<p>Among the welding processes available in the market, the short circuit GMAW stands out for delivering low cost and high productivity. Nevertheless, the heat input applied for this process is one of the main challenges regarding sensitive applications, since high temperatures imply residual stress and possible structural damages. Therefore, the short circuiting metal transfer technologies developed by different companies are tested to study their methods to control the temperature in the welding process. The processes divided in standard, electrically controlled and retractable wire feed short circuit are used to produce a weld bead with similar geometry and have their performance analyzed. Moreover, an exploratory additive manufacturing test is developed with three different processes to compare their performances. The electrical parameters of each process are measured and the theoretical heat input is calculated. A macrograph of the weld beads is made to analyze the penetration and its relation with the deposition. It was observed throughout the heat input and penetration areas that the theoretical heat input does not describe the physical performance of the processes. Some samples showed higher theoretical heat input and smaller penetration than others. The standard short circuit processes showed the highest penetrations, followed by the electrical controlled processes and retractable wire feed processes. In the theoretical heat input measured was not possible to observe significant advantages between the electrical controlled and standard processes in general. The retractable wire feed processes had the best results in the metrics, showing the lowest theoretical heat input and penetration. The preliminary AM procedure showed a big range of geometry changes, with the retractable wire feed processes controlling better the heat input, leading to a more continuous part.</p>