Main technical features and functionalities
Implementation language: Java, Scala

System:
- Free, open-source
- Cross-platform: runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, et al.

Programming:
- Fully programmable
- Approachable syntax based on Java

Environment:
NetLogo offers a “Command center” for on-the-fly interaction and an interface builder that allows to change models’ variables in the most suitable way for users, giving them the opportunity to adopt buttons, sliders, switches, choosers, monitors, text boxes, notes and an output area. The simulations can be shared on the “HubNet”, allowing to collaborate remotely on the same project. The software also includes the “BehaviorSpace”, an open-source tool used to collect data from multiple parallel runs of a model and compare the results. In order to simplify the understanding of models, the software allows to visualize them in 2D or 3D. Finally, controlling the NetLogo’s application programming interface (API) users can embed the software in a script or application, integrating its function in different projects.

Taking into account its approachable language, its flexibility both in models’ programming and visualization, NetLogo is quite easy to use and it represents one of the best solutions for students and beginners in any field of study related to complex systems.

Examples on how to use them to analyse Complex Systems
NetLogo is one of the most common and simple solutions for modelling system dynamics. The software is completely open source and it provides a quite large library of sample models, such as:

- Wolf Sheep Predation, a model that explores the stability of predator-prey ecosystems;
- Honeycomb, which illustrates one possible explanation on how bees build their honeycombs out of perfect hexagons;
- Rebellion, a model based on Joshua Epstein’s conceptualization of civil violence (2002), showing how population’s grievance and risk perception contribute to the break out of civil disobedience;
- Flocking, which attempts to present the flocking of birds as an emergent behavior of multiple agents following the same set of rules.

NetLogo can be easily used to elaborate agent-based models, analyzing emergent behaviors and complex path in the social and natural sciences. The examples illustrated above are just a few of the countless models that can be built with NetLogo, which has been used for studies in the fields of management (arXiv:1905.08041), social network studies (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/2016/ZhuoChen_Thesis.pdf), political science (arXiv:1908.06883) and many more.