Open Robotics
Open Robotics (OSRF) is a nonprofit foundation that governs open-source robotics platforms including ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and ros-controls, serving a global community of robotics researchers, educators, and commercial developers through consulting and development services.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersMountain View, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Open Robotics does
Open Robotics, formally the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), is a California-incorporated nonprofit public benefit corporation (501(c)(3)) established in 2012 to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open software and hardware for robotics. The foundation stewards a portfolio of de facto industry-standard open-source platforms: ROS (Robot Operating System) for building robot applications, Gazebo for physics-based robot simulation, Open-RMF for multi-fleet interoperability across buildings and infrastructure, and ros-controls for real-time robot control. Supporting infrastructure includes the ROS Buildfarms (serving over 500 million packages per year), the Colcon build tool, Bloom release automation, and community channels including Discourse, Zulip, Discord, and the annual ROSCon developer conference.
The foundation's commercial operations were historically conducted through two subsidiaries — Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC, est. 2016) and Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore Pte Ltd (OSRC-SG, est. 2018) — both of which were acquired by Intrinsic, an Alphabet company, in December 2022. The ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF intellectual property remained with OSRF. The core open-source platforms are distributed free of charge; OSRF generates revenue through paid research, development, and consulting engagements with industry and government customers, designed so that key results are released back into open source. Customers include government agencies (NASA, DARPA, Office of Naval Research), major technology companies (NVIDIA, AWS, Canonical, Microsoft, Google, Toyota Research Institute), and space and industrial robotics firms (Blue Origin, FANUC). The foundation serves a global user base spanning researchers, students, educators, and industrial robotics developers.
Since the Intrinsic transaction, OSRF has reorganized its governance structure, creating the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA) in March 2024 to share stewardship of open-source robot software projects and joining the Eclipse Foundation in August 2024. The foundation employs 11-50 staff and is headquartered in San Jose, California, with continuing operations in the Asia Pacific region.
Open Robotics firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Open Robotics
- Legal name
- Open Source Robotics Foundation, Inc.
- Website
- https://openrobotics.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Open Robotics (OSRF) is a nonprofit foundation that governs open-source robotics platforms including ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and ros-controls, serving a global community of robotics researchers, educators, and commercial developers through consulting and development services.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Open Robotics industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Robotics Software and Middleware
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Robot Software, Autonomy Stacks & Simulation (ROS, digital twins) (HDAAAIAK)
Keywords
Where Open Robotics is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Mountain View
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Open Robotics business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Research, Development, and Consulting Services: Open Robotics offers a wide array of research, development, and consulting services to industry and government customers around the world. They design customer engagements so that key results can be shared in open source for the benefit of the global robotics community. This is the primary revenue-generating activity alongside their nonprofit mission.
- Open Source Platforms (Free): Core platforms including ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and ros-controls are freely available as open-source software. No direct revenue is generated from these platforms, but they serve as the foundation for community growth and consulting engagements.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Open Robotics product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Open Robotics develops and maintains open-source software platforms for robotics, including ROS (Robot Operating System) for building robot applications, Gazebo for physics-based robot simulation, Open-RMF for multi-fleet interoperability, and ros-controls for real-time robot control. The platforms are freely distributed globally and supported by the Open Robotics infrastructure (build farms, continuous integration, documentation, and online resources). Revenue is generated through research, development, and consulting services delivered to industry and government customers, with results contributed back to open source.
Product overview
Open Robotics (operating as Open Source Robotics Foundation) provides a suite of open-source robotics software platforms centered on ROS (Robot Operating System). The core offering includes ROS as the primary software development kit for robot applications, Gazebo for physics-based robot simulation, Open-RMF for multi-fleet robot interoperability and infrastructure integration, and ros-controls for real-time robot control. These products are supported by infrastructure tools including the ROS Buildfarms (serving over 500 million packages annually), Bloom release automation, Buildfarm Tools for CI/CD management, and Colcon for multi-package workflows. The ecosystem is governed by OSRA (Open Source Robotics Alliance) and maintained with support from the global community.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- ROS (Robot Operating System): Open source software development kit for building robot applications
- Gazebo
- Open-RMF
- ros-controls
- Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA)
Companies that use Open Robotics
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Open Robotics technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration5 records
Feature7 records
Open Robotics partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.
- InOrbit.AIminorInOrbit.AI announced the upcoming open-sourcing of OpenRobOps (ORO), a full fleet management platform. Open Robotics validated the platform as a partner alongside Intrinsic, Kärcher, and Ekumen.
- A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research)coreSingapore's National Robotics Programme together with A*STAR and other government agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Open Source Robotics Foundation to co-develop best practices for the open-source Robotics Middleware Framework. The framework was first developed in Singapore in 2018 and is being promoted internationally.
- Singapore National Robotics ProgrammecoreSingapore's National Robotics Programme announced initiatives at ROSCon 2025 including a national sandbox testbed called ELEVATE @ BCA Braddell Campus for validating robot interoperability, and a train-and-place programme for robotics talent development.
- Intrinsic (Alphabet)coreIntrinsic, an Alphabet company, acquired OSRC and OSRC-SG (the business operations of Open Robotics). Brian Gerkey joined Intrinsic as Director of Open Robotics. The ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF intellectual property remains with OSRF.
- CanonicalcoreOpen Robotics partnered with Canonical to provide ROS Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) and enterprise support as part of Ubuntu Advantage, offering 10-year security support for ROS.
