NetLogo

NetLogo is a programming language and editor for agent-based models, in which many simple actors follow rules and the interesting behaviour comes from their interaction.² Its vocabulary is its own: agents that move around the world are "turtles", the world is a grid of square "patches" they move over, and "links" are agents that connect two turtles.^4,5 A model has a Code tab and an Interface tab of buttons, sliders, switches, monitors and plots, so someone can change a setting and watch the result.⁵

Uri Wilensky created it at the Center for Connected Learning, and it is now developed at the NetLogo Center at Northwestern University.² The project says it is used in thousands of classrooms and in over 10,000 scientific publications.² Version 7.0.4 was released in May 2026 and the code is still actively worked on.^3,6 There is a desktop program and NetLogo Web, which runs in a browser, plus the Modeling Commons for sharing models, a forum, and an introductory textbook by Wilensky, An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling, from MIT Press.^1,2,3

For people modelling a place, NetLogo is a quick way to sketch how something spreads among people and to show the idea to others before building a larger model. GAMA is built around maps and geography from the start, and Mesa does the same job in Python. The source is on GitHub under GPL-2.0.³