom domains | ✗ | ✓ |
| SSO (single sign-on) | ✗ | ✓ |

### Notifications

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Email notifications | ✗ | ✓ |
| Push (mobile / app) notifications | ✗ | ✓ |
| SMS / text message notifications | ✗ | ✓ |

### Apps

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Android app | ✗ | ✓ |
| iOS app | ✗ | ✓ |
| "PWA" (installable web-application) | ✗ | ✓ |

### Security & Privacy

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Account 2-factor authentication | ✗ | ✓ |
| EU servers | ✗ | ✓ |
| Privacy-minded analytics & data-gathering | ✗ | ✓ |

### Support

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| Email support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Live-chat support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Phone support | ✗ | ✓ |

### Firmware & Gateway Support

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| OctoPrint install | ✗ | ✓ |
| Native Moonraker support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mainsail install | ✗ | ✓ |
| Fluidd install | ✗ | ✓ |
| Klipper support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Duet3D integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Direct Prusa support (MK4, XL and up / new main boards) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Direct Bambu Lab printer integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Support for custom integrations | ✗ | ✓ |

### Enterprise & Partners

| Feature | 3D Filament Profiles | SimplyPrint |
|---------|--------------------|-------------|
| OEM | ✗ | ✓ |
| Partner program (reseller / distributor) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Affiliate program | ✗ | ✓ |