Compared with other tools¶

One table, then what each tool is actually for. Measured against the code in this repository, not against the papers' claims.

At a glance¶

	OntoBoard	OntoEditor	OntoGraf	WebVOWL	WebProtégé	VSCode + ROBOT
Runs	Protégé plugin	Browser	Protégé plugin	Browser	Server	Editor + CLI
Draws a diagram	yes, editable	no	yes, read-only	yes, read-only	no	no
Edits the ontology	yes	yes, as text	no	no	yes	yes, as text
Unit of collaboration	axiom	character	—	—	revision	file
ODK project scaffolding	yes	no	no	no	no	by hand
ROBOT in-process	yes	no	no	no	no	as a CLI
Spreadsheet (ROBOT template) editing	yes	no	no	no	no	in a spreadsheet app
Pattern library	162 patterns	no	no	no	no	no
Reasoner	Protégé's	none	Protégé's	none	yes	by CLI
Needs a server	no	yes	no	no	yes	no

OntoEditor — browser text editor with live co-editing. Strong at: no lost keystrokes, one shareable link, GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket with no local git. Weak at: anything about meaning — it validates syntax only, and a converged document can be logically inconsistent.
OntoGraf — the diagram Protégé already ships. Strong at: zero setup, familiar. Weak at: read-only, no layout persistence, no export beyond a screenshot.
WebVOWL — a notation, not an editor. Strong at: one recognisable visual language. Weak at: no editing, no project.
WebProtégé — server-hosted Protégé with revisions and per-entity history. Strong at: audit and review at scale. Weak at: needs hosting; no ODK, no ROBOT pipeline, no diagram.
VSCode + ROBOT — what most ODK projects actually use. Strong at: the whole ROBOT pipeline, real git. Weak at: no diagram, no reasoner in the loop, every operation is a CLI round trip.

The ODK/ROBOT pipeline runs inside Protégé: templates, quality report, explain, measure, SPARQL, module extraction, release.
The canvas is editable and persistent — draw an arrow and it writes the axiom; the layout is saved beside the ontology.
Collaboration is axiom-level, so two people editing different axioms never interleave into a third axiom neither wrote. See Conflicts and concurrent editing.
A pattern library of 162 design patterns, each reasoned over and all but one with a worked example.

No browser version, so no zero-install demo. (why)
No character-level co-editing; a plugin does not own the text buffer.
No three-way merge or conflict resolution UI — and git conflicts are now refused rather than committed. See Conflicts and concurrent editing.
.xlsx is read-only; .tsv/.csv round-trip.
Not in Protégé's plugin registry yet.