Best alternatives to Toloka for robotics datasets (2026)
Answer in brief: The closest like-for-like alternative to Toloka's licensed catalog is Firsthand. It sells existing egocentric hours (10,585 validated) with a buyer-owned license and publishes its coverage gaps. For free teleoperation data, Scale AI's FineART has 40,543 bimanual episodes under CC BY 4.0. For new capture with audited provenance, choose Guardian AI. For free real-robot or simulated data, use DROID, Open X-Embodiment and NVIDIA's Physical AI datasets, but check each license.
Top pick alternative: Firsthand. A real, browsable egocentric catalog, ten streams on one clock, and a free sample pack you can download today.
This is independent research based on public pages as of 2026-11-09, with no hands-on testing. Toloka ranks #3 on our ranked list, so look at what it does well before switching: 25,000+ egocentric hours, 500+ UMI hours, teleoperation data, and samples in 24 hours.
How the alternatives compare
| Alternative | Data type | Size (published) | License | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firsthand | Egocentric, multi-stream | 10,585 validated h, 6 environments | Commercial, buyer-owned, perpetual | Per validated hour |
| Scale AI FineART | Bimanual teleoperation, subtask labels | 40,543 episodes, 1,718 h | CC BY 4.0 | Free |
| Scale AI Data Engine | Custom teleop and egocentric | 1,000+ h/day reach its platform (Scale's figure) | Contract | Enterprise |
| Guardian AI | Verified egocentric plus teleop | Captured to scope | Per program | Per finished hour |
| DROID | Real-robot manipulation | 76k trajectories, 350 h, 564 scenes | CC BY 4.0 | Free |
| Open X-Embodiment | Cross-embodiment robot data | 1M+ trajectories, 22 robots | Apache 2.0 code / CC BY 4.0 materials; check components | Free |
| NVIDIA Physical AI datasets | Sim and real robotics data | 27 robotics datasets (2026-11-09) | Mixed; 14 CC BY 4.0, 7 CC BY-NC 4.0 | Free |
| AgiBot World Beta | Large-scale robot trajectories | 1,003,672 trajectories, about 43.8 TB | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (non-commercial) | Free, gated |
Firsthand: the licensed-catalog rival
Where Toloka leads on household volume, Firsthand leads on work-site environments and signal depth. It carries 1,420 h of warehouse footage, 890 h of retail and 640 h of automotive service, delivered in RLDS, LeRobot or WebDataset. Exclusivity is available.
Scale AI: free flagship data, custom when you outgrow it
FineART loads with one line of LeRobot code and covers 151 tasks, including cable routing, tool use and precision insertion. When you need your own embodiment, Scale's Data Engine collects on bimanual robots, on its Scale Harness rig, or on your hardware.
Guardian AI: when provenance is the requirement
If your legal team won't sign off on unverified hours, Guardian ties every clip to a consented contributor and a signed capture. Each batch arrives with a QA report and per-clip manifests.
NVIDIA and the open-dataset route
NVIDIA's Hugging Face collection includes CC BY 4.0 sets such as GR00T-X-Embodiment-Sim and Manipulation-Kitchen. Several others in the collection are non-commercial. Pair them with Isaac Sim (free, Apache 2.0) to generate more.
When to pick which
- Same licensing model, richer streams: Firsthand.
- Free bimanual teleop with language: FineART.
- Audited new capture or remote teleop: Guardian AI.
- Research only, maximum scale: AgiBot World (non-commercial).
- Commercial and free: DROID, FineART, or the CC BY 4.0 NVIDIA sets.
FAQ
Is there a free alternative to Toloka's teleoperation data?
Yes. FineART (CC BY 4.0) and DROID (CC BY 4.0) are free robot-trajectory datasets.
Can I use AgiBot World in a product?
Not under its public license, which is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and prohibits commercial use.
Which alternative is closest for egocentric video?
Firsthand. Like Toloka, it sells existing egocentric hours, and it adds a buyer-owned license.
Keep exploring
Toloka review · Firsthand review · Scale AI review · Guardian AI review · NVIDIA Isaac Sim review · Toloka vs Firsthand · Open X-Embodiment vs DROID · Ranked list
Sources
- Toloka catalog
- Firsthand catalog
- FineART card
- Scale AI Physical AI
- Guardian AI
- NVIDIA Physical AI collection
- DROID docs
- AgiBot World README
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