Platform hubs

The software stacks and robot makers that matter, described without marketing: what you install, what it costs, where the sharp edges are, and what moved recently.

ROS 2

ROS 2 and Open Robotics

The open middleware, simulator and planning stack that most robot makers ship drivers for. Free, Apache-2.0 at the core, with LTS releases on a fixed five-year cycle.

6 offerings · Core ROS 2 packages and Gazebo under Apache-2.0; MoveIt 2 under BSD-3-Clause; Nav2 mixes Apache-2.0, BSD-3-Clause and LGPL-2.1-or-later by package

NVIDIA Isaac

GPU simulation (Isaac Sim), robot learning (Isaac Lab), accelerated ROS 2 packages (Isaac ROS) and Jetson onboard computers. Mostly free to download, but tied to NVIDIA hardware.

5 offerings · Isaac Sim source under Apache-2.0 but needs the Omniverse Kit SDK and assets under NVIDIA terms; Isaac Lab under BSD-3-Clause; Isaac ROS under the NVIDIA Isaac ROS Software License, limited to systems with NVIDIA GPUs

MuJoCo

MuJoCo and Google DeepMind robotics

The Apache-2.0 physics engine most robot learning papers use, its GPU back ends (MJX and MuJoCo Warp), the Menagerie model library, and Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics models.

5 offerings · MuJoCo, MuJoCo Warp and MuJoCo Playground under Apache-2.0; Menagerie models each carry their own licence (Apache-2.0, BSD, MIT); Gemini Robotics models under Google's terms

Universal Robots

The Danish cobot maker whose arms are the default in labs and light industry. Closed controller with open real-time interfaces and a maintained BSD-3 ROS 2 driver.

4 offerings · Proprietary controller software (PolyScope 5 and PolyScope X); ROS 2 driver under BSD-3-Clause; Universal_Robots_Client_Library under Apache-2.0

ABB

ABB Robotics

A large industrial arm maker with the OmniCore controller, RAPID language and RobotStudio simulator. ROS 2 support is third-party, and a sale of the division to SoftBank is pending.

5 offerings · Proprietary controller software (RobotWare, RAPID) and RobotStudio; community ROS 2 driver abb_ros2 under Apache-2.0

FANUC

The Japanese factory-automation maker behind the CRX cobots, LR Mate arms and R-30iB Plus and R-50iA controllers. Since 2025 FANUC maintains its own Apache-2.0 ROS 2 driver.

5 offerings · Proprietary controller software and ROBOGUIDE; FANUC ROS 2 Driver under Apache-2.0, with BSD and MIT third-party components

KUKA

The Augsburg arm maker owned by Midea, with KSS, Sunrise and the newer iiQKA.OS2 controllers. An official Apache-2.0 ROS 2 driver covers iiQKA.OS2 through RSI, and community drivers cover the rest.

5 offerings · Proprietary controller software (KSS, Sunrise.OS, iiQKA.OS2) and iiQWorks; ROS 2 drivers and external control SDK under Apache-2.0

Franka

Franka Robotics

The Munich maker of the Franka Research 3, a 7-DoF torque-sensing arm with a 1 kHz external control interface that research labs use for learning and contact-rich control.

5 offerings · Proprietary robot firmware, Desk and RIDE; libfranka (C++ and pylibfranka Python bindings) and franka_ros2 under Apache-2.0

Boston Dynamics

Maker of the Spot quadruped, the Stretch warehouse robot and the electric Atlas humanoid. Spot has a Python SDK under a hardware-restricted licence and a community ROS 2 driver.

5 offerings · Robot software proprietary; Spot SDK under the Boston Dynamics Software Development Kit License (20191101-BDSDK-SL), limited to Boston Dynamics products and software simulators; community spot_ros2 under MIT and BSD-3-Clause

Unitree

Unitree Robotics

Hangzhou maker of low-cost quadrupeds and humanoids with published prices. EDU models expose low-level DDS control and BSD-3 SDKs, with documented security and regulatory risks.

5 offerings · Robot firmware proprietary; unitree_sdk2, unitree_sdk2_python, unitree_ros2 and unitree_mujoco under BSD-3-Clause

Open drone stack

Open drone stack (PX4, ArduPilot, Dronecode)

The two open-source autopilots, PX4 (BSD-3) and ArduPilot (GPLv3), the MAVLink protocol and tools around them, and how each connects to ROS 2. Free software on hardware from many vendors.

5 offerings · PX4 and MAVSDK under BSD-3-Clause; QGroundControl under Apache-2.0; ArduPilot under GPLv3

Open source

Open-source robot ecosystem

The open libraries and hardware outside the big vendors. LeRobot for learning on real arms, Drake and OMPL for modelling and planning, PyBullet for quick simulation, and the SO-101 open arm.

5 offerings · LeRobot Apache-2.0; SO-ARM100/SO-101 designs Apache-2.0; Drake BSD-3-Clause; OMPL BSD-3-Clause; Bullet and PyBullet zlib (except third-party folders)