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. -- Main.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* well-tested on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX The reviews above were conducted in the Spring of 2000 and might be out of date.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 ----- CategorySystem | Contributions by Main.EelcoVisser