- NVIDIAcoreNVIDIA partnered with Open Robotics to improve ROS 2 perception performance, releasing hardware-accelerated packages for ROS developers and integrating with NVIDIA Isaac ROS.
- Blue OrigincoreOpen Robotics is developing Space ROS with Blue Origin and NASA, working on ROS adaptation for space robotics applications.
- NASAcoreOpen Robotics is developing Space ROS with Blue Origin and NASA. NASA JPL uses ROS for various space robotics applications including the VIPER lunar rover.
- DARPAcoreOpen Robotics provided simulation infrastructure for DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge, creating high-fidelity simulation environments for the competition's virtual track.
- Office of Naval ResearchcoreOpen Robotics collaborated with the Office of Naval Research and Naval Postgraduate School to present the Virtual RobotX Competition using ROS and Gazebo.
- Naval Postgraduate SchoolcoreNPS partnered with Open Robotics for the Virtual RobotX competition, using Gazebo for maritime robotics simulation.
Scale indicators7 records
Recent moves11 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Open Robotics competitors and assessment
Company assessmentOthers
- Canonical (Ubuntu): Canonical is a Core strategic partner providing Ubuntu Advantage and ROS Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) for 10-year support. Not a competitor but a key infrastructure and commercialization partner for ROS adoption in enterprise and industrial settings.
- Eclipse Foundation: The Eclipse Foundation is the open-source foundation OSRF joined in August 2024 to anchor ROS governance. Comparable as a peer open-source foundation model rather than a product competitor, providing governance infrastructure for the ROS ecosystem.
Direct peers
- AWS RoboMaker: AWS RoboMaker is a cloud robotics development service built on ROS, providing managed simulation and deployment. While it integrates with Open Robotics' stack, it also represents AWS's play to capture value in the robotics development lifecycle as an alternative to self-managed ROS workflows.
- CoppeliaSim (formerly V-REP): CoppeliaSim is a commercial robot simulator with distributed control architecture, directly comparable to Gazebo. Both serve robotics researchers and developers needing physics-based simulation with ROS interoperability.
- NVIDIA (Isaac Robotics Platform): NVIDIA's Isaac ROS, Isaac Sim, and Jetson platforms compete directly with ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF in the robotics middleware and simulation layer. NVIDIA is also a partner (hardware-accelerated ROS 2 perception), making it both collaborator and the most credible proprietary-stack competitor.
- ROS-Industrial Consortium: ROS-Industrial is a consortium extending ROS for industrial manufacturing robotics. It is a closely allied peer that depends on Open Robotics' core ROS but addresses the specific industrial vertical where Open Robotics itself is less focused.
- Cyberbotics (Webots): Webots is one of the longest-standing commercial robot simulators and a direct competitor to Gazebo for academic and industrial simulation use cases. Both target the same developer persona building and validating robot applications before deployment.
Broad incumbents
- MathWorks (MATLAB/Simulink): MathWorks provides MATLAB and Simulink as the incumbent engineering and simulation platform used heavily in robotics research and controls development. It overlaps with Gazebo (simulation) and ros-controls (real-time control) but as part of a much broader engineering tool portfolio.
Emerging players
- InOrbit.AI: InOrbit.AI is a robot fleet management platform whose OpenRobOps (ORO) is being open-sourced and validated in partnership with Open Robotics. It overlaps with Open-RMF in the multi-vendor fleet coordination use case but as a focused commercial product.
- Autoware Foundation: Autoware Foundation governs the Autoware autonomous driving open-source project, which is built on ROS 2. CTO Geoffrey Biggs was previously on its technical leadership team. It overlaps with Open Robotics in the autonomous driving and ROS-based open-source robotics space.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Open Robotics social profiles
Digital presenceOpen Robotics financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Open Robotics leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles7 records
Open Robotics subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries2 records
Open Robotics funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
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Open Robotics M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Open Robotics
What does Open Robotics do?
Open Robotics develops and maintains open-source software platforms for robotics, including ROS (Robot Operating System) for building robot applications, Gazebo for physics-based robot simulation, Open-RMF for multi-fleet interoperability, and ros-controls for real-time robot control. The platforms are freely distributed globally and supported by the Open Robotics infrastructure (build farms, continuous integration, documentation, and online resources). Revenue is generated through research, development, and consulting services delivered to industry and government customers, with results contributed back to open source.
Is Open Robotics a public or private company?
Open Robotics is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Open Robotics founded?
Open Robotics was founded in 2012. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Open Robotics based?
Open Robotics is headquartered in Mountain View, United States, in the North America region.
How does Open Robotics make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Research, Development, and Consulting Services are the primary driver. The others are open Source Platforms (Free).
Who are Open Robotics's main competitors?
Others on record are Canonical (Ubuntu) and Eclipse Foundation. Direct peers are AWS RoboMaker, CoppeliaSim (formerly V-REP), NVIDIA (Isaac Robotics Platform), ROS-Industrial Consortium and Cyberbotics (Webots). MathWorks (MATLAB/Simulink) is listed as a broad incumbent. Emerging players are InOrbit.AI and Autoware Foundation.
Does Open Robotics have an API?
No public API is recorded for Open Robotics.
What industry is Open Robotics in?
Open Robotics's product category is Robotics Software and Middleware. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAIAK, Robot Software, Autonomy Stacks & Simulation (ROS, digital twins). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.