Foxglove is built to visualize and debug recorded robotics data — ROS bags, 3D scenes, video, logs, all time-synced — and for that kind of deep visual debugging it's best-in-class. It's where a robotics engineer goes to understand what a robot saw and did on a particular run. Plexus is built for the other half of the job: keeping the fleet healthy in production. It's a finished platform — storage, dashboards, and autonomous triage in one — that makes the signal-versus-noise call across the fleet for you and shows its work, so on-call hears only what's real.
Foxglove is a robotics multimodal visualization. For visual debugging of recorded robotics data, Foxglove is best-in-class; for monitoring a robot fleet's health live, Plexus is the platform. Different centers of gravity, often run together. This page is written by Plexus, so read it with that in mind — we’ve tried to be straight about where Foxglove is the better choice. Last updated June 2026.
If the question is “why did this robot behave this way on this run,” Foxglove's multimodal viewer is the right tool, and Plexus doesn't try to be. If the question is “how do I monitor my whole fleet's health and cut the alert noise on-call wades through,” that's Plexus — and you don't assemble it out of a visualization tool. The two cover different halves, and plenty of robotics teams run both.
● full · ◐ partial · ○ not today
| Capability | Plexus | Foxglove |
|---|---|---|
Multimodal visualization (3D / video / ROS) Foxglove is purpose-built for this; Plexus is not a robotics visualization tool. | ○ | ● |
ROS / rosbag ecosystem and recorded-data replay Deep ROS integration and replay of recordings are Foxglove's home turf. | ○ | ● |
Deep visual debugging of a single run Understanding what one robot saw and did on a recording is exactly Foxglove's job. | ○ | ● |
Fleet-monitoring platform out of the box Foxglove is a visualization and debugging tool, not a monitoring platform. | ● | ○ |
Built-in storage and ingestion for live fleet telemetry Foxglove handles recordings; Plexus stores and monitors live fleet telemetry. | ● | ◐ |
Autonomous signal-versus-noise across a live fleet Foxglove visualizes; it doesn't triage. | ● | ○ |
Alerting, root cause, and a next step Monitoring and alerting is Plexus's job, not a visualization tool's. | ● | ○ |
Runs on your existing metrics store Plexus reads Prometheus, Thanos, or ClickHouse directly. | ● | ◐ |
Pick Foxglove Pick Foxglove to visualize and debug recorded robotics data — 3D, video, ROS — where its multimodal viewer is best-in-class and Plexus doesn't compete.
Pick Plexus Pick Plexus to monitor a robot fleet in production — storage, alerting, and autonomous triage as one platform that makes the call for you and shows its work — rather than trying to run live fleet monitoring out of a visualization tool.
For monitoring a fleet, yes — Plexus is the platform: storage, alerting, and autonomous triage. For multimodal visual debugging of recorded ROS, 3D, or video data, Foxglove is its own thing and far better at it. The two cover different halves and robotics teams often run both.
No. Multimodal robotics visualization is Foxglove's strength. Plexus is the monitoring platform — metrics, alerting, and autonomous triage at fleet scale — not a robotics viewer.
A finished monitoring platform: storage, fleet-wide triage done for you with the reasoning shown, a root cause on each signal, and only the alerts that are real — out of the box, on the store you already run.