<p>The present work compares the microstructure–mechanical property correlation in stainless steel 316L manufactured through three important and distinct additive manufacturing routes, namely, laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), electron beam powder bed fusion (EBPBF), and wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). The choice of opting these routes comes as it is a representation of complete available range of additive manufacturing processes for cooling rates (10³ to 10⁶&#xa0;Ks⁻¹), thermal gradient, and melting sources in addition to the intricacy and dimensional accuracy differences. The role of generated microstructure on tension–compression behavior is evaluated. It has been observed that a narrow difference of yield strength asymmetry as 20&#xa0;MPa for LPBF and WAAM route occurred, while it increases significantly to 60&#xa0;MPa for EBPBF route. Interestingly, the magnitude of the difference grows with increasing strain as the test progresses for EBPBF, while this remains unchanged in LPBF and WAAM route. The reason behind the bigger difference for EBPBF route comes because of its comparatively elongated grains toward building direction and significantly intensified texture of &lt; 100 &gt; fiber that promotes separate deformation mechanism for tension and compression modes. The experimental validation for the asymmetric differences and its rise with further straining is discussed through analysis of post-deformed microstructural investigation. This work provides a guidance to pick an additive manufacturing route for stainless steel 316L based on the requirement of properties in a particular application domain.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>