Oh boy is that a can of worms question.
Let me turn that question around on you. What’s the best car?
Best filament is a variety of factors based upon but not limited to the following broad list:
- Availability
- Price
- Ease of use
- Application - This is a big one. Do you want to make pretty things or strong parts or something in between? There’s a filament for each.
- Spool construction - Believe it or not, this is a big factor if you own an AMS. Bambu Spools are of course the best but there are plenty of adapters one can print to make cheaper carboard spools work.
- Your opinion
This last bullet is the last and final determination of “Best”. The “Best Advice” you an head is don’t accept what you heard or read, go find out by yourself. You’ll find out that your criteria is going to vary by your individual use-case and will be guided by your desire to be analytical or just want to point and click on a easy buy choice.
If you’re just looking for an easy solution, just buy Bambu and be done with it. But just know that you’re likely overpaying. If you want to save a few Shekels on your purchases, which can add up to many extra free spools over the year, then get more picky and test each filament during the manual tuning process and make notes of what worked for you, what you liked and did not like. The filament calibration process is something you’ll want to master anyway if you want to dial-in perfect prints. So why not write down the results and note what brands performed for you?
My personal experience
I can share with you my evolving criteria for my purchases. I say evolving because I see deal-finding as a second hobby much like a competitive sport. For my P1P, there were no enclosures and Bambu was out of stock of Black PLA(sound familiar) so I was forced against my preference to go Amazon and buy off-brand. What I found is a vendor that had great filament for 50% of the cost of Bambu. But I also found that I hated their spool as I had to modify the hub to make it work. Not by much, just unscrew the bearing that came with the filament, but annoying nevertheless.
Since then, I am on a quest for that $10 spool that is both reliable source and quality. So far, I haven’t hit it. But I am getting closer with a list of sub $14 vendors who make a product that I tested to be far superior to Bambu. Combine that with free 1-2 day Amazon Prime shipping and Amazon’s liberal return policy, and I have been able to compile a growing list of filament makers with varying degrees of quality and price.
BTW: About 1 out of every 4 or 5 spools of PLA I return to Amazon when I try a new maker who fails the simple four calibration tests. But for me, the return mailbox is less than 2 miles from my house so it’s ultra convenient to send it back if I don’t find it acceptable.