Ender 3 is great for a project printer. You will update it over time and learn all the ways that a printer can have problems. But at least you are able to fix it yourself, and there is a huge online user base who can guide you with issues.
If you want an 95% works, and 5% hobby/tinkering printer for an extremely low budget. It's the only one I recommend
(agreeing that bambu story btw, would not go that route)
Got to be fair, since the 1.x update it got so much more usable for me