There are a lot of different ones out there. I've used various from a Tronxy X5S (required a lot of assembly and tuning/calibration), to a Longer LK5 Pro (30 min setup to printing). If you are very new to it, Creality are a good brand to work with, inexpensive, lots of community support. Bambu Labs have a reputation for being reliable, but are fairly expensive. These are all filament-style printers, work like a computer controlled hot glue gun, extruding plastic filament to make the item you're printing.

Resin printers can give really good fine detail results, but are more complex to use, have a lot of additional requirements for finishing and cleaning the printed item.

Software-wise, there are lots of good open source 3D cad packages available. Personally, I use SolidWorks, but that is personal preference and a product I've known for some time before I got into 3D printing. Freecad, OpenSCAD, KiCAD, all very good. Fusion360 used to have a very good reputation, but the licensing changes seem to have given the users of that a bad time lately.

For a slicer (convert the STL output of CAD into GCODE for the printer), I use Cura, but again there are many other alternatives.

Work out what you're going to use it for first, then look at your options. My first printer sat unused for 18 months as I bought it without a purpose in mind. Since then, I use both my 3D printers on a weekly basis, printing brackets for things, adapters, replacement parts, basically anything that I can build myself rather than buy. It's not always the cheaper option, but it's a lot more satisfying to do it yourself sometimes.

Good luck, it's a slippery slope and will consume more time and money than you expect!

Hi Simon

I have a 3D printer but as Dan said in his post, it's stayed in it's box for a few months as I can't find the space at home to set it up! 

I'm a bit of a craft magpie and have a variety of equipment that inhabits my spare bedroom/craft room/sewing room/home office so trying to find space to squeeze in another piece of equipment is a bit of a struggle .

I originally bought it as an extension to my polymer clay bead making hobby in that I want to design and 3D print some bespoke polymer clay cutters. In fact I still want to do that once I've found some space to put the printer and the time to put it all together (which is something I'm really looking forward to doing!) 

I bought just a cheap one from Amazon that I've seen some YouTubers review and it looks okay. It was less than £200 so even if I don't get on with it, it hasn't broken the bank! 

If I really start to get into it i.e. if I find the time between the hundreds of other creative hobbies I have, I'll probably invest in something more robust and expensive.

Once I've eventually got it all up and running, I'll let you know how it goes!