Thermal Printers: Thermal receipt printers use specially treated heat-sensitive paper and do not use a ribbon. Thermal receipt printers generally print faster and are quieter than dot-matrix printers but cannot print on multi-ply paper.
Impact/Dot-Matrix Printers:: Impact/dot-matrix printers use a series of very small pins that rapidly impact against a ribbon, which causes an image to be transferred to the receipt paper. Dot-matrix printers are reliable and generally have lower acquistion costs than thermal receipt printers but they are typically louder and require a ribbon to operate.