Astah*


Astah, formerly known as JUDE, is a UML modeling tool created by Japanese company Change Vision. JUDE received the "Software Product Of The Year 2006" prize, established by Information-Technology Promotion Agency in Japan.

Versions

JUDE/Community

The Community edition is free to use and offers the following functionality:

JUDE/Professional

JUDE/Professional is the product version of JUDE with all the features of JUDE/Community plus enhancements. It has features such as input-output and diagram creation guidance. It is suitable for business use, large-sized models, and document creation.
A 20-day free trial is available by obtaining an Evaluation License.
  • Merge JUDE Projects
  • UseCase Descriptions
  • UseCase Description Templates
  • Process Diagram
  • Model Input-Output function from/to XML
  • Mindmaps
  • ER diagram
JUDE/Professional began to support the part of diagrams' expressions of UML2.0 from version 3.0.
  • Frame
  • Navigable Association
  • Required Interface
  • Provided Interface
  • CombinedFragment
  • InteractionUse
  • FoundMessage
  • LostMessage
  • StateInvariant
  • Vertical and Horizontal Partitions
  • Component Diagram
  • Composite Structure Diagram
JUDE/Professional supports also ER diagram from version 3.2.

History

JUDE development was started by Kenji Hiranabe, CEO of Change Vision, Inc., in 1996.
JUDE was provided as a free software in 1999. Five years later JUDE started selling in the Japanese market. This decision came about because some UML modeling tools existed overseas but they were a bit high priced; and the company would get feedback from Japanese users and could evolve more if JUDE was released on the market.
The number of JUDE users was 120,000 as of October 30, 2006. In September 2009, JUDE was renamed to Astah after receiving concerns from German users who pointed out the product name was similar to the German word Jude, which refers to a male Jew.