Optimization Tools Help Learn more.

Many general purpose optimization tools have been developed for solving optimization problems in practice. These are typically called "solvers". This page includes pointers to solvers that are acceptable to use in the assessments of this course. They are organized by their underling solving technology. Some solvers are commercial products and may only be available after purchasing a license or acquiring an academic license via another institution.

It is important to note that these are general purpose optimization tools. They are not tailored to a specific problem. You cannot use solvers that are dedicated to solving a specific problem as this would violate the course guidelines on code sharing.

No particular solvers are officially suggested or supported by the course. However, we encourage you to help your fellow students in resolving technical issues relating to the use of specific solvers.

Lastly, generic optimization tools are fantastic for rapid prototyping of different optimization ideas and models. However, it will always be difficult for a general tool to outperform an algorithm that is dedicated to a particular problem. It is possible to get full credit in this course using generic solvers, but the highest quality solutions most often come from hand-crafted dedicated solvers.

Constraint Programming Solvers

  • CHOCO - java library, open source
  • Comet - binary, free for students
  • G12 - binary, free for students
  • Gecode - c++, free
  • ILog - binary, free with academic license

Mixed Integer Programming Solvers

  • BCP - c++, open source
  • CBC - c++, open source
  • CPlex - binary, free with academic license
  • GLPK - c, open source
  • gurobi - binary, free with academic license
  • LPSolve - c, open source
  • SCIP - binary, free for academic use

Linear Programming Solvers

Local Search Solvers

SAT Solvers

Hybrid Solvers

  • SCIP - binary, free for academic use
Created Tue 14 May 2013 4:05 AM CEST
Last Modified Tue 25 Jun 2013 2:19 AM CEST