xTool S1 vs Glowforge Aura: Power vs Simplicity

Both of these are enclosed desktop lasers you can run in a living space, but they are not really competitors, they are two different answers to "how serious are you?" The xTool S1 is a 40W enclosed diode built to cut and produce; the Glowforge Aura is a 6W enclosed diode built to be effortless. One is a workshop tool wearing a clean case; the other is a craft-room appliance. Power versus simplicity, and the honest answer depends on what you plan to make, and sell.

We score by class, standardizing published specs against owner reports and community results rather than operating a test lab. Here is the split.

The quick answer

• Buy the xTool S1 if you intend to sell: 40 watts cuts wood and leather, engraves fast, and grows with swappable modules. It is a small-business tool.
• Buy the Glowforge Aura if you want the friendliest possible on-ramp for light engraving and thin-material craft, and simplicity is worth more to you than power.

The gap is 40W versus 6W, a production machine versus a craft-table starter. See the xTool S1 or the Glowforge Aura.

S1 vs Aura at a glance

Specs current as of mid-2026.

Power: the S1 is a different league

A true 40W diode is a cutting machine. The S1 slices multiple millimeters of basswood and hardwood, cuts leather, and engraves wood, slate, and coated metal at production speed on a roughly 498 x 319 mm bed, brisk enough that a tray of coasters is minutes. The Aura's 6W is engraving-first: it marks and cuts thin material for coasters, ornaments, jewelry, and small signage, but it is nowhere near the S1 for cutting anything substantial. If your products need cut depth or throughput, the S1 is not a little better, it is a different class. Stock some basswood sheets and the S1 will cut what the Aura can only score.

Simplicity: the Aura is calmer

The Aura's advantage is that it asks nothing of you. Open the app, place art with the camera, pick a pre-tested material, and engrave, with no focus math and no test grid on day one. For a craft room, a gift-maker, or someone who wants the experience to feel like a printer, that ease is the product, and it is genuinely well executed. The S1 is friendly for its class but still expects you to understand focus, power, speed, and a test grid; it rewards learning with far more capability. The Aura also uses the Glowforge app with subscription tiers, while the S1 adds LightBurn compatibility for full manual control.

Modularity and growth

The S1 is a platform. xTool sells a 20W diode and a 2W infrared module that marks bare metal, and all of them swap onto the same gantry, so one frame grows from wood cutting to metal marking without a new machine. The Aura is a sealed, fixed appliance, excellent at its narrow job, but it does not grow. If you expect your ambitions to expand, the S1's ladder is a real advantage; if you want one simple tool that stays simple, the Aura's fixedness is a feature, not a flaw.

Materials and safety

The S1 handles wood, leather, slate, coated metal, and thin plastics (and bare metal with the IR module); the Aura covers wood, leather, paper, thin craft stock, and coated metal for light engraving. The safety rules are the same for a 6W and a 40W beam. Never cut PVC, vinyl, or any chlorinated plastic, because chlorine gas harms lungs and optics, and skip polycarbonate and ABS. Both are enclosed, but enclosure is not ventilation: run the filter or a vent, keep fire suppression close, and never leave either machine running unattended. Even a 6W beam starts fires in dry paper and wood.

Footprint and where it lives

Both are enclosed and living-space friendly, but they are different sizes. The S1 is a substantial 40W machine with a real bed and swappable modules; it wants a sturdy table and proper venting for production work. The Aura is smaller and lighter, designed to sit on a craft table and tuck away, and its scale suits a shelf or a shared room. If space is tight and the work is light, the Aura's compactness is part of the appeal; if you are building a little production corner, the S1's size comes with the capability you are paying for. Either way, plan your exhaust path first, because an enclosed case still needs somewhere for smoke to go, ideally through a desktop fume extractor or a proper window vent.

Speed and daily use

For engraving, both place art with a camera and run cleanly, but throughput diverges with power. The S1's 40W fills raster and finishes cuts faster, so a market-stall inventory run is meaningfully shorter. The Aura is unhurried by design and happiest with a handful of thoughtful pieces rather than a bulk production day. Neither is wrong; they are simply tuned for different volumes, and matching that tuning to how you actually work matters more than any single spec on the sheet.

The business math

If the laser is a business, cut depth and speed decide your ceiling. Sell engraved coasters at $12 and leather keychains at $14 and the Aura will pay for itself over a season of craft fairs, while teaching you whether you enjoy the work. But it caps out fast: it cannot cut production wood or scale throughput. The S1's 40W reaches the same products plus cut-through goods, layered signs, ornaments, cut leather, and finishes batches sooner, so it clears its higher sticker faster once orders climb. Buy the Aura to start; buy the S1 to scale. Model your real products with our pricing walkthrough and starting numbers from our settings calculator.

Which one to buy

• Selling, scaling, and needing to cut points to the xTool S1; read the S1 review.
• Craft-first, simplicity over power points to the Glowforge Aura; read the Aura review.

Not sure enclosed is even right for you? Weigh the tradeoffs in enclosed vs open-frame, see the class in our best enclosed laser roundup, and browse all our buying guides.