This is a list of software developed at universities including software, programming languages, operating systems, web browsers, computer graphics tools, database systems, scientific computing software, or machine learning frameworks that originated or are maintained by university research, students, or academic laboratories.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning ACT-R – cognitive architecture for modeling human cognition (Carnegie Mellon) AlexNet – influential convolutional neural network architecture for image recognition (Toronto) Apache MXNet – deep learning framework (University of Washington) Apache OpenNLP – natural language processing toolkit started by Edinburgh graduate students (Edinburgh) Automated Mathematician – artificial intelligence system for discovering mathematical concepts (Stanford) Caffe – deep learning framework (UC Berkeley) Cepheus – poker-playing artificial intelligence program (Alberta) Chinook – checkers-playing artificial intelligence program (Alberta) Claudico – artificial intelligence poker program (Carnegie Mellon) CMU Sphinx – speech recognition system (Carnegie Mellon) Dendral – early expert system for chemical analysis (Stanford) ELIZA – early natural-language processing chatbot (MIT) ELKI – data mining and clustering framework (LMU Munich) Eurisko – heuristic discovery and learning system (Carnegie Mellon and Stanford) GATE – natural language processing and text-mining framework (Sheffield) GraphLab – distributed machine learning and graph computation framework (Carnegie Mellon) HTK – hidden Markov model toolkit for speech recognition (Cambridge) INTERNIST-I – medical expert system for computer-assisted diagnosis (Pittsburgh) Kaldi – speech recognition toolkit started at a Johns Hopkins workshop (Johns Hopkins) KNIME – data analytics and machine learning platform (Konstanz) LIBSVM – support vector machine software library (National Taiwan University) Libratus – artificial intelligence poker program (Carnegie Mellon) MALLET – machine learning and natural language processing toolkit (UMass Amherst) Mamba – deep learning architecture for sequence modeling (Carnegie Mellon and Princeton) Massive Online Analysis – data stream mining and machine learning framework (Waikato) mlpack – machine learning software library (Georgia Tech) Moses – statistical machine translation system (Edinburgh) MovieLens – recommender-system research platform (Minnesota) MYCIN – medical expert system for diagnosing bacterial infections (Stanford) Natural Language Toolkit – natural language processing toolkit (Penn) Never-Ending Language Learning – semantic machine learning system (Carnegie Mellon) Open Mind Common Sense – commonsense artificial intelligence project (MIT) Orange – data mining and machine learning software suite (Ljubljana) PARRY – early natural-language chatbot (Stanford) Polaris – poker-playing artificial intelligence program (Alberta) RapidMiner – data science and machine learning platform originating as YALE (TU Dortmund) SGLang – structured generation and LLM serving framework (UC Berkeley, Stanford, Texas A&M, and more) SHRDLU – early natural-language understanding program (MIT) SNePS – knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system (Buffalo) Soar – cognitive architecture for artificial intelligence research (Carnegie Mellon) STUDENT – early natural-language artificial intelligence program for solving algebra word problems (MIT) Theano – numerical computation library for deep learning (Montréal) Torch – machine learning and scientific computing framework (EPFL and University of Geneva) U-Net – convolutional neural network architecture for image segmentation (Freiburg) vLLM – LLM inference and serving engine (UC Berkeley) Weka – machine learning software suite (Waikato) WordNet – lexical database used in natural language processing (Princeton) XGBoost – gradient-boosting machine learning framework (University of Washington)
Large language models Apertus – multilingual large language model (ETH Zurich, EPFL, and Swiss National Supercomputing Centre) Stanford Alpaca – instruction-following large language model based on LLaMA 7B (Stanford University) Vicuna – conversational LLM developed by LMSYS researchers (UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, UC San Diego, and MBZUAI)
Educational and visual programming environments Alice – educational programming environment (Virginia and Carnegie Mellon) BlueJ – educational Java development environment (Kent and Deakin) DrJava – lightweight Java development environment (Rice) DrRacket – graphical programming environment for Racket and Scheme (Rice, Northeastern, Utah, and more) Greenfoot – educational Java development environment (Kent and La Trobe) Karel – educational programming language for beginners (Stanford) Logo – educational programming language developed at BBN and (MIT) NetLogo – agent-based modeling language and environment (Northwestern) Processing – visual arts programming language and environment (MIT) Scratch – block-based educational programming language (MIT) ScratchJr – introductory visual programming language (Tufts and MIT) Snap! – block-based educational programming language (UC Berkeley) StarLogo – agent-based simulation language (MIT)
