Gazebo Rotary: Nightly rolling release accelerates development for simulation devs
Gazebo's new nightly builds from main branches promise faster iteration but not for production.
The Gazebo team has released Gazebo Rotary, a new nightly-built rolling release that pulls directly from the latest main branches of every constituent library. This model, inspired by ROS's successful rolling release process, aims to accelerate development velocity and simplify the release cadence for both short- and long-term support versions. Rotary is primarily intended for core developers, plugin authors, and community contributors who need to test against the bleeding edge. End-users running production simulations should stick with stable releases like Gazebo Harmonic or Ionic unless they are advanced users comfortable with occasional breakage and no guaranteed fix timeline.
Installation is available via nightly Debian packages for Ubuntu Noble (24.04) and Resolute (26.04), with Noble support likely dropping soon. macOS users can install via Homebrew (source build), while Windows users must compile from source. Notably, Gazebo Rotary cannot coexist with Gazebo Jetty — installing Rotary will replace any existing Jetty installation. The team is actively working on ROS 2 Rolling integration, with progress tracked in their release tools repository. This release marks a shift toward a more agile development cycle for Gazebo, but comes with a clear warning: do not use it in production environments.
- Gazebo Rotary is built nightly from main branches, enabling faster iteration but introducing instability.
- Side-by-side installation is supported with older stable releases but conflicts with Gazebo Jetty (replaces it).
- Binaries available for Ubuntu Noble/Resolute and macOS (source); Windows requires building from source.
Why It Matters
Developers get faster feedback loops; production users must avoid Rotary and stick with stable releases.