This site’s Creality K2 Plus review already covers Creality’s flagship multi-color CFS system, but at $1,189 and up for the Combo, it’s a serious purchase. The Creality Hi Combo brings the same core idea — up to 16 colors from stackable CFS units — down to $399. Here’s whether that price actually holds up.
Creality Hi Combo by the numbers
- $399 sale / $599 list (Combo), $299 sale / $389 list (solo) — pulled directly from Creality’s own store as of this writing. The Combo adds one 4-slot CFS multi-color unit to the base printer for $100 over the solo price after discount.
- 260×260×300mm build volume — smaller than the K2 Plus’s 350mm cube and the K1 Max’s 300mm cube, but in line with mid-size open-frame printers like the Bambu Lab A1’s 256×256×256mm.
- 500mm/s max speed, 300mm/s typical, 12,000mm/s² acceleration — per Creality’s own spec sheet, with a tri-metal nozzle (hardened-steel tip, titanium heatbreak, copper-alloy body) built for quick-swap maintenance and clog resistance.
- CFS multi-color system, 1 unit included, up to 4 units for 16 colors — each CFS unit holds four 1kg spools with RFID auto-identification, filament runout detection, and automatic mid-print switching, the same underlying architecture Creality uses across its K-series.
- Open-frame, no active chamber heater — same category as the Bambu Lab A1/A1 mini, unlike the actively-heated 60°C enclosures on the K1 Max and K2 Plus.
Creality Hi Combo vs the multi-color field at a glance
| Printer | Build volume | Max colors | Enclosed | Combo price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creality Hi Combo | 260×260×300mm | 16 (4 CFS units) | No (open-frame) | $399 |
| Bambu Lab A1 Combo | 256×256×256mm | 4 (1 AMS lite) | No (open-frame) | $649 |
| Creality K2 Plus Combo | 350×350×350mm | 16 (4 CFS units) | Yes (active, 60°C) | $1,189–$1,499 |
| Creality Hi (solo) | 260×260×300mm | 1 (no CFS) | No (open-frame) | $299 |
The Hi Combo is the only printer here that pairs 16-color capability with a sub-$400 price — the A1 Combo costs $250 more for a quarter of the color count, and the K2 Plus Combo costs three times as much for the same 16 colors plus an enclosure and engineering-filament hotend. See our best multi-color 3D printer guide for the full field.
The 30-second verdict
Buy the Creality Hi Combo if multi-color access is the priority and your budget is under $500. Nothing else on this site’s radar delivers 16-color CFS scaling for $399 — it’s the cheapest on-ramp to Creality’s multi-material ecosystem by a wide margin.
Skip it if you print ABS, ASA, or engineering filaments regularly. The open frame and lack of an active chamber heater put a ceiling on high-temp materials that the K2 Plus doesn’t have — this is a PLA/PETG/ light-ABS machine.
Choose the Bambu Lab A1 Combo instead if slicer polish matters more than color count. Bambu Lab’s Studio software and AMS lite reliability have a longer track record than Creality’s CFS system, even though you pay $250 more for a quarter of the colors.
Creality Hi Combo
- 260×260×300mm build volume, 500mm/s max speed, tri-metal quick-swap nozzle.
- 1 CFS multi-color unit included, expandable to 4 units for up to 16 colors.
- Open-frame with no active chamber heater — PLA/PETG/light-ABS territory, not engineering filaments.
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What the CFS system actually does
Each CFS (Creality Filament System) unit holds four 1kg spools and switches between them automatically mid-print, using RFID tags on supported filament to auto-identify material and load the right print settings — Creality’s own documentation lists automatic filament-runout detection and relay switching as built in, so a spool running dry mid-print hands off to a fresh one instead of failing the job. Stack up to four CFS units and the system scales to 16 total color slots, the same ceiling as the K2 Plus. The Hi Combo ships with one unit; adding three more brings genuine 16-color capability to a printer that started at $399, though buyers should budget for the additional CFS units as a separate cost beyond the Combo price.
Open-frame tradeoffs: what you give up
Creality doesn’t market the Hi as an enclosed machine, and it isn’t one — there’s no chamber wall or active heater, so ambient room temperature and airflow directly affect the print. That’s a non-issue for PLA, PETG, and TPU, which is where most multi-color prints (figurines, keychains, multi-part functional prints) already live. It becomes a real limitation with ABS or ASA, which warp without consistent chamber heat, and it rules out the high-temp engineering filaments (PA-CF, PC) that the K2 Plus’s 350°C hotend and 60°C active chamber are built for. Buyers who know they’ll stay in PLA/PETG territory lose nothing meaningful here; buyers planning engineering-filament prints should look at the K2 Plus or this site’s best enclosed 3D printer guide instead.
Creality Hi Combo vs Bambu Lab A1 Combo
Both are open-frame printers with a similar-size bed (260×260×300mm vs 256×256×256mm) and no chamber heater, so the decision comes down to color count versus software maturity. The Hi Combo’s CFS system scales to 16 colors across four units for $399; Bambu Lab’s AMS lite Combo lists at $649 and caps out at four colors from a single unit, per Bambu Lab’s own spec pages. Bambu Lab’s Studio slicer and AMS filament-handling have a longer track record for reliability, while Creality’s CFS and Klipper-based firmware are the newer entrant. Buyers chasing color count and price choose the Hi Combo; buyers who value a more polished, tested ecosystem choose the A1 Combo. See our Bambu Lab A1 review for the full breakdown of that machine.
Bottom line
The Creality Hi Combo undercuts every other 16-color multi-material printer this site has covered by a wide margin — $399 versus $1,189+ for the K2 Plus Combo, and $250 cheaper than the Bambu Lab A1 Combo for four times the color count. The catch is real but narrow: it’s an open-frame machine with no active chamber heating, so it’s built for PLA, PETG, and light ABS rather than the engineering filaments Creality’s own K2 Plus targets. Buy it if cheap multi-color access is the goal; step up to the K2 Plus Combo if you need an enclosure and high-temp capability, or the Bambu Lab A1 Combo if slicer polish matters more than color count.
Related guides
- Creality K2 Plus review — the flagship CFS system this printer borrows from, at a much higher price and with an active chamber.
- Bambu Lab A1 review — the closest open-frame, similarly-priced rival, compared color count against software polish.
- Best multi-color 3D printer — where the Hi Combo ranks against the full field of AMS and CFS-equipped machines.