Hello All,
I have to make various projects for people. One of my problems is the time it takes to run a print. I use the vanilla Bambu slicer because I just don’t have time to mess with the settings too much although I do make some tweaks.
My question is what are the pros/cons of moving to the Orca slicer? I did do a test on one of my projects that normally take 5 hours to run however the Orca would take 7.5 hours.
What do Orca experienced people find?
Gerard
To me it has the same pros of moving my AC printer from the AC slicer next to BB studio. None but problems.
BB studio is ok and all the tools.
Orcaslicer is great if you want more settings to tune. But if you don’t have time it’s better to stick with Bambu Studio. The default settings in Orcaslicer are a bit questionable but if you spend the time to tune it you can get better prints with options not available in Bambu Studio.
OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio share a common lineage. Orca is a downstream fork of Bambu Studio, which itself is derived from PrusaSlicer (originally Slic3r). If you are seeing different results between the two, that difference is almost certainly due to profile defaults or your settings - not the slicer engine.
If you want to diagnose where print time differences come from, do this:
For example, if one profile uses 3 outer walls and the other uses 6, the faster slicer may simply be doing less work. The math is the same. The instructions are different.
OrcaSlicer is effectively Bambu Studio with power-user and quality-of-life features added back in or extended. These include features that Bambu Studio either never incorporated or chose not to prioritize as Bambu shifted toward tighter ecosystem control and a simplified, locked-down user experience.
OrcaSlicer is developed by printer enthusiasts and is vendor-agnostic. The developers have no financial stake in the success of any specific manufacturer. Historically, Orca contributors supported Bambu early on, and Bambu even credited Orca contributions upstream.
That relationship ended in January 2024 when Bambu introduced Bambu Connect and an authorization system that conditioned printer access on accepting new contractual terms. Those terms would have required third-party developers to accept and enforce Bambu’s TOS and obtain permission before releasing future enhancements. This was not a technical requirement - it was a contractual gate imposed via cloud authentication.
SoftFever / NoisyFox (Orca’s lead developers) declined to participate. The broader community reacted even more harshly, and the backlash eventually forced Bambu to partially retreat by restoring LAN-only functionality.
Further reading:
If you print from or design for MakerWorld, Studio is probably the most convenient option. Similarly, the Bambu filament profiles have improved a lot during the last 2 years.
For own prints, in particular with special print options, Orca has more options and seems to get debugged more quickly. Specifically, Orca’s “Combine Infill” can help a lot with large prints. Especially in combination with adaptive layer height. Studio has that option too, but when I last needed it, it was still well and truly bugged.
& 
If you don’t have time to explore the options offered by BambuStudio, then you certainly don’t have time to explore the even more options offered by OrcaSlicer 
BambuStudio isn’t worse, it just offers a few less options for power users.
You are, of course, correct.
With the Silly Season upon us, I will have some time to explore/tinker/destroy!
Orca at this point is better simply for the tests it can do, like filament print tests to see what are the best settings for that type of filament, It can run temperature towers so you see what temp that filament prints best at, and a ton of other options. I highly recommend Orca over Studio, although Studio will do the job.
