OptaPlanner vs Hexaly
Explore the performance of Hexaly and OptaPlanner on problems like Routing, Scheduling, Sequencing, Packing, Clustering, Assignment, and more. The two solvers are compared to the state of the art on key performance metrics like speed and scalability.
Hexaly VS OptaPlanner
Check our benchmarks against OptaPlanner
Be sure you use the most powerful optimization technology to solve your problems.
Q&A
What is the difference between Hexaly and OptaPlanner?
OptaPlanner is a constraint solver available in Java, and compatible with other JVM languages, such as Kotlin and Scala.
Hexaly Optimizer is a new kind of global optimization solver. Based on nonlinear and set modeling constructs, Hexaly leverages algorithmic techniques from the research than traditional solvers cannot leverage out of the box, like Column Generation and Local Search.
Is the Hexaly suite of products similar to OptaPlanner’s?
OptaPlanner is one product only: a constraint solver for Java and JVM languages.
Hexaly’s core product is Hexaly Optimizer. Because solving is not the only challenge faced by developers, Hexaly offers a complete platform to prototype, develop, and deploy optimization apps in the cloud in weeks, not months: Hexaly Studio, Modeler, and Cloud.
Do I have to use @PlanningEntity and @PlanningSolution annotations when modeling with Hexaly, as I do with OptaPlanner?
Hexaly’s mathematical modeling formalism is very general, nonlinear and set-oriented. You model your business problems using common mathematical operators like Min, Max, And, Or, If-Then-Else. You can write polynomial, exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric expressions.
Hexaly supports Black-Box Optimization: you can define your own math operator as a piece of code; this way you can easily mix Simulation or Machine Learning with Mathematical Optimization.
For discrete problems, you can use Set, List, Interval variables and related algebraic operators to model compactly, on the contrary to the traditional Boolean or integer modeling approach.
Also, Hexaly natively supports lexicographic-ordered multiobjective optimization.
Does Hexaly outperform OptaPlanner on all types of optimization problems?
We don’t claim Hexaly outperforms OptaPlanner on all problems. We have chosen problems related to Supply Chain and Workforce Management that are of interest to enterprises and for which solid scientific literature and results can be found publicly. Benchmarking requires a lot of time to be done seriously. This is a work in progress; new benchmarks will be published in the coming months related to different business domains.
Can I provide my OptaPlanner model to Hexaly?
Optaplanner is not a mathematical solver, and thus is not compatible with Hexaly. Hexaly’s richer, higher-level modeling interface is nonlinear and set-oriented. To benefit from the speed and scalability gains exposed in the benchmark above, you must remodel your problem by following Hexaly’s best modeling practices. This is easy: you can find many Hexaly modeling examples online and our team will be happy to help if you have any questions.
Optaplanner supports only Java and JVM languages. Hexaly offers very friendly and intuitive Python, Java, C#, and C++ modeling APIs compatible with any hardware, operating system, and cloud environment.
How does Hexaly’s technical support compare to OptaPlanner’s?
OptaPlanner’s development has stopped in 2023.
At Hexaly, the support is done by the people who develop Hexaly Optimizer. In addition to mastering the solver technicalities, Hexaly’s developers regularly have to solve industrial optimization problems in business contexts. As a result, they know very well how to model and solve business problems to make business users happy. They will guide you in the Hexaly documentation, answer your questions, and review your Hexaly model so to ensure it matches Hexaly best modeling practices and delivers the best performance.
Is Hexaly’s licensing and pricing model similar to OptaPlanner’s?
Before its development was halted, OptaPlanner’s business model was “open core”: you don’t pay for the product, this one is open source and free; you only pay for professional support and services. At Hexaly, we think that to build the world’s best mathematical optimization solver, we must have the most talented people worldwide for its development. This comes at a price, even if our users do not request professional support or services. Hexaly is an independent company and is proud to employ 40 amazing people working hard to make our solver better, every day.
Hexaly is on a mission to democratize mathematical optimization, as a scientific discipline and technology, so any organization can optimize its operations and anyone can do more with less. Therfore, contrarily to any other solver vendor, Hexaly offers a Unlimited license for a flat annual or quarterly price. Moreover, our prices are discounted for startups and SMEs and we offer all Hexaly products free of charge to students and academics. Check our pricing page for more details and contact us to answer any specific questions.
customer satisfaction is our top priority
Testimonials
Are you seeking a powerful optimization solver to handle complex problems like VRP, TSP, scheduling, and packing? Look no further than Hexaly Optimizer! I've been using it daily, and it's been an absolute blast. Not only is it lightning-fast and user-friendly, but it's also incredibly flexible and adaptable to your needs. With its intuitive studio, you can easily design use cases with less than 20 lines of code. So if you're looking for the fastest and most efficient optimization solver on the market, I highly recommend Hexaly. Try it out and see the results for yourself!
Creating a bridge between Model-Based Systems Engineering techniques and Operations research required an optimization solver combining accessibility and performance. Hexaly Optimizer was a great choice in this context: thanks to its natural mathematical formalism and fast transparent algorithms it is a strong support for the elaboration of optimized system architectures against multi-perspective constraints. I warmly thank the Hexaly team for its precious help regarding the constraints implementation.
I have worked with Hexaly Optimizer to solve several large-scale optimization projects in highly dynamic environments, where Hexaly Optimizer has proven instrumental in finding high-quality solutions within minutes to satisfy the needs for dynamic re-planning. I have found that the unique expressiveness of Hexaly’s modeling API and the highly knowledgeable support team makes Hexaly my go-to choice for complex optimization problems.
The innovative features of Hexaly Optimizer and its unique modeling formalism have allowed us to solve numerous problems for which we could not find satisfying solutions with MIP solvers. Hexaly Optimizer’s performance greatly surpasses our expectations on the TSP, matching, and facility location problems we’re working on. In one year, we have optimized € 160 million with an average gain of 12%. Nikolas's reactive and precise support has greatly helped us move forward quickly on our projects.
We developed the Pasco supply chain optimization model using Hexaly Optimizer within a few days of work. Hexaly Optimizer provides outstanding solutions, as considered by Pasco planners, in just a few minutes of running times, while the number of variables is gigantic (tens of millions). We could not imagine such a feat being possible initially since state-of-the-art MIP solvers like CPLEX, Xpress, and Gurobi could not tackle the problem in hours. Now we know that using Hexaly, it's possible!
Preparing Fret SNCF train drivers’ schedules is a complex task involving many operational and regulatory constraints. To solve this highly combinatorial problem, we sought a solver capable of handling this complexity and providing high-quality solutions in short running times. Hexaly Optimizer was the best solver on the market for this task. It now allows us to compute new optimized plans every year and to adapt these schedules regularly to meet new requirements.
Solving this very rich routing problem required an optimization method that can handle many different constraints: being able to do that with a high-level declarative language like Hexaly Modeler made this task much easier. Hexaly Optimizer’s very quick modeling and solving times allowed us to run what-if analysis to inform potential fleet management decisions. Being able to solve the problem very quickly also enabled us to handle the stochastic nature of the problem with ease, running hundreds of scenarios in just a few minutes.
Ready to start?
Discover the ease of use and performance of Hexaly through a free 1-month trial.