Software Systems E ngineering H. Eichelberger, Y. Eldogan, K. Schmid A Comprehensive Analysis of UML Tools, their Capabilities and their Compliance August 2011 Version 2.0 IfI Report Nr. 1/2012 Software Systems Engineering Institut für Informatik Universität Hildesheim Marienburger Platz 22 D-31134 Hildesheim A comprehensive survey of UML tool capabilities and compliance A comprehensive survey of UML tool capabilities and compliance Executive Summary The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has been widely adopted in software engineering prac- tice in industry over the last decade. A large range of different tools have been developed both from industrial providers as well as open source tools. However, due to the complexity of the UML specification it is very difficult for a single tool to support the full range of UML stand- ards faithfully. In practice tools differ significantly in terms of the parts of the UML specifica- tion they support. The decision of a development organization for a specific tool environment is a very significant one, which typically leads to a significant amount of costs (e.g., in terms of training), out of which the licensing costs, though significant, are often only a minor part. Thus, the tool needs to be chosen with very much care. As one aid towards a rational tool selection decision, this report provides the most comprehensive comparison of UML tools currently available. This study provides the most comprehensive assessment of the current tool support. It combines a detailed information collection effort for each individual tool, a broad range of tools analyzed and also analyzed UML compliance as defined by the OMG. Other tool evaluations often just list the provided types of UML diagrams without discussing the quality of the realization or focus on specific aspects, e.g. the evaluation approach itself or cross-tool compatibility without thoroughly considering the UML specification itself. The focus of this study is on the availability of the defined UML capabilities. This has been evaluated in a very comprehensive and detailed way for all UML tools that we found currently to be available and which are still supported. A detailed breakdown that relates for each identi- fied tool its capabilities to the diagram features defined by the UML enables a fast analysis re- garding the applicability of a tool for a specific development context. This study focuses mainly on the modeling support. Further aspects like usability, model export and interchange and code generation are also addressed, but take a second place in this analysis. In order to support the selection of tools, the UML already introduced the so-called UML com- pliance . This provides different compliance levels that can be used to categorize the UML capa- bilities of a tool according with respect to the standard. As part of our analysis, we also charac- terize the tools in terms of their UML standard compliance as defined by the OMG. As part of this study, we identified approximately 200 tools claiming UML modeling function- ality, out of which 72 were analyzed thoroughly, here as a reevaluation of updated or new tools one year after publishing the first edition in 2009 [12]. The remaining tools were not considered for evaluation due to technical reasons, e.g. the vendor or the tool do not exist anymore, the tool cannot be installed or no maintenance was done for the particular tool since the first version of UML 2 was published. In summary, only the result of 62 tools could be reported, as the licens- ing terms of four tools prohibited publication and we could not achieve (so far) an agreement with the tool providers. As a basis for the evaluation, the UML specification was decomposed into 540 features, each of which was individually evaluated for each of the tools. In this report we only report aggregated values. The full detail was too comprehensive to provide in written form. Thus, the full details per tool can be found at the corresponding web site. Keywords : tool capabilities, feature, UML, UML 2.0, UML compliance, UML modeling tools, tool evaluation, compliance level I A comprehensive survey of UML tool capabilities and compliance Disclaimer The authors have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the survey data and additional information (e.g. price, availability). However, no guarantee of accuracy, completeness or fit- ness for a particular purpose can be given. We do not accept any responsibility or liability in regard of the reliance on, or use of, such data and information. II Index Index Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... I Index III List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ VI List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. IX List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. X 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 2 Related Work ................................................................................................................... 4 3 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Collecting Tools for the Evaluation ................................................................................... 7 3.2 Evaluation Criteria ............................................................................................................. 7 3.3 Evaluation Procedure ....................................................................................................... 10 3.4 Data Aggregation ............................................................................................................. 13 3.5 Planning and Conducting the Evaluation ......................................................................... 13 4 UML Compliance ........................................................................................................... 15 4.1 Introduction to UML Compliance ................................................................................... 15 4.2 Object Constraint Language ............................................................................................ 16 4.3 Compliance Level Calculation ......................................................................................... 17 5 Findings per Tool ........................................................................................................... 19 5.1 Example Tool Characterization ....................................................................................... 23 5.2 Apollo by Gentleware ...................................................................................................... 26 5.3 Arcstyler by Interactive Objects ...................................................................................... 28 5.4 ArgoUML by University of California, Irvine ................................................................ 30 5.5 ARIS UML Designer by IDS Scheer ............................................................................... 32 5.6 Artisan Studio by ARTiSAN ........................................................................................... 34 5.7 Artiso VisualCASE by VisualCASE ............................................................................... 36 5.8 Astade by Astade Team at Tigris ..................................................................................... 38 5.9 Blueprint Software Modeler by @-portunity B.V. .......................................................... 40 5.10 BOUML by BOUML Team ............................................................................................ 42 5.11 Cacoo by Nulab Inc. ........................................................................................................ 44 5.12 Cadifra UML Editor by Adrian & Frank Buehlmann ...................................................... 46 5.13 Concept Draw by Computer Systems Odessa ................................................................. 48 5.14 Delphia Object Modeler by Atos Origin .......................................................................... 50 5.15 Dia by Alexander Larsson ............................................................................................... 52 III A comprehensive survey of UML tool capabilities and compliance 5.16 Eclipse UML by Eclipse.org ........................................................................................... 54 5.17 Enterprise Architect by Sparx Systems ........................................................................... 56 5.18 Essential Modeler by Jaczone ......................................................................................... 58 5.19 eUML2 Studio by Soyatec .............................................................................................. 60 5.20 Fujaba by Universities of Paderborn, Kassel, Siegen and Darmstadt ............................. 62 5.21 Gaphor by Gaphor Team at Sourceforge ........................................................................ 64 5.22 Gliffy by Gliffy, Inc. ....................................................................................................... 66 5.23 Green