Buying guide
da Vinci (and Ion) vs Mako in 2026
Comparing 2 humanoid robots across availability, pricing, capabilities, and verified deployments. Current as of 2026.
| Attribute | No image on file | No image on file |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Intuitive Surgical | Stryker |
| Form factor | surgical | surgical |
| Maturity | production | commercial |
| Availability | internal-onlyenterprise | internal-onlyenterprise |
| Price | Not announced | Not announced |
| Capability claims | — | — |
| Brain | — | — |
| Verified deployments | 3 | 2United Kingdom, United States |
| Privacy practices | — | — |
| Sources on file | 13 | 13 |
Editorial summaries
da Vinci (and Ion)
Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci is the gold-standard surgical robot and the verified-at-scale anchor of the category. Per Intuitive's SEC filings, 11,395 da Vinci systems and 1,041 Ion endoluminal systems are installed. The lineup spans da Vinci multi-port (X/Xi), the single-port SP, and the fifth-generation da Vinci 5 (FDA cleared March 2024, with force feedback), plus the Ion bronchoscopy robot (FDA 2019). It is teleoperated, a surgeon controls every motion, with shipped analytics AI; autonomous-suturing work exists only as research demos on da Vinci hardware, not as shipped product. It is enterprise B2B equipment sold to hospitals at multi-million-dollar per-system prices; there is no consumer price.
Mako
Stryker's Mako (Mako SmartRobotics) is a surgeon-guided robotic arm for orthopedic joint replacement and the large-footprint, CT-based, multi-procedure archetype of DEPLOY's orthopedic surgical sub-cohort. It pairs CT-based 3D pre-operative planning with intra-operative haptic boundary control (AccuStop physically constrains the saw or burr to the planned resection zone) and real-time optical bone tracking. Critically, it is AI-augmented but surgeon-controlled, not autonomous: the surgeon holds and guides the arm and makes every cut; the robot does not move or cut on its own, the same assistive class as Intuitive's da Vinci. Cleared procedures span partial and total knee (total knee August 2015), cementless total knee, total hip and a hip-revision feature, Mako Spine (510(k) K241517, May 2024, pedicle-screw placement) and Mako Shoulder 1.0 (510(k) K242373, November 2024, reverse shoulder arthroplasty). Sold in 45-plus countries by Stryker (NYSE: SYK). Cap-flag: Stryker frames itself in SEC filings as one of four leading global competitors, not a specific market-share percentage; aggregator share figures are not verified. As enterprise B2B surgical equipment, there is no consumer price.
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