Link homology theories are powerful generalizations of classical (and quantum) link polynomials, which are being studied from a variety of mathematical and physical viewpoints. Besides providing stronger invariants, these theories are often functorial under link cobordisms and carry additional topological information. The focus of this talk is on the Khovanov-Rozansky homologies, which categorify the Chern-Simons/Reshetikhin-Turaev $\mathfrak{sl}(N)$ link invariants and their large $N$ limits. I will survey recent results about their behaviour under deformations as well as their stability at large $N$, which together lead to a rigorous proof of a package of conjectures originating in string theory.