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For a long time it has been clear that the Thingiverse web site has been poorly maintained. Bugs would go for a long time without being fixed and performance sucks etc... but we are also seeing a slow atrophy of the site that can no longer be attributed to poor or lazy maintenance. This came to head in the past few months when the disabled and then removed altogether the zip file functionality. They did this because bots were scraping the zip files from the site and putting big load on the system... so rather than adding some DDoS protection and some bot protections, they just nuked a critical piece of the functionality. I fully expect a slow death of the site... the owners have decided it is too expensive for just 'supporting the community'

The problem is that the other 3D model sharing sites typically only have a tiny fraction of what Thingiverse does and have a much smaller user base. Does anyone have good suggestions for alternatives? I want to compile a list

For a long time it has been clear that the Thingiverse web site has been poorly maintained. Bugs would go for a long time without being fixed and performance sucks etc... but we are also seeing a slow atrophy of the site that can no longer be attributed to poor or lazy maintenance. This came to head in the past few months when the disabled and then removed altogether the zip file functionality. They did this because bots were scraping the zip files from the site and putting big load on the system... so rather than adding some DDoS protection and some bot protections, they just nuked a critical piece of the functionality. I fully expect a slow death of the site... the owners have decided it is too expensive for just 'supporting the community' The problem is that the other 3D model sharing sites typically only have a tiny fraction of what Thingiverse does and have a much smaller user base. Does anyone have good suggestions for alternatives? I want to compile a list

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[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

Thingiverse is still the largest repo. There are alts like cults 3d and MyMiniFactory but they have a lot of stuff you need to pay for. I am not sure what is going to happen when Thingiverse dies. Wish I had something better to tell you.

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

Just start checking the stuff into github. Thats what i do.

[–] • 0 pt

Yeah, this was exactly where my thoughts were as well... there does not seem to be a proper alternative rising to the top. I was hoping I was just out of the loop and was not hip to the new shit.

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

Well, if you come across one please post it here for everyone. The next two largest I know of is Cults 3D which really just links to other repos and the MyMiniFactory which caters to gamers buying 3d gaming model collections for resin printers....

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

A while back I purchased some models from Cults3D (worth every penny (legolini.com)) and my bank red flagged the transaction. Apparently they have a lot of Fraud reports with Cults3D. This is probably not really the fault of Cults3D but rather dishonest people posting junk and scamming people... but it is still very telling that Cults3D is not weeding these folks out.

edit: direct link to Cults3D page (cults3d.com)