Klipper vs Marlin: What You Gain, What It Costs, and Which Board to Buy
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Switch a Marlin bed-slinger to Klipper if you want input shaping and pressure advance, which together let an old printer print two to three times faster with cleaner corners. Stay on Marlin if the printer works, you do not want a second computer attached, and speed is not the goal. Klipper needs a host board, usually a Raspberry Pi or an all-in-one pad, plus the printer’s existing mainboard.
Marlin runs entirely on the printer’s mainboard, which is why it ships on almost every budget printer: one chip, no dependencies. Klipper splits the job. The mainboard becomes a dumb motor driver and a small Linux computer next to it does the planning, with far more processing power. That power is what makes input shaping and pressure advance practical, and those two features are why a Klipper Ender prints like a much newer machine. The cost is complexity: another board, a network, a web interface, and configuration files instead of menus.
Where to buy
What Klipper gives you
- Input shaping. Measures the frame’s resonance with an accelerometer and cancels it, so you can raise acceleration without ringing. Read the input shaping guide.
- Pressure advance. Compensates for pressure in the hotend so corners stop bulging; Marlin’s linear advance does the same on some boards but not all. See pressure advance tuning.
- A web interface with a camera, macros, real-time graphs and file upload from the slicer.
- Configuration in a text file that changes without reflashing. Swap a hotend, edit two lines, restart.
What it costs
- A host: a Raspberry Pi, an old laptop, or an all-in-one Klipper pad with a screen.
- Time: an evening for the first install, another for input shaping with an accelerometer.
- The stock display usually stops working; you use the web interface or a Klipper-specific screen.
- No offline operation without the host; if the Pi is off, the printer is off.
The boards in the box
The listed boards are Klipper host pads: a small Linux computer with a touchscreen, Klipper and its web interface pre-installed, and often a built-in accelerometer for input shaping. They replace the Raspberry Pi plus display route with one plug-in unit and are the fastest way onto Klipper for an Ender-class printer. Your existing mainboard stays; you flash it with Klipper’s firmware and connect it by USB.
Who should stay on Marlin
Anyone whose printer prints well at the speeds they want. A stock 32-bit Marlin board with linear advance enabled already gets most of the corner quality; Klipper’s big win is speed, and if you print overnight anyway, speed may not matter. Marlin is also the right answer for a printer that must work with no network and no host.
Switching in the right order
- Back up the Marlin firmware and note your E-steps, PID values and probe offset.
- Install Klipper on the host, flash the mainboard, and load a printer config for your exact board.
- Verify motion direction and endstops before heating anything.
- Run PID tuning, then pressure advance, then input shaping with the accelerometer.
- Raise acceleration in steps and print a test each time until quality drops, then back off.
FAQ
Will Klipper damage my printer? No more than Marlin. Thermal runaway protection is on by default; leave it on.
Do I need the accelerometer? For input shaping done properly, yes. A pad with one built in saves buying an ADXL345 board.
Can I go back to Marlin? Yes, by reflashing the mainboard. Keep the backup.
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