Comparison of code generation tools

List of tools

Product	Creator	Platform	First public release	Latest stable version	Date of the latest stable version	Software license
Acceleo	Obeo	cross-platform (Java / Eclipse)	2006	3.7.7	2018-12-04	Eclipse Public
actifsource	actifsource GmbH	cross-platform (Java / Eclipse)		10.12.0	2021-02-22	Proprietary
DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit	Semantic Designs	Windows	2001	2.0		Proprietary
DRAKON	Stepan Mitkin	cross-platform (Tcl/Tk)	2011	1.27	2016-03-10	Free
GeneXus	GeneXus	Cross Platform (multiple)	1991	v17		Proprietary
Genshi (templating language)	Edgewall Software	cross-platform (Python)	2006-08-03	0.5.1	2008-07-09
Jinja (Template engine)	Pocoo team	cross-platform (Python)		2.1.1		BSD
Kid (templating language)	Ryan Tomayko	cross-platform (Python)		0.9.6	2006-12-20
Mako	Michael Bayer	cross-platform (Python)		1.1.2	2020-03-01	MIT License
MATLAB	The MathWorks, Inc.	Windows, macOS, Linux	1984	9.5	2018-09-12	Proprietary
M-Power	mrc	cross-platform (Java)	2004			Proprietary
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch	Microsoft	Windows	2011		2011-07-26	Proprietary
OpenMDX		cross-platform (Java)	2004-01-28	2.4	2009-03-26	BSD
Scriptcase	Scriptcase Corp.	PHP Unix, Linux, Windows, iOS	2000	9.7	2022-04-13	Proprietary
T4	Microsoft	Windows	2005		2010	MIT License
Umple	University of Ottawa	cross-platform (Java)	2010	1.35.0	2024-10-11	MIT License
Velocity apache	Apache Software Foundation	cross-platform (Java)		1.6.2	2009-03-19	Apache License 2.0
WaveMaker	WaveMaker Inc.	cross platform (aPaaS)	2003	10.0.3		Proprietary

Technical features

Name	Implementation Language	Active; Passive ^[1]	Model^[1]	Typical input	Other input	Typical output
Acceleo	Java	Active	Tier	User-defined EMF based models (UML, Ecore, user defined metamodels)	Any EMF based input (Xtext DSLs, GMF graphical models, etc.)	Any textual language.
actifsource	Java	Active	Tier	User-defined Models	Import from UML, Ecore.	Any textual language.
DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit	Several code generation DSLs (attribute grammars, tree patterns, source-to-source rewrites)	Active	DSLs represented as abstract syntax trees	DSL instance	Well-formed output language code fragments	Any programming language (proven for C, C++, Java, C#, PHP, COBOL)
gSOAP	C / C++			WSDL specifications		C / C++ code that can be used to communicate with WebServices. XML with the definitions obtained.
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch	C# / VB.NET	Active	Tier	Database schema		Complete Silverlight application (Desktop or Web)
Pro*C			Inline	SQL in C		C
Scriptcase	PHP, JavaScript	Active	Tier	Complete application (Web/Mobile) and build or use the database schema	PHP, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax,	Full Web application ready to use (PHP and Javascript) with Interface layer, service layer, PHP, CSS. etc. and Database scripts to apply.
Spring Roo	Java	Active	Tier	Java and automatically introspected project metadata	Shell commands	Java (Full Web Application including Java source, AspectJ source, XML, JSP, Spring application contexts, build tools, property files, etc.)
T4		Passive		T4 Template/Text File		Any text format such as XML, XAML, C# files or just plain text files.
Umple	Umple, Java, Javascript, PHP	Active	Tier	Umple code embedding one or more of Java, Python, C++, PHP or Ruby	Pure Umple code describing associations, patterns, state machines, etc.	Java, Python, C++, PHP, Ruby, ECcore, Umlet, Yuml, Textuml, JSON, Papyrus XMI, USE, NuXMV, Alloy
Velocity apache	Java	Passive ^[2]	Tier	Templates	Java driver code	Any text
Yii2 Gii	PHP	Active	Tier	Database schema, user input, source code		Skeleton application, CRUD applications