The agent-based modeling (ABM) community has developed several practical agent based modeling toolkits that enable individuals to develop agent-based applications. More and more such toolkits are coming into existence, and each toolkit has a variety of characteristics. Several individuals have made attempts to compare toolkits to each other (e.g. ). Below is a chart providing an overview of platforms that have their own Wikipedia page and is intended to capture many of the features that are important to ABM toolkit users.
Comparison of ABM software
+ Agent Based Modeling Toolkit Comparison Supporting Organization License Programming Language Operating System GIS Capabilities 3D Capabilities Last Update Altreva; Utrecht, Netherlands ; free evaluation version available for research and experimentation (some limitations but no expiration) No programming skills required. An adaptive form of genetic programming is used to create trading rules. Users can select functions to be used in the genetic programming engine. Windows Up to 3 agent properties can be visualized in real-time using 2D graphics and color (Version 1.6.0) The AnyLogic Company; Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, USA ; Free Personal Learning Edition available Java Linux, macOS, Windows : supports both tile maps from free online providers and shapefile-based maps (Version 8.7.7) Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland Depends on module: GPL/LGPL/Proprietary FramScript (similar to JavaScript) Cross-platform (version 5.3) History framsticks.com IRD/SU international research unit UMMISCO, France v3.0 GAML (GAma Modeling Language) for simulations, Java for extensions Windows; Linux; *nix; Mac OS X (version 2025.06.4) George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA (Academic Free License) Java Cross-platform (Version 20) Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA NetLogo Cross-platform (Version 7.0.4) Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago; Lemont, Illinois, USA Java (RepastS, RepastJ); Python (Repast4Py); Visual Basic, .Net, C++, J#, C# (Repast.net) Cross-platform (Version 2.11.0) John E. Laird, Clare Bates Congdon, Mazin Assanie, Nate Derbinsky and Joseph Xu; Division of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Soar 1 to 5 in Lisp; Soar 6 in C; Java, C++, TCL Cross-platform (Version 9.6.0) Mitchel Resnick, Eric Klopfer, and others at MIT Media Lab and The MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, MA, USA (closed source) – Clearthought Software License, Version 1.0 StarLogo (an extension of Logo) Cross-platform Swarm Development Group Java; Objective-C Cross-platform
References