I need to do some UML work and I'm sick of Visio, so I thought I'd look around the marketplace. JUDE looks good, so I thought I'd come here and see if there's any opinions of it on stackoverflow. Surprisingly (to me, at least) it doesn't even rate a mention in the What’s the best UML diagramming tool? question.
What's wrong with JUDE? Do you folks use it?
Once you get away from academic licensing, it looks like it's $300 for a license. To me, that's a little steep. For UML, you don't even need a tool - a whiteboard and camera (even a cell phone camera) works just as well as most tools, so I prefer free (StarUML is my choice, but there are a few out there).
We use Jude for simple UML diagramming, We don't do very extensive modeling or use any of the code generation features so we don't really stretch the tool very much. For the simple diagrams we do though we are quite happy with it.
It seems that the community edition of Jude can be used in commercial environments. From the JUDE FAQ:
Can I use JUDE/Community, the free version of JUDE, for commercial projects?
You can use the diagrams or skeleton codes created by JUDE/Community as long as you accept END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT. However, it is recommended to use non-free version, JUDE/Professional which includes customer support. (JUDE/Community has a restriction of the printing function, and JUDE logo will be printed on the printings.)
I have never used JUDE, but I think you should really give a try to Enterprise Architect that is what I use to make UML, reverse engineering, code generation, etc. There is a trial version on their website (http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/trial.html) and academic licensing is also available.