Robotics And Autonomous Systems — hobby stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Edge Compute Fleet Management (Jetson / Greengrass)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Greengrass free tier 1yr (100 devices), Kanto OSS free / Paid: Greengrass $0.16/device/mo + $0.00022/Lambda sec | Jetson Orin Nano $499 one-time, AGX Orin $1999 | Balena free 10 devices, then $15/device/mo billed annually | Overage: Lambda@Edge $0.0007/vCPU-sec
Device Management / IoT Core
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: AWS IoT Core 12mo free tier 250k msgs/mo + 500 shadow ops/mo, ThingsBoard CE free self-host / Paid: AWS IoT $1.00/million msgs after, $1.08/million shadow ops | Azure IoT Hub free 8k msgs/day, S1 $25/hub/mo 400k msgs/day, S2 $250/mo 6M msgs | HiveMQ free 100 devices/10GB, paid $250/mo 1k devices
Real-time Messaging / MQTT Broker for Robot Control
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Mosquitto OSS $0 + EC2 $6/mo, EMQX OSS free / EMQX Cloud free tier 5M session minutes + 1GB traffic / Paid: EMQX Cloud Standard $0.80/hr per 1k conns + $0.15/GB traffic, Enterprise $1.8/hr | VerneMQ OSS free, managed $300/mo cluster | NATS JetStream free self-host, Synadia Cloud $20/mo 100GB
Time-Series DB for Sensor Data (IMU, LiDAR, Joint States)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: InfluxDB OSS free unlimited self-host, InfluxDB Cloud free 30GB storage + 300M series cardinality, 300GB data out | Timescale Community free | Paid: Timescale Cloud $55/mo 500GB storage/50GB backup, $0.12/GB ingest | InfluxDB Cloud Serverless $0.002/MB write, $0.01/GB query, $0.25/GB-hr storage | QuestDB OSS free, Cloud $70/mo 10GB
Simulation Environment (Isaac Sim, Gazebo on GPU)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Gazebo OSS free, Isaac Sim free for individuals | Paid: Isaac Sim Enterprise $1,500/seat/yr + OVX server $9k/yr | AWS g5.xlarge $1.006/hr on-demand, spot $0.35/hr, 4x A100 g5.48xl $16.28/hr, A100 $1.5-2.1/hr spot $0.9/hr, H100 $4.2/hr spot $2.4/hr | GCP L4 $0.70/hr
GPU Training Cluster for Robotics Models (RL, VLA, Diffusion Policy)
Powers AI features — model access, embeddings, and inference. Costs scale with usage, so watch the meter.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Colab T4 free 12hr sess, Kaggle 30hr P100/wk + 2x T4 x2 free | Paid: RunPod A100 $1.14/hr Secure, community $0.85/hr, H100 $2.29/hr | Lambda A100 40GB $1.10/hr, H100 $2.49/hr (1-yr reserved $1.79) | CoreWeave H100 80GB $3.49/hr | AWS p5.48xl $98.32/hr (8x H100) ~$12.29/GPU/hr, A100 p4d.24xl $32.77/hr | Modal H100 $3.5/hr + $0.0006/CPU-sec free 30 hrs/mo $30 credits
Data Lake for Sensor Logs / ROS Bag Storage (Petabyte)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: S3 free tier 5GB-std 12mo + MinIO OSS free | R2 free 10GB storage + 10M Class A ops, zero egress | Backblaze B2 free 10GB | Paid: S3 Std $0.023/GB/mo, IA $0.0125, Glacier Instant $0.004, Deep $0.00099 | R2 $0.015/GB/mo + $4.50/M Class A, $0.36/M Class B | B2 $0.006/GB/mo + $0.01/GB egress first 1GB/day free | S3 Select $0.002/GB scanned
Video Storage for Robot Cameras (Fleet DVR)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: MinIO OSS free, KVS free ingested 10k mins/mo first year, S3 5GB | Paid: S3 $0.023/GB/mo, Kinesis Video $0.0085/GB-ingest + $0.0119/GB storage/mo + H264 transcoding $0.016/stream-hr | Wasabi $6.99/TB/mo flat no egress | Cloudflare Stream $5/1000min stored + $1/1000min delivered | Mux $0.01/min stored
Container Orchestration (Cloud + Edge K3s)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: K3s OSS $0, k3d free, EKS free tier 1 cluster no mgmt fee first 3mo then $0.10/hr | Paid: EKS $0.10/hr/cluster = $73/mo + EC2 worker m6i.large $0.096/hr, EKS Anywhere $0 + support $300/mo | DOKS free control plane + $12/mo droplet, Civo $10/mo per node + $6 TLB | Rancher free
Object Storage for Models & Artifacts
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: HF Hub 100GB free private, S3 5GB free 12mo, R2 10GB free | Paid: S3 $0.023/GB/mo, R2 $0.015/GB/mo zero egress, B2 $0.006/GB/mo $0.01/GB download | LakeFS OSS free, Cloud $100/mo 100GB + $0.10/GB | Overages: S3 PUT $0.005/1k, GET $0.0004/1k
Secrets Management for Robot Credentials (Certs, Tokens)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: Vault OSS free self-host, Doppler free 5 users + 200 secrets | Paid: AWS Secrets $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls, first 30days free | HCP Vault $0.03/hr + $0.50/secret/mo Dedicated $1.5/hr cluster | Doppler Team $8/user/mo, Enterprise $23/user | Infisical Cloud free 500 secrets, $30/mo team
How this hobby robotics and autonomous systems checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby robotics and autonomous systems build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.