Two 3D printing processes get lumped together constantly, and the confusion costs people money. If you're trying to figure out what kind of print you actually need, here's the real difference.
FDM builds an object by melting plastic filament and laying it down in a continuous line, layer by layer, through a heated nozzle. Resin printing builds an object by curing liquid photopolymer with UV light, one wafer-thin cross-section at a time, pulling the finished layer up out of a vat.
The detail gap between them is real and it's not close. A resin printer's "pixel" — the smallest feature it can resolve — is roughly thirty times finer than an FDM nozzle's bead width. At the scale of a 28mm miniature, that shows up directly: individual chainmail links instead of a textured blur, a sculpted eyelid instead of a soft curve, engraved lettering that's actually legible. If what you're printing is going under a magnifying glass — competition-level miniature painting, jewelry, a display piece meant to be looked at up close — resin isn't the "premium option," it's the only option that does the job the sculptor intended.
But that detail comes at a cost most people don't think about until they're holding the object. Resin parts are more brittle than FDM parts of the same size — they crack under stress that an FDM part would just flex through. They degrade with UV exposure over time. And the printing process itself is a genuine chemical workflow: uncured resin is a skin and respiratory irritant, it needs proper ventilation, gloves, and correct disposal — not something to improvise in a spare room without reading up first. That same brittleness matters again the moment the object needs to travel: a resin piece that survives sitting on a shelf can crack in transit from a shipping knock that an FDM part would shrug off entirely, which is why resin work tends to stay local, hand-delivered, or heavily overpackaged.
FDM parts, by contrast, are the workhorse choice. They're mechanically tougher, cheaper per gram, and the printing process itself is close to fume-free — no ventilation requirement, no cure step, no chemical handling. What you lose is fine surface detail — visible layer lines, softer edges on small features — but for anything that gets picked up, handled, given as a gift, shipped, or used rather than displayed, that trade rarely matters in practice. Both processes can be painted afterwards using the same primer-and-acrylic workflow — a skilled artist can meaningfully close the apparent detail gap by hand, and that's a big enough topic to earn its own post on the Craft track.
So the real question isn't "which process is better." It's "what is this object actually for." A trophy piece meant to sit under glass and reward close inspection wants resin's detail, and the extra handling and fragility are worth it. A functional part, a large prop, or anything that needs to survive being owned, handled, or shipped wants FDM's toughness, and the missing fine detail costs nothing. Paying for resin-level detail on something that's going to live in a backpack is money spent on a quality nobody will ever get the chance to notice. Paying for FDM speed and durability on a display piece you'll photograph under magnification is the opposite mistake.
Know exactly which one you're actually interested in before you pay for either.