Skip to content

Feature Comparison

Three options for ROS 2 communication, from standard DDS to pure-Rust Zenoh.

ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
API rclcpp / rclpy rclcpp / rclpy Rust
Transport DDS (FastDDS, Cyclone) Eclipse Zenoh Eclipse Zenoh
RMW plugin rmw_fastrtps_cpp / rmw_cyclonedds_cpp rmw_zenoh_cpp No RMW — direct Zenoh API
ROS 2 install required Yes Yes No

ROS 2 (Zenoh) means rmw_zenoh_cpp: a drop-in RMW plugin that gives existing rclcpp/rclpy nodes a Zenoh transport without changing any application code. ros-z is an independent Rust API built directly on Zenoh — no ROS 2 installation needed.

Communication

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
Publishers ✅ ✅ ✅
Subscribers ✅ ✅ ✅
Callback subscribers ✅ ✅ ✅
Pull-model subscribers (recv()) ❌ ❌ ✅
Services (request / response) ✅ ✅ ✅
Service clients ✅ ✅ ✅
Actions (goal / feedback / result) ✅ ✅ ✅
Action cancellation ✅ ✅ ✅

Node Features

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
Named nodes ✅ ✅ ✅
Namespaces ✅ ✅ ✅
Name remapping ✅ ✅ ✅
Lifecycle nodes ✅ ✅ ✅
Graph introspection ✅ ✅ ✅
Executors / spin loop ✅ ✅ pull model (in rmw-zenoh-rs)
Waitsets / guard conditions ✅ ✅ in rmw-zenoh-rs
Composable / component nodes ✅ ✅ in rmw-zenoh-rs
Intra-process communication ✅ ✅ in rmw-zenoh-rs
Clock API (ZClock, system + simulated) ✅ ✅ ✅
Timers (ZInterval) ✅ ✅ ✅
ROS 2 /clock topic (external sim time) ✅ ✅ ❌ planned
/rosout logging ✅ ✅ ❌ uses tracing only

Quality of Service

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
Reliability (reliable / best-effort) ✅ ✅ ✅
History (keep-last / keep-all) ✅ ✅ ✅
Durability (volatile / transient-local) ✅ ✅ ✅
Deadline QoS events ✅ ⚠️ Zenoh limitation ⚠️ Zenoh limitation
Liveliness lease events ✅ ⚠️ Zenoh limitation ⚠️ Zenoh limitation

Messages & Serialization

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
Typed CDR messages ✅ ✅ ✅
Custom .msg / .srv / .action types ✅ ✅ ✅
Dynamic (schema-driven) messages ❌ ❌ ✅
Type description service ✅ ✅ ✅
Protobuf encoding ❌ ❌ ✅ (feature flag)
Shared memory (SHM) ✅ ✅ ✅

Parameters

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
Declare / get / set parameters ✅ ✅ ✅
Parameter event callbacks ✅ ✅ ✅
YAML parameter files ✅ ✅ ✅
Remote ParameterClient ✅ ✅ ✅
Parameter descriptor / constraints ✅ ✅ ⚠️ partial

Interoperability & Distribution

Feature ROS 2 (DDS) ROS 2 (Zenoh) ros-z
ROS 2 CLI (ros2 topic, ros2 service, …) ✅ ✅ ✅ via rmw_zenoh_cpp
Jazzy / Kilted support ✅ ✅ ✅
Humble support ✅ ✅ ✅
Cross-distro bridge (Humble ↔ Jazzy) ❌ ❌ ✅
Python bindings native native ✅ (ros-z-py)
Go bindings ❌ ❌ ✅ (ros-z-go)
No ROS 2 install needed ❌ ❌ ✅

Which to choose?

Use rmw_zenoh_cpp when you have an existing rclcpp/rclpy codebase and want Zenoh transport without rewriting anything. You get the full ROS 2 feature set — executors, composable nodes, lifecycle — with Zenoh's routing and cross-network capabilities replacing DDS.

Use ros-z when you are writing new code in Rust and want a minimal, dependency-light library. No ROS 2 installation, no DDS, no executor overhead. ros-z nodes interoperate transparently with rmw_zenoh_cpp nodes over the same Zenoh router.

Resources