Questions:
-> Ubuntu + x86_64 only. No ARM, no Mac (unless you run a VM) that cuts out a big chunk of hobbyists and researchers right away
-> Prompt sensitivity is a real concern if vague prompts give generic results, the "just describe it in plain English" pitch needs some asterisks
-> Multi-robot setups are experimental, which is a big gap for anything beyond single-robot prototyping
-> Requires internet to process every prompt so your AI copilot goes dark without a connection, even for local sims
-> Still early (v1.0.15 beta) rough edges are expected, but production teams should be cautious
-> The 60% stat frames simulation as a problem to skip, not a skill to build engineers who skip that struggle badly at sim-to-real transfer
-> Terminal-only, Gazebo-specific workflow is a hard limit if your stack uses Isaac Sim or Webots
-> And any proprietary AI agent in your core workflow = vendor lock-in risk
Curious how it handles URDF validation and collision mesh accuracy?
None of these are dealbreakers for students or solo researchers. But for engineering teams evaluating it seriously, these constraints matter.
Answers:
1. Our initial reach is for robotics developers who already use ROS and simulators, so they are already on linux. Most of the robotics frameworks are optimised and built for linux. You will have a hard time figuring things out on Mac with the all the open source tools and libraries.
2. Definitely. The more articulate you are with explaining what you want, better drift will run. "describe in plain english" is to communicate that this is better than before where devs have to hustle on their own.
3. Yes, and that is why we are solving it, and making this better.
4. We are working to bring integration for local deployments.
5. We are monitoring all bugs and crashes in production.
6. The skill to master simulations is not to be skipped at all, we want to accelerate the skill up instead with Drift, so that engineers actually focus on the physics and behaviour of robots in the sim.
7. That's why we are bringing MuJoCo, Isaac Sim and other simulators and plugin support really soon.
8. If the vendors are getting your work done from months to days, that is not a worry. And we will always have competitors so you have plenty of options! :)
Hey, drift is awesome! I'm a mac user, does drift work for me or is this linux only? A lot of great robotics tools end up being ubuntu only and it's always a pain for mac users….
Drift
@dr_dee Great question, and totally valid concern! Drift currently runs natively on Ubuntu 20.04+, but Mac users aren't left out. You can run Drift on macOS using VMware Fusion- just make sure you spin up an x86_64 Ubuntu image (not ARM) so Drift's binary is fully compatible.
If you're on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3), this is the recommended path and it works well. Windows support isn't available yet.
Full setup steps are in the docs at https://docs.godrift.ai/getting-started/quickstart#macos-via-vmware
It takes about 10 minutes to get running on MacOS! 🙌
@swastika_yadav1
Can I bring my own existing ROS workspace into drift, or does it only work with robots it generates itself? I have my own robot I've been working on.
Drift
@abhiranjan_mehta
Hey!
Yes, you can simply start Drift in the terminal in your workspace or VS code terminal. Drift can edit, debug, build and launch in existing workspaces.
You can ask it to edit your existing robot description files, world files, and wire up your workspace to launch with your controls.
Hope this answers your question. Let us know if you need any help!
Really impressive — the idea of prompt-to-simulation for robotics is a huge unlock. The fact that it actively tracks ROS states and fixes issues on the fly is what separates this from just being another wrapper. Curious: do you have plans to support multi-robot swarm simulations? That would be incredible for drone research. Congrats on the launch!
Drift
Hey @xkbear,
Thanks a lot!
The tougher the simulation, the more incentive we have to make it work with Drift and have Drift support such setups. We are testing swarm robot simulations in all forms. We plan to add support for plugins like ARGoS, that can be setup easily with Drift for these simulations.
Keep a watch on upcoming launches! Cheers.
Drift
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I'm Swastika, devrel at Drift AI and I'll be honest, I'm the newest person on this team. I joined not too long ago, came from a completely different corner of tech, and knew next to nothing about robotics when I walked in.
That's actually why I wanted to drop a comment here.
Because if someone like me, with zero robotics background, can get Drift running, set up a simulation, and start actually understanding what's happening under the hood, then I genuinely believe any developer can. The whole point of Drift is that you shouldn't need to be a simulation expert to work with one.
That said, getting started with any new tool has its rough edges, especially on day one. So I'm here. If you're trying to install Drift and hitting a wall, if something isn't working on your Mac (Drift runs on Ubuntu but works well on MAC with VMware), if your simulation isn't launching or your ROS environment is being weird; drop a comment below or reach out directly. I'll be watching this thread all day and will personally help you.
Really proud of what this small team has built and excited to see what you all do with it.
Give it a try ❤️🦾
Drift
Hi PH - I am Nikhil, Co-founder of Drift. With my team : @sanjil_j and @swastika_yadav1
We spent the past 10+ years obsessing over one question: why is it still so painful to get a robot into reality?
Get started easily : Docs for quick start
Engineers spend 60% of their time building simulations but -
Simulation environments always get into setup & runtime nightmares.
Robotics engineers feel like software or IT engineers fixing these issues, taking away their focus from the actual robot, the physics, the maths - which is their actual motivation to build in robotics!
Current coding agents don’t have the necessary context, control and understanding of orchestrating - ROS, simulator, OS, plugins together to get simulations running reliably.
Drift fixes this.
You describe what you want, it handles the rest - generating/editing robot & world description, publishing ROS nodes, setting up the simulator, generating controller configs, launch files, building the workspace, launching the sim. When something breaks, it inspects running nodes, checks topic connections, traces the command chain, understands from previous success-fail chains and fixes it.
Right now Drift is completely free in public beta.
Happy to answer any questions here and would love your feedback.
Try it, break it, and tell us what’s missing.
Join our discord for updates: Discord
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Drift
Hey, install drift in 30 seconds, just paste this in terminal: curl -fsSL https://godrift.ai/install | bash
Drift
Hey @alberto_polini, Thanks! Would love for you to use the product and provide your feedback on how we can make it the best out there!