OrcaSlicer 2.5.0 beta: shorter travel moves, collision avoidance and faster slicing

The beta of OrcaSlicer 2.5.0 came out on 27 October 2026. It builds on the alpha from 16 October and mainly brings shorter print times and faster slicing. Both are test versions. The current stable version remains OrcaSlicer 2.4.2.

What the alpha brought

The alpha was the bigger update. OrcaSlicer now supports the Bambu Lab H2C and A2L, including multicolour printing with the H2C’s hotend changer. New is a Python-based plugin system: plugins can add scripts, slicing steps, tabs and docked panels. There are also profiles for belt printers with an endless Z axis, colour mixing that prints new shades from two or three loaded filaments as thin layers or gradients, and Texture Displacement, which turns a texture into real relief on the model. Printers with IDEX can print a copy of the same part with each print head at the same time, normal or mirrored.

What the beta adds

• Collision volumes: Printers can define obstacles above the bed, such as parts of the print head. Arrange, brims, most supports and travel moves avoid them. The Slim, Strong and Hybrid tree supports do not yet, organic supports do.
• Shorter travel moves: On the developers’ test plate, travel fell by 6 to 26 % and estimated print time by 1 to 6.5 %. On 10 to 13 hour prints, that is 6 to 45 minutes. A dense plate of Benchys at 0.2 mm layer height got slower, though: the estimate rose by 3.6 % despite 6.5 % less travel.
• Rounded corners in sparse infill: With the smooth factor at 100 %, infill printed up to 29 % faster in testing.
• High precision G-code (experimental): positions with four instead of three decimal places, extrusion with six instead of five. The file grows by around 10 %.
• Klipper time estimates: They now follow Klipper’s motion planner. For an example print on a QIDI printer, the estimate rose from 7:44 to 8:34 hours. In the developers’ tests, estimates matched Klipper to within about 0.1 seconds per file.
• Faster slicing: According to the developers, the beta slices detailed models up to twice as fast, for example a HueForge relief on a Mac in 54 instead of 108 seconds. For objects made of thousands of parts, the difference is much larger.

Notes from the developers

The developers recommend backing up projects and profiles before switching and ask users to report bugs on GitHub. On plugins, they state that their permission system is not a sandbox: only install plugins from trusted sources. For everyday use, 2.4.2 remains the stable version.

How OrcaSlicer works in general is covered in the slicer article in the Maker Wiki.

Update 1 November 2026: release candidate is out

The OrcaSlicer 2.5.0 release candidate came out on 1 November, with installers for Windows, macOS and Linux. According to the developers, it is stable enough for everyday use and the final 2.5.0 is nearly ready. They give no date. Confirmed new features include mixing colours from loaded filaments, 3D surface textures, an experimental Design tab for parametric parts, and profiles for the Bambu Lab H2C and A2L.

Note for older projects: under “Filament for Features”, features set to “Default” now always use the object’s own filament. Projects that relied on the old behaviour may print differently and need explicit settings. On Klipper printers, printing via Moonraker now uploads G-code instead of the 3MF.