For people who choose print on fabric fristly, may be knowing the difference between dye sublimation and heat transfer paper will help them a lot on equipments choosing.

Color:

Heat transfer is suitable to all kinds colors, while sublimation is exclusively for white or light-colored garments

Fabric: Heat transfer paper is that most papers work on both cotton and polyester fabrics - while you’ll learn that sublimation only works on polyesters. While, sublimation not only works on polyester fabrics – it also works on a wide variety of hard surfaces with a poly-coating such as coasters, jewelry, mugs, puzzles and much more which you can customize.

Durability

Sublimation ink, when heated, turns from a solid to a gas that embeds itself into the polyester fabric. When it cools, it goes back to a solid and becomes a permanent part of the fabric. This means that your transferred design adds no additional layer on top, so there’s no difference in feeling between the printed image and the rest of the fabric. This also means that the transfer is incredibly durable, and under normal conditions, the images you produce will last as long as the product itself.