AirSim

What it is

AirSim is an open-source simulator designed for autonomous vehicles, developed by Microsoft AI & Research. It supports both Unreal Engine and Unity, providing a realistic environment for testing and developing AI models for drones and self-driving cars. The tool is written in C++ and is platform-independent, making it suitable for various research and development purposes. With a strong focus on deep reinforcement learning and computer vision, AirSim facilitates the simulation of complex control systems and autonomous navigation scenarios.

Combines Unreal Engine's realism with open-source flexibility for autonomous vehicle simulation.

When it fits — and when it doesn’t

Known weaknesses

Each one links to the public issue, changelog or docs page it came from, where we have one.

1. 01

   High number of open issues

   780 open issues on GitHub

2. 02

   Complex setup for beginners

   Requires knowledge of Unreal Engine and C++

3. 03

   No official support or license

   License field marked as NOASSERTION

4. 04

   Limited documentation

   User reports and GitHub discussions

What it does well

• Realistic simulation environments

  Built on Unreal Engine

• Open source and community-driven

  High number of contributors and stars on GitHub

• Supports both Unreal Engine and Unity

  Documentation and codebase support both platforms

• Focus on deep reinforcement learning

  Integration with deep learning frameworks

• Platform-independent

  Runs on multiple operating systems

Pricing

Free tier

Yes

Paid from

—

Model

N/A

Enterprise plan

No

Pricing last confirmed Oct 4, 2026.