What's the best UML diagramming tool? [closed]

Question

I'm trying to choose a tool for creating UML diagrams of all flavours. Usability is a major criteria for me, but I'd still take more power with a steeper learning curve and be happy. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but I'd be willing to pay if the tool's worth it. What should I be using?

Answer 1

I can't believe no one has mentioned NetBeans UML Editor, it's great and satisfied all of my Java based UML requirments.

This after I tested JDeveloper UML, ArgoUML and StarUML.

Answer 2

For me it's Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems. A very rounded UML tool for a very reasonable price.

Very strong feature list including: integrated project management, baselining, export/import (including export to html), documentation generation from the model, various templates (Zachman, TOGAF, etc.), IDE plugins, code generation (with IDE plugins available for Visual Studio, Eclipse & others), automation API - the list goes on.

Oh yeah, don't forget support for source control directly from inside the tool (SVN, CVS, TFS & SCC).

I would also stay away from Visio - you only get diagrams, not a model. Rename a class in one place in a UML modelling tool and you rename in all places. This is not the case in Visio!

Answer 3

I haven't been able to find a top-notch free UML diagramming tool, but if you're interested in pure diagramming, as opposed to round-trip-engineering, I'd go with Microsoft Visio. If you want full round-trip engineering, Rational Rose.

This list of UML tools on Wikipedia might also come in handy.

Answer 4

I recently conducted a poll "What UML Tools do you use?" in my blog. NetBeans UML was was the top opensource choice and Enterprise Architect was the top commercial choice.

Answer 5

For sequence diagrams, only, try websequencediagrams.com. It's a freemium (free for the basic tasks, paid for advanced features) product, and lets you quickly bang out a diagram without any fussing around with lines and stencils.

Alice->Bob: Authentication Request
note left of Bob: Bob thinks about it
Bob->Alice: Authentication Response

Answer 6

You may be looking for an automated tool that will automatically generate a lot of stuff for you. But here's a free, generally powerful diagramming tool useful not only for UML but for all kinds of diagramming tasks. It accepts as input and outputs to a wide variety of commonly used file formats. It's called yEd, and it's worth a look