# Data on most popular ROS packages **URL:** \ **Category:** ROS General\ **Created:** [April 9, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591 "2020-04-09T13:30:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1

**Author:** ![roycey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@roycey](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/roycey)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/1 "2020-04-09T13:30:45Z")

In the [Metrics](http://metrics.ros.org/) report released late last year , the top 40 most downloaded packages were mentioned, however, they are the default packages available with ROS distros. What is the right source for me to look for the most popular and commonly used ROS packages? During my search, I came across a thread that stated that MoveIt is the 3rd most popular package. Is this from a report? If yes, please do share. Secondly, I was looking at the OS related metrics for ROS2 [here](https://metrics.ros.org/packages_ros2.html) How do I interpret the popularity of Windows over Linux? Is the numbers skewed because ROS2 on Linux is installed via apt? ---

**Author:** ![gavanderhoorn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/gavanderhoorn/32/969_2.png) [@gavanderhoorn](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/gavanderhoorn)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/2 "2020-04-09T14:21:09Z")

I believe some of this was discussed in the later comments on [ROS Metrics - ROS General - Open Robotics Discourse](http://discourse.ros.org/t/ros-metrics/10861). Some of the plots are somewhat skewed because of the way the source data captures events. @DLu and @tfoote would be able to explain this better. ---

**Author:** ![DLu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/dlu/32/19014_2.png) [@DLu](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/DLu)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/3 "2020-04-09T14:46:29Z")

There’s no great way to determine what’s most commonly used. There’s only some indirect proxies. [Most Downloaded Packages](https://metrics.ros.org/packages_top.html) is one way to measure, but that’s based on downloading package binaries from [packages.ros.org](http://packages.ros.org), which not everyone does, and doesn’t count if you downloaded from source. The website only lists the top ten for aesthetic reasons. I could post the current full list if desired. [The Repos Table](https://metrics.ros.org/repos_table.html) sorts based on Github metrics (forks/stars/subs) The ROS2 data was discussed on [Discourse previously](http://discourse.ros.org/t/2019-ros-metrics-report/10938/4). I cannot speak to the difference between these numbers and the ones from [packages.ros.org](http://packages.ros.org). If there are different ways of visualizing this data could be useful, please let me know by [opening an issue](https://github.com/DLu/ros_metrics/issues/new) ---

**Author:** ![smac](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/smac/32/6763_2.png) [@smac](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/smac)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/4 "2020-04-09T18:37:55Z")

> [@DLu](#): > > and doesn’t count if you downloaded from source Also won’t count docker or snap containers distributed for production. > [@DLu](#): > > I could post the current full list if desired. I’d also be interested in having an annual complete list or adding to your metrics repo table. Though on the bottom of the page it says: “the most downloaded packages introduced in each year”. I’m more interested in the top packages of the year regardless of their introduction, though having a top-10 of new things is a nice metric too! ---

**Author:** ![DLu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/dlu/32/19014_2.png) [@DLu](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/DLu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 2:00am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/5 "2020-04-10T02:00:10Z")

