Uml Tools

There are many tools for editing UML diagrams. I conducted a little comparison to find a good tool to use in a software engineering course in the Spring of 2000. This page lists requirements for good UML tools and reviews a number of existing tools. Since I put the page up I have had some requests from tool vendors to add a link to their tool. I have moved the page to the program-transformation.org wiki such that anyone can add to this page. Feel free to add more links and reviews by selecting the Edit link in the sidebar. -- EelcoVisser - 19 Nov 2001

Requirements for UML Tools

Functionality

• Diagram composition
  • Completeness: How much of UML is supported?
  • Can diagrams be layed out automatically? What is the quality of the automatic layout?
• Code generation
  • Is it possible to generate code from diagrams?
  • Which languages are covered?
• Reverse engineering
  • Is it possible to generate diagrams from existing code?
  • Which languages are covered? To what extent?
• Round-trip engineering
  • Is it possible to keep diagrams and code in sync?

Constraints

• Availability
  • Price
  • Student/academic edition
• Performance
  • Is drawing and manipulating diagrams realtime?
• Open
  • Can the tool be combined with other tools?
• Open source
  • Is it possible to improve and extend the tool?

Existing Tools

There are numerous tools for creating and manipulating UML diagrams. I have looked at a few of them

• Rational Rose
  • http://www.rational.com
  • developed by the designers of UML
  • not on Linux
  • expensive license
• Object Domain
  • http://www.objectdomain.com
  • implemented in Java (portable)
  • supports round-trip engineering
  • supports HTML documentation generation
  • affordable academic license ($95)
• ArgoUML^?
  • http://argouml.tigris.org
  • open source (free)
  • implemented in Java
  • fast
  • supports Java generation, but not reverse engineering
• TogetherSoft^?
  • http://www.togethersoft.com
  • expensive full edition, free whiteboard edition (only supports class diagrams)
  • implemented in Java
  • supports instaneous synchronisation between model and code
• Visual Paradigm for UML
  • http://www.visual-paradigm.com/vpuml.php
  • free community edition for non-commercial
  • well-tested on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX

The reviews above were conducted in the Spring of 2000 and might be out of date.

There are a number of other tools that I haven't had time for to look at:

• Artisan
  • http://www.artisansw.com
• GDPro from Advanced Software Technologies Inc.
  • http://www.embarcadero.com
• Object Techology Workbench
  • http://www.otwsoftware.com
• MinUML
  • http://www.minuml.com

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CategorySystem | Contributions by EelcoVisser