Install umple with Homebrew, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• umple

Project history

The Umple project grew out of software-engineering research at the University of Ottawa. Its README states that it was first released in 2007, hosted on Google Code from 2011 to mid-2015, and moved to GitHub in 2015. The same official source describes Umple as developed largely by PhD, masters, undergraduate, and UCOSP contributors.

A distinctive part of Umple's history is self-hosting: the official README says Umple is developed in itself and that the current compiler is used to compile the project. That makes the package both a language implementation and one of its own main regression cases.

Adoption history

Official documentation presents Umple through several entry points: UmpleOnline, a downloadable command-line compiler, and integrated development environments. That mixture reflects its dual audience of modeling education/research users and developers who want a scriptable compiler.

Homebrew packages the `umple` executable, and the upstream GitHub project continues to publish releases, including the 1.37.0 release in 2026. In the package-manager niche, Umple is adopted less as a general-purpose language runtime and more as a specialized compiler for model-oriented programming experiments, coursework, and generated-code workflows.

How it is used

Umple files conventionally use the `.ump` extension. The manual describes using Umple to edit, view, compile, generate diagrams, and generate code in several languages; command-line use lets those generated artifacts be built from scripts or CI.

Package users typically install it so the `umple` command is available without manually downloading a jar or using the web application. That matters for reproducible examples, teaching material, and generated-code projects where the model source belongs under version control.

Why package nerds care

Umple is a niche but historically interesting package because it packages a research language as a normal CLI tool. It sits at the intersection of UML, code generation, and language tooling, which is exactly the kind of specialized compiler package that package nerds preserve even when mainstream adoption is modest.

Its self-hosting and long release history make it more than a one-off academic artifact: it is a maintained language implementation with a command-line surface that can be pinned, upgraded, and used in automated builds.

Timeline

• 2007: Umple first released, according to the official README.
• 2011: Project master moved to Google Code, according to the official README.
• 2015: Project moved from Google Code to GitHub.
• 2026: Upstream GitHub releases include Umple 1.37.0.

Related projects

• UmpleOnline is the official web application for experimenting with Umple models and diagrams.
• The project is related to UML, model-driven engineering, executable modeling, and generated-code workflows for languages such as Java, C++, PHP, Python, and Ruby as documented by the Umple manual.

Sources

• GitHub release metadata via `gh api repos/umple/umple/releases`
• https://cruise.umple.org/umple/UmpleUserManualCombined.html
• https://github.com/umple/umple/blob/master/README.md
• https://www.umple.org/
• source_facts.package-manager.brew