AdvantageScope is a desktop application for macOS (and other platforms) built specifically to visualize, replay, and analyze robot data logs generated during FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) matches and practice sessions.
What is AdvantageScope?
AdvantageScope is a purpose-built telemetry and log visualization tool for FRC robotics teams, turning the dense binary data produced by on-robot logging frameworks like WPILib's DataLogManager and AdvantageKit into interactive, scrubable timelines, 2D field overlays, and real-time dashboards. Think of it as the equivalent of a flight data recorder viewer — except the aircraft weighs 125 lbs, drives on a gymnasium floor, and has six weeks to go from CAD to competition.
I've spent weeks replaying match logs through it after events, and the experience is genuinely unlike anything else in the FRC toolchain. The multi-panel layout lets you layer a field map showing robot pose, a gyroscope readout, joystick inputs, and raw numerical signals all on the same scrub timeline — so you can pinpoint exactly why the autonomous routine drifted into the scoring zone at T+4.2 seconds rather than T+3.8.
What does AdvantageScope do best?
AdvantageScope's strongest suit is its synchronized, multi-view log replay — you can watch a 2D field visualization animate in lock-step with numerical plots, mechanism diagrams, and video feeds (if your robot recorded one), all scrubbing from the same timeline cursor.
- 2D field overlays: Official FRC field images are bundled per season; robot pose, vision targets, and trajectory waypoints render on top with accurate coordinate systems.
- Swerve drive visualization: Per-module speed and angle vectors display in real time — invaluable for diagnosing wheel slip or odometry drift without guessing from raw numbers alone.
- AdvantageKit deterministic replay: Teams running AdvantageKit can re-run their entire robot code against a recorded log in simulation, verifying that the same inputs would produce the same outputs — a remarkably powerful regression-testing workflow.
- Live connection: AdvantageScope connects directly to a running robot or simulator over NetworkTables, so you can use it as a real-time dashboard during development without waiting for a log file.
- Video sync: Match footage from a camera on your drive station can be synchronized with the log so you see mechanical behavior and code state simultaneously.
The signal search is fast and the tab system is flexible enough that I keep a half-dozen named presets — one for autonomous tuning, one for teleop driver feedback, one for post-match failure triage.
Is AdvantageScope free?
Yes — AdvantageScope is free and open-source, maintained by a community of FRC alumni and contributors on GitHub. There are no tiers, paywalls, or subscription fees.
It installs cleanly on macOS via Homebrew Cask (brew install --cask advantagescope), runs natively on Apple Silicon, and receives active updates aligned with each new FRC season's game and field assets. For a community-maintained specialist tool, the release cadence is impressively reliable.
Who should use AdvantageScope?
AdvantageScope is essential for any FRC team that takes software seriously — meaning any team that wants to understand why their robot behaved the way it did, rather than just watching match video and guessing.
It's particularly transformative for teams that have adopted WPILib's structured logging or AdvantageKit's deterministic architecture. Even teams on simpler code stacks benefit from the NetworkTables live view and the field pose overlay during pre-match calibration checks. Mentors reviewing post-match telemetry, student programmers debugging PID constants, and drive coaches studying path-following accuracy all have distinct use cases that the multi-tab layout accommodates without crowding.
If your team currently diagnoses robot behavior by staring at a Shuffleboard number box and arguing about what it means, AdvantageScope will feel like a revelation.
What are the best AdvantageScope alternatives?
Within FRC, the closest alternatives are Shuffleboard and SmartDashboard (both bundled with WPILib) — but these are primarily live dashboards with limited replay capability, not post-match forensic tools. Glass, WPILib's newer lightweight dashboard, supports some log playback and is worth knowing, but lacks AdvantageScope's visualization depth and synchronized multi-panel layout.
Outside FRC entirely, general-purpose time-series tools like Grafana or PlotJuggler can ingest robot data with some wrangling, but they carry no FRC-specific context — no field geometry, no swerve vectors, no season-matched assets. AdvantageScope's specialization is precisely what makes it irreplaceable rather than merely convenient.
