A recent paper has conducted a comprehensive literature survey comparing 85 Agent-Based Modelling platforms and tools according to the easy of development (simple-moderate-hard) as well as their capabilities (light-weight to extreme-scale). Via Danilo Freire (Twitter)
Abar, S. et al (2017). Agent Based Modelling and Simulation tools: A review of the state-of-art software. Computer Science Review. Volume 24, May 2017, Pages 13-33
Abstract:
The key intent of this work is to present a comprehensive comparative literature survey of the state-of-art in software agent-based computing technology and its incorporation within the modelling and simulation domain. The original contribution of this survey is two-fold: (1) Present a concise characterization of almost the entire spectrum of agent-based modelling and simulation tools, thereby highlighting the salient features, merits, and shortcomings of such multi-faceted application software; this article covers eighty five agent-based toolkits that may assist the system designers and developers with common tasks, such as constructing agent-based models and portraying the real-time simulation outputs in tabular/graphical formats and visual recordings. (2) Provide a usable reference that aids engineers, researchers, learners and academicians in readily selecting an appropriate agent-based modelling and simulation toolkit for designing and developing their system models and prototypes, cognizant of both their expertise and those requirements of their application domain. In a nutshell, a significant synthesis of Agent Based Modelling and Simulation (ABMS) resources has been performed in this review that stimulates further investigation into this topic.
By the way, one of the large-scale models that is relatively easy to use is the UrbanSim model, developed by Paul Waddell's team at Berkeley and which is freely available on GitHub. MATSim scales well with really large simulations and it's also open-source available on GitHub.
click on the image to enlarge it or go read the paper :)
