The Evolution of Agent-based Simulation Platforms: A Review of NetLogo 5.0 and ReLogo

We review and evaluate two recently evolved agent-based simulation platforms: version 5.0 of NetLogo and the ReLogo component of Repast. Subsequent to the similar review we published in 2006, NetLogo has evolved into a powerful platform for scientific modeling while retaining its basic conceptual design, ease of use, and excellent documentation. ReLogo evolved both from NetLogo and Repast; it implements NetLogo’s basic design and its primitives in the Groovy programming language embedded in the Eclipse development environment, and provides access to the Repast library. We implemented the “StupidModel” series of 16 pseudo-models in both platforms; these codes contain many elements of basic agent-based models and can serve as templates for programming real models. ReLogo successfully reimplements much of NetLogo, and its translator was generally successful in converting NetLogo codes into ReLogo. Overall we found ReLogo considerably more challenging to use and a less productive development environment. Using ReLogo requires learning Groovy and Eclipse and becoming familiar with Repast’s complex organization; documentation and learning materials are far less abundant and mature than NetLogo’s. Though we did not investigate thoroughly, it is not clear what kinds of models could readily be implemented in ReLogo but not NetLogo. On average, NetLogo executed our example models approximately 20 times faster than ReLogo.