Noncommercial Software for Mixed-Integer Linear Programming

We present an overview of noncommercial software tools for the solution of mixed-integer linear programs (MILPs). We first review solution methodologies for MILPs and then present an overview of the available software, including detailed descriptions of eight software packages available under open-source or other noncommercial licenses. Each package is categorized as a black-box solver, a callable library, a solver framework, or some combination of these. The distinguishing features of all eight packages are described. The paper concludes with case studies that illustrate the use of two of the solver frameworks to develop custom solvers for specific problem classes and with benchmarking of the six black-box solvers.