Background
I have decided to write this article for college undergraduate, small sized company that would like to have free UML modeling tool that is required for software design. I believe that comparison is not enough as it is but you need always to specify the context you are doing the comparison for, and usually comparison factors have different weights to each one.Context
Low budget company or student who would like to have tool for drawing UML diagrams to the latest specs as much as possible, also being able generate documentation for the tool viewable by other colleges or having a viewer for its diagrams. Code generation will be very good option, but mainly sharing the design as images to be able to communicate it to others is the most important.| Modelio | Papyrus | Astah | |
| Supported UML version | Yes, 2.4.1 | Yes, 2.5 | 2.1 to 2.5 based on user request. |
| Use-case diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Class diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Object diagram | Yes | Yes, as variation of class diagram, refer to this forum thread. | Yes |
| Sequence diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Collaboration / Communication diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| State diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Package diagram | Yes, through class diagram. | Yes | Yes |
| Component diagram | Yes, through class diagram. | Yes | Yes |
| Activity diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export diagram to image | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Publish to Web (Export to HTML) | Yes, free edition Web Model Publisher. | Not by itself, need either modeling gendoc or BIRT, based on this thread. Quite complex. | Yes, professional version |
| Publish to rtf or doc | Yes, professional edition, Document Publisher, but expensive 400 Euro. | Not by itself, need either modeling gendoc or BIRT, based on this thread. Quite complex. | Yes, professional version |
| Based on Standard IDE | Eclipse RCP framework | Eclipse | No, seems Java based product only. |
| UML to code generation (Languages) | Yes (Java) | Yes (Java, C/C++, ADA) | Yes (Java, C++, C#), but professional version only. |
| Reverse Engineer code to UML | Yes (Java) | Yes (Java) | Yes (Java), but professional version only |
| Model checking (Pre-defined/Customizable) | -- TODO -- | -- TODO -- | -- TODO -- |
| Model checking (While saving/On Demand) | -- TODO -- | -- TODO -- | -- TODO -- |
| XMI version (Import & Export) | Yes, OMG UML 2.1.1 -> 2.4.1 (From Preferences -> XMI) | Yes, 2.1 | Yes, but for professional version only |
| Started since | 2009 | 2008 | 1999 as JUDE, and renamed to Astah 2009 |
| Release activity | Major release every 1.5 or 2 years
Bug fix release: around 4 per year. |
1 Major release is planned across 1 year, minor releases are quite few. | No major release since 2009, but most of minor releases has new features, and around 2 - 5 minor releases per year. |
| Latest release & date | v3.1.2 (2014-05-20) | v1.0.0 (2014-06-25) | v2.8 (2014-02-13) |
| Has Enterprise version for future upgrade. | Yes | No | Yes |
| Forum activity | Between low and average | Above average | Between low and average |
| Extendable and marketplace | Yes | Extendable but not marketplace. | Yes |
| Integration with Atlassian Confluence | No | No | Yes, for server edition free, not available for cloud |
| Windows installer | Yes | Yes, eclipse based just as update | Yes |
| Mac OS installer | Yes, instruction here. | Yes, eclipse based just as update | No |
| Linux installer | Yes | Yes, eclipse based just as update | No |
| iPad version | No | No | Yes, iOS 8 |
| Download link | here, around 200 MB | here, around 330 MB for Eclipse Modeling Tools, then papyrus 94 MB. | here, around 60 MB |
| Youtube channel | ModelioCommunity | Papyrus Eclipse | ChangeVision Astah |
| General comment |
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Conclusion
I have decided to use Modelio for the moment and will keep posting feedback to the page.For anyone viewing this blogpost, take the above table as a base and add whatever factors you would like to have in the tool, and complete the comparison and decide for yourself, I believe the above list contains the best free UML tools as by the time of writing this blogpost.I'm open for discussion and feedback.
Discarded Products
Product name
|
Reason for disqualification
|
|---|---|
| Visual Paradigm - community edition | Community is full featured but limited to one diagram per diagram type. |
| Argo UML | Not maintained since 2011. |
| BOUML | It became licensed software. |
| TopCoder UML tool | Last activity in May 2013, after stopping around 3 years. |
| Gaphor | Only UML 2.0 support. |
| Dia | It seems not maintained anymore. |
| NClass | Not maintained since 2010 although its GUI is very good. |
| yEd | Supports only class diagram& object diagram. |
| Umbrello | Only UML 2.0 support. |
| Poseidon for UML community | Only UML 2.0 support. |
| Star UML 2 | Old version has lot of adaptation, but new version which seem complete re-write is still under development. It seems might be very good choice in near future |