Which filament does your part actually need?

How this works

Most material comparisons are tables of tensile strength figures, and they are close to useless, because those numbers come from injection-moulded test specimens, not from layered printed parts. A printed part reaches maybe 60-80% of the datasheet figure along the layers and considerably less across them.

So the useful question is not which material is strongest. It is how would this part fail? Sunlight, heat, impact, fatigue and chemical attack each point at a different material, and raw strength decides almost nothing. That is the logic this tool encodes.

All 8 filaments we stock

Common questions

• How does the material selector decide?

  It applies the same order of reasoning an engineer uses when quoting: environment first, then failure mode, then load, and only then your stated preference. Environment and failure mode eliminate most of the catalogue before preference is considered at all, which is why "which material is strongest" is the wrong question to start from.

• Will it always recommend the most expensive material?

  No. It recommends PLA and PETG frequently, because they are the right answer for most parts. Over-specification is the most common and most expensive mistake in material selection, and the tool is built to avoid it rather than to upsell.

• Is the recommendation guaranteed to be right?

  It's a good starting point, not a guarantee. The tool cannot see your geometry, your wall thicknesses or your actual service temperature. For anything critical, send us the part and the application. Material consulting is free with every quote and an engineer will confirm or correct the recommendation.

Want the long version? Read our full comparisons of PLA vs PETG vs ABS vs ASA and the carbon-fiber composites.