OctoApp is a really nicely-made, EU-built, open-source mobile app for controlling and watching a 3D printer from your phone, with great native touches (home-screen widgets, Wear OS, iOS Live Activities). It connects to the host you already run, OctoPrint, Klipper, Bambu or Elegoo, and for a single maker who just wants a polished phone remote, it's excellent.
The key thing is that OctoApp is an app, not a platform. It has no cloud backend of its own: no print queue, no slicer, no AI, no filament inventory, no team management, and no remote-access tunnel (for off-network use you add OctoEverywhere, Obico, ngrok or a VPN). SimplyPrint is the platform you run a farm or a classroom on, and it has native mobile apps too. Here's a fair, side-by-side look.
OctoApp is a superb native mobile remote for a printer you already host yourself, beautiful UX, cheap, open-source, privacy-friendly and EU-made. If you have one or two printers and just want a great phone app, it's a lovely choice, and it even pairs fine alongside SimplyPrint.
SimplyPrint is a full cloud platform, not just an app, with native iOS and Android apps of its own plus a print queue, AutoPrint continuous printing, a full cloud slicer, AI failure detection, filament inventory with NFC, a maintenance system, multi-user roles with SSO and a school plan. The moment you're past one printer, one person, or want any of that management layer, you've outgrown what an app can do.
OctoApp puts a great remote control in your pocket. SimplyPrint is the system that actually operates a farm, and it has apps too.
For a solo maker, OctoApp is genuinely lovely, and SimplyPrint is happy to say so:
OctoApp is LAN-first and single-user. SimplyPrint is cloud-native and built for shared operations.
Nothing is black-and-white, and there are always pros and cons to consider when choosing a 3D printing cloud solution!
And we're not here to simply tell you, that SimplyPrint is the best - we want you to make an informed decision, and of course there are pros of using OctoApp as well!
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| General | ||
| Has free plan | ||
| Free printers | Unlimited | 2 |
| Max cost | Free + optional one-time unlock | Free, or from $9.99/mo (Pro) |
| Free cloud storage | 1GB | |
| Usage based cost | ||
| Unlimited printing | ||
| Supports all printers | OctoPrint/Klipper/Bambu/Elegoo via host | |
| Features | ||
| Remote access | Bring-your-own (no tunnel) | |
| Filament management | ||
| Filament NFC tags (read & write) | ||
| Filament label printing (Dymo / Zebra) | ||
| Knows your printer | ||
| Cloud files | ||
| Print queue | ||
| Livestream | ||
| Gcode analysis | ||
| A.I failure detection | ||
| AI Bed Check (is the bed clear?) | ||
| AutoPrint / continuous printing | ||
| Maintenance & servicing system | ||
| 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 | ||
| Organization | ||
| Multiple users | ||
| User groups / ranks | ||
| User permissions | ||
| School plan | ||
| Shared files & folders | ||
| Shared slicer profiles | ||
| Hub | ||
| Custom domains | ||
| SSO (single sign-on) | ||
| Notifications | ||
| Email notifications | ||
| Push (mobile / app) notifications | ||
| SMS / text message notifications | ||
| Apps | ||
| Android app | ||
| iOS app | ||
| "PWA" (installable web-application) | ||
| Security & privacy | ||
| Account 2-factor authentication | ||
| Privacy-minded analytics & data-gathering ? | ||
| Support | ||
| Live-chat support | ||
| Phone support | ||
| Email support | ||
| Firmware & gateway support | ||
| OctoPrint install | ||
| Native Moonraker support | ||
| Mainsail install | ||
| Fluidd install | ||
| Klipper support | ||
| Duet3D integration | ||
| Direct Prusa support (MK4, XL and up / new main boards) | Via host | |
| Direct Bambu Lab printer integration | ||
| Support for custom integrations | ||
| Enterprise & partners | ||
| OEM | ||
| Partner program (reseller / distributor) | ||
| Affiliate program | ||
| On-prem / self-hosting ? | Contact us | |
| Compare | See pricing | See pricing |
Contact us if you think we made a mistake in our comparison!
We made SimplyPrint due to the fact, that nothing else on the market quite fit our needs. We wanted a platform that was easy to use, but still had all the features we needed. We wanted a feature-rich platform, intuitive and easy to use, with a great user experience and actual innovation within the 3D print management software space.
In summary, we - humble and unbiased as we are 😉 - believe that the SimplyPrint platform is a great OctoApp alternative!
Get started - free forever