That’s why I was saying that these tools are more of an option for quick and dirty model sketches (for documentation or blueprints for early design discussions) more than a serious and deep modeling activity. Still, as you’ll see in the list below, the features, expressiveness, and robustness of such tools are rather limited in most cases. Both aspects represent a huge boost to the adoption of these tools. And programmers typically feel more comfortable with textual languages than with graphical ones.

The fact that UML models are stored as text simplifies their integration with a variety of tools (like version control systems) that programmers already use in their everyday work so there’s no need to learn/buy/install additional tools.

In fact, since most textual UML tools have an online editor, they are a jackpot for occasional modelers.īut why are text-to-UML tools so popular? The short answer is that textual modeling tools have a very low barrier to entry. Together with online modeling tools, they are the go-to option for all people looking for some kind of lightweight solution to draw some models. Indeed, the textual UML tools market is one of the fastest-growing segment in the UML tools market (based on my own perception of visitors’ interest). This category of textual modeling tools is also known as diagrams as code (for similar reasons as many model-driven tools are renaming themselves as low-code tools). Many of these textual modeling tools focus on UML but beyond text to UML, we have also text to ER, text to BPMN, text to architecture and even text to chatbot tools. A textual modeling tool supports the use of textual notations and languages to describe software models and automatically renders the corresponding graphical diagram from that textual description.

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