In the production lines of food, daily necessities and other industries, premade bag packing machines and horizontal packing machines are both essential "packaging experts", but their working principles and characteristics vary greatly.

The most intuitive difference lies in the source of packaging materials. As the name implies, the premade bag packing machine uses pre-manufactured finished bags. These bags, such as stand-up bags, zipper bags or vacuum bags, are placed in the machine's hopper in batches. The machine then automatically grabs, opens, fills and seals the bags—similar to using ready-made fresh-keeping bags for packaging, but fully automated.

The horizontal packing machine, by contrast, does not rely on finished bags. It uses roll-shaped packaging film to make bags on-site. The roll film is installed on the machine, which forms the film into bags (such as three-side sealed or four-side sealed bags) while synchronously completing filling, sealing and cutting. This integrates bag-making and packaging into one seamless process, like shaping and wrapping food with plastic wrap automatically.