[Full List of Top Packages](https://gist.github.com/DLu/0ce75ef609f78d0bf171b9dc6bcf0477) 5308 packages in total. Fun fact: I’m responsible for one of the least downloaded packages ever: [`joint-state-publisher-js`](https://wiki.ros.org/joint_state_publisher_js/Tutorials/Using%20JointStatePublisher%20in%20the%20Browser) For the latter, I opened [a ticket](https://github.com/DLu/ros_metrics/issues/23) to make a separate page for that. I had a vague memory of the top packages not changing too much, but that might have been from before I got the expanded logs. There’s definitely some variability. I’ve been looking at [zingchart](https://www.zingchart.com/docs/chart-types/rankflow) for displaying a couple of unique types of data, like these rankings and the [country rankings](https://metrics.ros.org/packages_country.html) ```auto ---- - --------------------- ------- 2014 0 std-msgs 52229 2014 1 message-runtime 51361 2014 2 rosconsole 51196 2014 3 xmlrpcpp 51119 2014 4 rosgraph-msgs 50987 2014 5 roscpp 50574 2014 6 geometry-msgs 50393 2014 7 rospy 50381 2014 8 catkin 50367 2014 9 sensor-msgs 50307 2015 0 roscpp 87901 2015 1 catkin 87470 2015 2 tf 85820 2015 3 rosbag 85678 2015 4 rosbuild 84776 2015 5 rosconsole 84572 2015 6 std-msgs 84555 2015 7 rosgraph-msgs 84479 2015 8 message-generation 84446 2015 9 cpp-common 84376 2016 0 urdf-tutorial 305533 2016 1 roscpp 289902 2016 2 message-runtime 289460 2016 3 message-generation 289024 2016 4 genpy 288653 2016 5 std-msgs 287318 2016 6 rospack 286020 2016 7 xmlrpcpp 285658 2016 8 rosgraph-msgs 285393 2016 9 roslib 284745 2017 0 rviz 505440 2017 1 tf2-ros 498131 2017 2 tf 494169 2017 3 tf2-py 475799 2017 4 gazebo-plugins 456251 2017 5 laser-geometry 453742 2017 6 actionlib 448684 2017 7 tf2-msgs 447002 2017 8 interactive-markers 446854 2017 9 tf2 445335 2018 0 tf2-ros 819624 2018 1 tf 807983 2018 2 tf2-py 770879 2018 3 tf2-msgs 770595 2018 4 tf2 768915 2018 5 pcl-ros 732875 2018 6 cv-bridge 716967 2018 7 actionlib 711472 2018 8 laser-geometry 710910 2018 9 rviz 710391 2019 0 tf2-ros 1130085 2019 1 actionlib 1123773 2019 2 resource-retriever 1122357 2019 3 rviz 1120802 2019 4 pluginlib 1114987 2019 5 robot-state-publisher 1101370 2019 6 sensor-msgs 1097838 2019 7 tf 1082884 2019 8 message-filters 1079182 2019 9 roscpp 1073007 2020 0 rviz 518233 2020 1 ros-core 515827 2020 2 ros-base 514639 2020 3 ros-comm 488302 2020 4 tf2-ros 485901 2020 5 roslisp 482499 2020 6 tf 475840 2020 7 resource-retriever 468266 2020 8 sensor-msgs 467686 2020 9 desktop 466699 ---- - --------------------- ------- ``` ---

**Author:** ![smac](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/smac/32/6763_2.png) [@smac](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/smac)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/6 "2020-04-10T02:26:23Z")

This data is surprisingly interesting. @Katherine_Scott maybe something to play with your data science skills. I’m surprised how high up some of the ROS2 stuff is given ROS1 has a 8 year head start. This could make for some nice superlatives. Of the packages I made alone, my lowest is [ros2 ouster](https://gist.github.com/DLu/0ce75ef609f78d0bf171b9dc6bcf0477#file-top_report-txt-L5117) with 26 binary installs. Which is surprising to me knowing some folks that use it its that low. But its in the lowest 3.6% of installs (but hopefully growing). My highest is [STVL](https://gist.github.com/DLu/0ce75ef609f78d0bf171b9dc6bcf0477#file-top_report-txt-L1068) in the top 20% with nearly 16k. This has some really interesting insights in it - like I’m seeing grid-maps scattered pretty high all over the place. This was an area I was interested in and migrating some elements of it to Navigation2, but it seems I’m late to the game, everyone else is already doing it! ---

**Author:** ![davetcoleman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/davetcoleman/32/1835_2.png) [@davetcoleman](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/davetcoleman)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/data-on-most-popular-ros-packages/13591/7 "2020-04-15T02:29:46Z")

Regarding MoveIt, in ROS’s 2014 survey the following question was posed: > **Which ROS packages are most important to you?** And MoveIt was ranked #3 > **[ROS user survey: the results are in - ROS robotics news](https://www.ros.org/news/2014/04/ros-user-survey-the-results-are-in.html)** I have not seen a similar question asked since then to know if that is still the case.