A Qualitative Comparison of Open Access Discrete Event Simulation Libraries

Discrete Event Simulation allows the evaluation of systems that couldn’t be tested in the real world. Among the ways of implementing simulation models one finds simulation libraries. There are many simulation libraries available for the general public, some application- oriented like the ones dedicated to network simulation, while some are more generalist. This work compares four open-source libraries: SimPy, ConcurrentSim, DESMO-J and SMPL. We collected quantitative data regarding the computational performance of the libraries and qualitative data about software quality. The tests used models were generated from previous models implemented in SMPL and the measurements were performed using static metrics assisted by scripts and open-source tools. The tests used two system models and the results indicated that SMPL performed better, while ConcurrentSim and SimPy models are more readable. In general, the quantitative data can be useful for students, researchers, and companies that may use one of the tested libraries.