Solving the Shortest Path Problem (4) – Comparison of LEMON and BGL

In the previous articles I explained the usage of the APIs of LEMON and Boost Graph Library (BGL). Now I want to sum up the differences of them. Of course this is very opinion-based.

1. Simplicity

LEMON has despite its template mechanism a clean and realtively simple interface. A few algorithms have predefined default template parameters which cover standard use cases. For example the Dijkstra Shortest Path solver uses a binary heap as priority queue.  The map concept of storing additional data on graphs is not very friendly regarding usability but is a guarantee for performance, because the core component only has to look after its internal IDs and not after some additional graph data.

By contrast you cannot say that the Boost BGL looks simple at first glance. I found it harder to understand, but it has flexibility to adapt changes. Especially the property map concept may be familiar to regular Boost users, but if you are new to this it’s not really clear.

2. Flexibility

The API of LEMON is flexible enough to change the many parameters of graphs, algorithms or internal structures like the heap type. Unfortunately there is little documentation on these advanced operations.

What I liked working with the BGL was the bundled property mechanism where you can „inject“ your custom class and convert that to some node or arc property. I missed in BGL the ability to change the heap type for the shortest path dijkstra. A big plus in my opinion is the so called visitor concept in the BGL. You are able to specify a visitor that allows custom functions in a standard algorithm, e.g. stopping the execution of the dijkstra algorithm at a certain total distance. But again implementing this is not an easy task.

So this time it’s a draw.

3. Algorithms

Both of the two libraries offer a huge list of graph algorithms if you are not only interested in shortest path algorithms.

Again the score is even in my opinion.

So to sum these things up, I enjoy using LEMON more. But what about the performance? I will write an extra article about this.