Programming languages Alice ML – functional programming language (Saarland) BCPL – systems programming language first implemented by Martin Richards (Cambridge) BLISS – systems programming language (Carnegie Mellon) Charm++ – parallel programming language and runtime system (Illinois) ChucK – strongly timed audio programming language (Princeton) Cilk – multithreaded parallel programming language (MIT) Clean – purely functional programming language (Radboud) CLU – programming language with abstract data types (MIT) CMU Common Lisp – Common Lisp implementation (Carnegie Mellon) Dartmouth BASIC – programming language developed at Dartmouth College (Dartmouth) Elm – functional language for web interfaces originating from a Harvard thesis (Harvard) Euclid – imperative programming language (Toronto) Euphoria – programming language developed from a Toronto graduate project (Toronto) Futhark – data-parallel functional programming language (Copenhagen) Hope – functional programming language (Edinburgh) Icon – high-level programming language (Arizona) Idris – dependently typed functional programming language (St Andrews) Janus – reversible imperative programming language first written at Caltech (Caltech) Julia – high-performance programming language for technical computing (MIT) Lisp – programming language family created for artificial intelligence research (MIT) Lua – scripting language for application software (Rio de Janeiro) MATLAB – numerical computing environment with origins at University of New Mexico and Stanford (New Mexico and Stanford) Mercury – functional logic programming language (Melbourne) Miranda – lazy functional programming language (Kent) MIT/GNU Scheme – implementation of the Scheme programming language (MIT) ML – functional programming language developed for theorem proving (Edinburgh) Modula-2 – systems programming language (ETH Zurich) NESL – nested data-parallel programming language (Carnegie Mellon) Nyquist – sound synthesis and composition language (Carnegie Mellon) Oberon – systems programming language (ETH Zurich) Oz – multiparadigm programming language (UCLouvain) Pascal – structured programming language (ETH Zurich) Prolog – logic programming language (Aix-Marseille) R – statistical computing language and environment (Auckland) Racket – general-purpose programming language originally created by the PLT research group (Northeastern, Utah, and more) S/SL – syntax and semantic language (Toronto) Scheme – Lisp-family programming language (MIT) Tcl – scripting language created at UC Berkeley (UC Berkeley) Turing – educational programming language (Toronto) Ur – functional programming language for web applications (MIT)
Compilers and software development tools Amsterdam Compiler Kit – portable compiler suite and toolchain (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) ANTLR – parser generator originating from the Purdue Compiler Construction Tool Set (Purdue) Berkeley Yacc – parser generator originating from doctoral research (UC Berkeley) Concurrent Versions System – version-control system originally developed at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Glasgow Haskell Compiler – compiler for the Haskell programming language (Glasgow) LLVM – compiler infrastructure project (Illinois) NetBeans – integrated development environment originating as a student project (Charles University) Revision Control System – early version-control system (Purdue) SableCC – compiler and parser generator originating as a graduate research project (McGill) SPIM – MIPS simulator for teaching assembly language (Wisconsin) Standard ML of New Jersey – compiler and IDE for Standard ML (Princeton and Bell Labs) WATBOL – educational COBOL compiler (Waterloo) WATFIV – educational FORTRAN compiler system (Waterloo) WATIAC – assembly-language teaching system (Waterloo)
Text editors ECCE – text editor designed at the (Edinburgh) Emacs – extensible text editor family originating at the MIT AI Lab (MIT) ex – line editor that evolved into vi (UC Berkeley) Lapis – experimental text editor and web browser developed at MIT nvi – free implementation of vi for BSD systems (UC Berkeley) Pico – text editor from the Pine email software project (Washington) TECO – text editor and programming environment associated with MIT time-sharing systems (MIT) vi – screen-oriented text editor created for BSD Unix (UC Berkeley)
Databases, data management, and distributed storage Alluxio – virtual distributed file system originally named Tachyon (UC Berkeley) Apache Flink – stream-processing framework originating from the Stratosphere project (TU Berlin) Apache Mesos – cluster resource-management framework (UC Berkeley) Apache Spark – data analytics and cluster-computing engine (UC Berkeley) Berkeley DB – embedded key-value database library (UC Berkeley) C-Store – column-oriented database management system (Brown, Brandeis, MIT, and UMass Boston) Ceph – distributed object, block, and file storage platform (UC Santa Cruz) Chord – peer-to-peer distributed hash table protocol (MIT) Dataverse – research data repository software (Harvard) Ingres – relational database system (UC Berkeley) InterMezzo – distributed file system started from the Coda project (Carnegie Mellon) Mimer SQL – relational database system originating as a research project (Uppsala) PostgreSQL – object-relational database system (UC Berkeley) Transbase – relational database management system originating at TUM
Computer graphics, visualization, and image editing 3D Slicer – medical image analysis and scientific visualization software (MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital) BumpTop – 3D desktop environment (Toronto) Coot – molecular-graphics model-building software (York) FITS Liberator – astronomical FITS image-processing software developed with Caltech/IPAC (Caltech) GIMP – raster graphics editor started as a UC Berkeley student project (UC Berkeley) Jmol – molecular visualization software originally developed at Notre Dame Matplotlib – plotting and data-visualization library originating from University of Chicago research (Chicago) Montage – astronomy image-mosaicking software toolkit (Caltech) Processing – creative coding language and environment (MIT) Sketchpad – pioneering interactive computer graphics program (MIT) UCSF Chimera – molecular visualization and analysis software (UCSF) Visual Molecular Dynamics – molecular visualization software (Illinois) VPython – Python-based 3D visualization environment (Carnegie Mellon)
Early personal-computing software PLATO – computer-assisted instruction system (Illinois)