*Purpose: There are not many studies comparing robotic with laparoscopic living donor nephrectomies. Our aim was to report the outcomes of our initial experience with the robotic approach and to compare them with those of the laparoscopic approach.

*Methods: We included 72 hand-assisted laparoscopic and 15 robotic living donor nephrectomies of left kidneys with single blood vessels performed in our department within 1 year. We compared the two approaches regarding donor characteristics, operative characteristics, postoperative outcomes, quality of life and renal transplant outcomes.

*Results: The only statistically significant differences detected between the two groups were a slightly lower body mass index in the robotic group (23.5 vs 26.8, p=0.03), and a somewhat longer operative time by around half an hour (35 min) on average (p=0.006) and a somewhat longer warm ischaemia time by 2 min on average (p=0.001) in the robotic group. No other statistically significant differences were identified regarding the rest of the studied parameters, namely other donor characteristics, need for intraoperative blood transfusion, conversion to open procedure, postoperative complications (surgical site infections, complication severity, etc), reoperation rates, postoperative pain, hospital stay, readmission rates, quality of life after operation, and renal transplant outcomes (delayed graft function, 1-year graft survival, recipient creatinine at 1, 6 and 12 months).

*Conclusions: This cohort does not show a clear clinically meaningful advantage of one technique over the other.

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