Abstract The butt welding tests of 5.5mm thick pure nickel N6 plate were carried out by plasma arc welding (PAW) and ERNi-1wire-filled PAW. And the differences in microstructure and properties between two kinds of joints were studied. The results show that the wire-filled pure nickel N6 joint has good appearance without defects such as pores, cracks, and undercuts. Pure nickel N6 weld is single-phase austenite structure, and no phase transformation occurs during heating or cooling. The weld zone of PAW joint is characterized by coarse columnar grain with average grain size of 125.8 μm, while the weld zone of wire-filled joint is equiaxed grain with average grain size of 54.8 μm. The tensile strength of the wire-filled PAW joint is 337MPa and the elongation after fracture is 44%, which is 11.6% and 85.5% higher than that of the PAW joint. The corrosion rate of wire-filled PAW joint is 2.6908g/m2h, which is lower than that of PAW joint of2.8820g/m2h, and the corrosion rates of both joint are higher than the base metal. The alloy elements in the welding wire can supplement the alloy elements burned in the welding process. As the filler metal, the melted wire forms the joint with the melted base metal, avoiding the defects such as undercut and depression. Al and Ti elements in ERNi-1 wire have deoxidation and nitrogen fixation effect during welding thermal cycle process, which improves the resistance of weld to carbon monoxide and nitrogen porosity. In the process of nitrogen fixation, TiN particles are formed in the crystal or grain boundary. TiN particles at the grain becomes heterogeneous nucleation particles in the grain, which makes a large number of nucleation and increases the nucleation rate. TiN particles at grain boundaries act as "nails" to hinder the migration of austenite grain boundaries. In the deoxidization process, the deoxidized products Al2O3 and TiO2 are formed. However, large-size inclusions are formed owing to the high content of Al and Ti in the molten pool, which affects the performance of the joint. Therefore, the structure and performance of filler wire-filled PAW joint are better than those of PAW joint.