This guide surveys the filament types you will actually run into on a desktop FDM printer: PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, TPU, nylon and PC. For each one it covers what the material is good and bad at, the print temperature range you should expect, and where it sits compared to the others, so you have a starting point before you commit to a spool. If you already know which material you are using and just need dialed-in settings, the material-specific guides linked throughout cover that ground in more depth than a survey guide can.
How to read the temperature ranges below
Every number in this guide is a range, not a fixed setting, because the real print temperature depends on the specific brand, the color additive, your hotend, and how accurate your printer’s temperature reading actually is versus what it displays. Treat these ranges as a starting point, not a target to hit exactly, and check the spool label or the manufacturer’s technical data sheet before you print, since a specific product can sit anywhere inside, or occasionally just outside, the general range for its material family.
PLA
PLA is the default filament on most desktop printers because it is the easiest to print, needs no enclosure, and tolerates a wide range of speeds and cooling settings without much fuss. It prints in roughly the 190 to 220 degC nozzle range on a bed around 50 to 60 degC. The tradeoff is mechanical and thermal: PLA is stiff but brittle under sudden impact, and it softens well below boiling-water temperature, which makes it a poor choice for anything that sits in a hot car, near a heater, or under sustained load. For dialed-in settings and cooling advice, see the PLA print settings guide. PLA also comes in decorative variants worth knowing about: wood-filled PLA for a real wood look and feel, and silk PLA for a glossy, almost metallic sheen, covered in the wood filament guide and the silk PLA filament guide. PLA is also the base resin behind phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark filament and pairs with water-soluble PVA as a support material on multi-material printers, covered in the glow-in-the-dark filament guide and the PVA filament guide.
PETG
PETG sits between PLA and ABS: it keeps most of PLA’s ease of printing while adding real toughness, some flexibility under load, and decent resistance to water and outdoor use. Expect a nozzle range around 230 to 250 degC and a bed around 70 to 80 degC. PETG strings and blobs more readily than PLA if the temperature runs hot, and it bonds to itself so aggressively that stringing is usually the bigger complaint, not adhesion or warping. It is a reasonable upgrade over PLA for functional parts that do not need ABS-level heat resistance. See the PETG print settings guide for the full breakdown. If you’re weighing PLA or PETG for anything that touches food, see the food-safe 3D printing filament guide first: a resin being technically food-safe and a printed part actually being safe are two different questions.
ABS
ABS trades easy printing for real heat resistance and impact strength, which is why it shows up in automotive trim, enclosures, and parts that need to survive a hot environment. It needs a hotter nozzle, in the 230 to 260 degC range, and a hot bed around 90 to 110 degC, and it warps readily without an enclosure since it shrinks more as it cools than PLA or PETG. Fumes are also more of a factor than with PLA, so print it somewhere ventilated. If you are deciding between ABS and something else, the PLA vs ABS and PETG vs ABS comparisons walk through the tradeoffs directly. For full nozzle, bed, enclosure and fan settings, see the ABS print settings guide.
ASA
ASA is ABS’s outdoor-rated sibling: similar heat resistance and a similar nozzle and bed range, roughly 230 to 260 degC nozzle and 90 to 110 degC bed, but with much better resistance to UV light and weathering, so it does not yellow or turn brittle after months outside the way ABS can. It still wants an enclosure and still warps if a draft hits a large flat part unevenly. Default to ASA over ABS for anything that will sit in sunlight, and see the ABS vs ASA comparison for the rest of the tradeoffs. For full nozzle, bed and enclosure numbers, see the ASA print settings guide.
TPU
TPU is the common flexible filament, sold across a range of Shore hardness values, with softer grades (around 85A) bending easily by hand and stiffer grades (around 95A) behaving closer to a semi-rigid plastic. Nozzle temperature usually falls between 210 and 240 degC depending on the specific hardness and brand, with a bed around 40 to 60 degC since TPU sticks to most surfaces without much heat. The real challenge is not temperature but flow control: TPU compresses inside a bowden tube and prints far better on a direct-drive extruder, and print speed needs to come down well below what you would run for PLA. It is the right call for gaskets, phone cases, and anything that needs to flex or absorb an impact instead of cracking. For nozzle, bed, retraction and speed settings tuned to Shore hardness, see the TPU print settings guide. See the TPU vs PLA and PETG comparison if you are still deciding whether flex is what the part actually needs.
Nylon (PA)
Nylon is a tough, abrasion-resistant material used for gears, hinges, and load-bearing parts that need to survive repeated flexing without fatiguing. It prints hot, typically 240 to 270 degC at the nozzle with a bed around 70 to 100 degC, usually benefits from an enclosure, and it is the most hygroscopic filament on this list by a wide margin, pulling in moisture from the air faster than any other common material. A nylon spool left out for even a day in a humid room can print noticeably worse. If a nylon print is already showing popping, stringing, or a rough surface, check it against the wet filament symptoms guide, and see the filament drying guide for how to actually dry it back out. For full nozzle, bed, drying and enclosure settings across PA6, PA12 and blended nylons, see the nylon print settings guide. See the nylon vs PETG comparison for a direct look at whether nylon’s strength is worth the moisture hassle.
PC (polycarbonate)
PC is the strongest and most heat-resistant material on this list, with a glass transition point well above any of the others, and it is the choice when a part genuinely needs to survive both mechanical stress and high temperature at once. It also demands the most from your printer: nozzle temperatures commonly run 260 to 300 degC or higher depending on the specific blend, bed temperatures sit around 90 to 120 degC, and a sealed, heated enclosure is close to mandatory since PC warps and delaminates badly without one. Some PC blends also need an all-metal hotend rated for the temperature. Reach for PC only when PETG or ABS genuinely cannot handle the heat or load, since it is harder to print and less forgiving than either. For the full temperature, drying and enclosure requirements, see the polycarbonate filament guide; nylon and carbon-fiber-reinforced blends get the same depth of treatment in the engineering filaments overview, including the carbon fiber 3D printing guide‘s hardened-nozzle requirement.
How to choose between them
Start from what the part needs to survive, not from whatever is already loaded in the printer. For a prototype, a decorative print, or anything that lives indoors at room temperature, PLA is the easiest path and worth defaulting to unless you have a specific reason not to. For a functional part that needs to take some abuse, tolerate mild heat, or hold up outdoors, PETG is usually the next step up, with ASA as the better choice once UV exposure is a factor. Reach for ABS when you need impact resistance and heat resistance together and can tolerate the fumes and warping risk of an unenclosed print. TPU is a separate decision entirely, driven by whether the part needs to flex rather than by strength or heat. Nylon and PC are specialist picks for parts that need to survive real mechanical load or sustained heat, and both ask more of your printer, in hotend temperature, bed temperature and enclosure, than anything else on this list. If you are stuck between two specific materials, the head-to-head guides go further than a survey guide can: PLA vs PETG, PLA vs ABS, PETG vs ABS, ABS vs ASA, PC vs ABS, and ABS vs nylon. Outside this core list, a few specialty materials solve narrower problems: polypropylene for chemical resistance and living hinges, HIPS as an ABS-compatible dissolvable support, and PVA as a water-soluble support for PLA. For projects that need more than color, clear and transparent filament covers diffusers and see-through parts, and conductive filament handles touch sensors and low-voltage traces.
Keeping any of these filaments printable
Every material on this list except PLA absorbs enough moisture over time to cause print defects, and even PLA is not fully immune once a spool has been open for months. The fix is the same regardless of which filament you picked: store it sealed with desiccant between prints, covered in the filament storage guide, and if a spool has already absorbed moisture, dry it back out using the methods in the filament drying guide before you try to print with it again.