[schwap]

I'm curious about what off-the-shelf machines you would compare a fully modified gagguino. Granted, I don't have one so I'm only going off the feature set listed on the page, but short of a Decent ($$$$) I can't think of any competitors with features like flow profiles.

[drrotmos]

Well, there's no cheap competitors with (automatic) flow profiles, but there are competitors with automatic flow profiles. ACS Vesuvius, Rocket R nine one (although IIRC this one is actually pressure profiling, not flow profiling), Synesso es.1, Sanremo You to mention some.

If you're looking at manual flow control, basically any E61 group machine can be outfitted with a needle valve for flow control, and a bunch of machines come with one installed from the factory, like the Lelit Bianca. There's also machines like the Slayer 1 group and La Marzocco GS/3 MP.

Gagguino is very cool, and if you're just pulling espressos and not too many back to back, it should be plenty of machine. If you're doing more than a couple of milk drinks, or pull lots of shots back to back, or want to connect it to plumbing, it's not as great of a machine. The fact that you started out with a small single boiler with a vibration pump starts to show.

[roflyear]

The Met will hopefully be shipping early next year which will have these capabilities.