Best Laser Cutters and Engravers of 2024

The Glowforge Aura is the company’s first consumer laser cutter aimed at the entry-level market. It’s smaller than the other models, with a less powerful laser, but it works amazingly well on smaller projects. We’ve made beautiful carvings, etchings and other laser-cut projects on the aura, and all of them have been excellent.

Read more: Hands-on with the Glowforge Aura 

Like the original F1, the F1 Ultra has brought me no end of fun while I’ve been testing it. There is something special about carving a 3D depth map into a coin, a slate coaster or even a rock from your garden that is hard to match with a standard laser. The F1 Ultra is a mixed laser with a blue diode for standard cutting and engraving and a fiber laser for 3D carving.

The F1 Ultra is slightly bigger than the F1 and has the same accessories — like the rotary system and fluted work surface — as the F1 too. The best accessory is the conveyor belt, which can be used with the built-in software smarts to engrave batches of the same pattern, so if you need to make 100 more keychains at a convention, you can quickly and easily.

It’s been a while since I’ve had as much fun with a maker tool as I have had with the xTool F1. It’s lightweight and very easy to transport if you go to many trade shows, conferences or farmer’s markets and, with the accessories in this bundle, you can etch batches of products as easily as one. The software is excellent too, making it easy to line up projects or trace out new projects from a photo.

I recently took the F1 to a STEM fair for primary school kids, and it was extremely popular as it whizzed around cutting out the school logo onto metal business cards. While the price is pretty high for a cutting area this small, you could easily make your money back with just a little work at a farmer’s market stall or two. It’s well worth the investment.

The Beamo is the smallest of Flux’s impressive lineup of CO2 laser cutters, but don’t let the small size fool you. The 30-watt laser, while weaker than some on this list, is still powerful enough to etch glass, although you may need the additional diode laser to etch onto the steel. It will happily cut through wood, leather and acrylic.

The Beamo also comes with a handy touchscreen on the device, making it much easier to control from your workshop without a computer plugged into it directly. Flux even has an app that’ll let you control the Beamo directly from your phone.

The WeCreat is a fun little box that can etch and cut several materials. It isn’t going to carve through thick wood or steel, but it makes fun projects for family fun time. I think it’s perfect for schools, especially with its exhaust filter, as the enclosure and air assist make it safe for classrooms and stop little fingers from getting burnt. I created several projects for my kid’s kindergarten class, and the teachers all loved it.
While the software isn’t quite as good as Xtool or Glowforge, the camera is accurate and lets you mark where your material is well. It even has testing squares, so you can try out any material and see what power level you need. That’s something all laser cutters should have.

Diode lasers are often low-powered, with no enclosure to keep you safe. The S1 solves both those problems by having a 40-watt laser that can cut through 18mm of wood in a single, albeit slow, pass. It also has a fantastic enclosure with a green lid to filter the laser’s light and an active exhaust to blow away any smoke. The basic kit has air assist — something all lasers should have — and a honeycomb cutting surface to help reduce scorching on the underside of your material.

The S1 doesn’t have a camera — I think it should — so everything is handled very manually. But that’s true for most diode lasers.

Glowforge has made it clear its mission from the start has been to ensure anyone can use what it calls “laser printers,” and the Glowforge Pro is a shining example. A fisheye camera gives you a view of the cutting surface from a web app, which lets you effortlessly click and drag the things you want to engrave or cut. And if you pay for the extra filtration system, you can use this laser anywhere. Of all the systems tested here, Glowforge’s focus on ease of use is a world apart.

With that ease of use comes some limitations you won’t find elsewhere. Many features that make the Glowforge Pro great are available only if you pay a monthly subscription. If you’re not using the Glowforge-made Proofgrade, the process of identifying the correct settings for engraving or cutting becomes quite manual. Additionally, the fisheye lens that Glowforge uses can occasionally cause accuracy issues when you’re cutting or engraving on small, perfectly centered surfaces.