Name: Drools
Rating: 7 (7 reviews)
Author: Open Source

Digital Adoption

Help Desk

Web and Video Conferencing

Customer Support

Augmented Reality Development

Bug  Tracking

Development

Business Intelligence (BI)

Collaboration

Environmental Health and Safety (EHS)

Visual Collaboration

Enterprise

Accounting

Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

Investor Relations

Revenue Management

Spend Management

Finance and Accounting

Applicant Tracking

Corporate Learning Management

HR Management

On-Demand Payment

Payroll

Resume Parsing

Succession Planning

Talent Intelligence

Talent Management

Workforce Analytics

Workforce Management

Human Resources

Cloud Storage

Component Content Management

Data Pipeline

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Fraud Detection

Hosted Virtual Desktop

Identity Governance and Administration

Industrial IoT

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

Interoperability

Managed File Transfer (MFT)

Managed Hosting

Monolithic Frame-based Disk Arrays

Network Performance Monitoring

Relational Database Management Systems

Security Awareness Training

Vulnerability Management

Information Technology

A/B Testing

Ad Serving & Retargeting

All-in-One Marketing

Content Management

Customer Journey Mapping

Digital Analytics

Email Marketing

Intent Data

Marketing Automation

Marketing Resource Management

Search Marketing Intelligence

Social Media Management

Survey & Forms Building

Tag Management

Web Analytics

Webinar

Marketing

Business Caller ID

Project Management

Prototyping

Professional Services

Call Recording

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Sales Email Tracking

Sales Intelligence

eCommerce

Sales

Operational Technology (OT) Security

Security

Computer-Aided Design (CAD)

Construction Accounting

Loan Servicing

Nonprofit Fundraising

Patient Engagement

Revenue Cycle Management (RCM)

Utilities

Vertical-Specific

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### Rule Engine Implementation
User opinions on Drools's rule engine implementation capabilities vary widely. While some users praise the engine for its ability to segregate business logic effectively and handle complex rule sets, others express concerns about the rigidity of the engine and the time it takes to refresh updates. The engine's support for defining rules with a user-friendly interface and its performance in handling dynamic business requirements receive positive feedback. However, challenges with exception handling and the learning curve associated with starting with Drools are highlighted as areas for improvement. Despite mixed opinions, Drools's rule engine implementation remains a valuable tool for projects requiring condition-based logic and frequent rule changes.

### Business Logic Management
Users consistently praise Drools for its efficient management of business logic. They highlight the ease of segregating and customizing business logic, making it simple to understand and manage. Drools's ability to handle complex rules without altering intricate logics has garnered positive feedback from users. The platform's capability to adapt to changing conditions and frequent logic modifications is seen as a significant advantage by reviewers. Additionally, the loose coupling it provides to applications is considered a valuable feature by those dealing with condition-based logic.

### Decision Making Support
Users generally find Drools's decision-making support functionality to be a strong asset. The reviews highlight the ease of plugging in the Java-based BRMS for decision-making based on facts, making it a powerful tool for handling complex business rules without altering intricate logics. While some users mention a learning curve with the syntax for creating rules, the overall consensus leans towards Drools providing effective decision-making support, especially in scenarios where user interaction or condition-based decisions are required within BPM tools. The performance, configurability of rules into decision tables, and extensibility to process management are noted as key strengths that users appreciate in their decision-making processes.

### Application Integration
Users consistently highlight Drools' application integration capabilities as a key strength, emphasizing its ease of integration and customization to meet specific requirements. The platform's ability to facilitate the separation of complex application logic has been particularly lauded by reviewers. Additionally, users recommend Drools for projects with condition-based logic or frequent logic changes, noting its effectiveness in providing loose coupling to applications. The integration of Drools with technologies like Kafka messaging queue for asynchronous processing has also been positively acknowledged.

### Exception Handling
Users generally find Drools' exception handling capabilities to be a point of contention. While some appreciate the efficiency and speed of event handling, others express concerns about the complexity and difficulty in dealing with exceptions, especially when working with the Drools Rule Engine. The need for better error handling and support for multiple objects is highlighted as areas for improvement. Despite the mixed opinions, there seems to be a consensus that further documentation and clarity on exception handling within Drools would greatly benefit users navigating through these challenges.

### Code Maintenance and Updates
Users generally praise Drools for its ability to isolate and manage business logic effectively, making code maintenance and updates more straightforward. However, some users have expressed concerns about the lack of robust community support, which could pose challenges for junior developers and those new to Business Rule Management Systems (BRMS). Despite this drawback, Drools still stands out for its capacity to streamline code maintenance and updates, particularly in scenarios with complex and frequently changing conditions.

Drools, with its customizable business logic, has empowered users to tailor software to meet the diverse needs of different clients. By leveraging Drools, users have been able to make informed decisions and take action based on user interactions and specific conditions within BPM tools. Additionally, the flexibility of Drools allows for seamless modification of business rules over time without the need for a complete rebuild. This has proven invaluable in creating object models and writing rules that closely resemble natural language, making it easier for users to understand and implement complex rule sets. Drools has also found success in various domains such as finance, where it has been utilized to apply discounts, rates, and interest calculations based on specific requirements. The ease of separating complex client billing rules from application logic using Drools has significantly improved code maintainability. Furthermore, Drools' integration into different systems like Hadoop ecosystems and change data capture applications demonstrates its capability in solving decision-making problems, cleaning up databases, and processing events efficiently. The multifaceted approach exemplified by Drools is also evident in network security where it manages complex data-driven rules and adapts to new business scenarios effortlessly. Overall, customers have praised Drools for its ability to manage logic without extensive coding knowledge while effectively evolving with new business challenges.

Easy to use and maintain: Several users have found Drools easy to use and maintain while developing their systems. They appreciate how it works well with Java, allowing for a seamless integration of business logic into the drool engine without extensive changes to the software.

Intuitive rule management: Many reviewers liked the ability to manage rules, versioning, and rest-based calls easily in Drools. They also found the user interface intuitive for creating and managing rules, including the option to make drl files. This feature simplifies the process of rule creation and maintenance.

Flexible runtime changes: Users appreciate the flexibility of making runtime changes in Drools without having to rebuild the code. This allows for quick adjustments according to changing business requirements without disrupting the system's functionality or performance.

Difficult to maintain with large number of rules: Some users have found the engine difficult to maintain as the number of rules grew, leading to potential challenges in managing and updating the rule set efficiently.

Lack of available information and resources: Users have mentioned a lack of available information and resources about the software, which can hinder their ability to effectively utilize Drools and address any issues or concerns they may encounter.

Limited support for multiple objects and error handling: Several users have requested better support for multiple objects and improved error handling in Drools, as they currently face difficulties in these areas.

Based on user reviews, the following recommendations have been made for Drools:

1. Users recommend thoroughly learning the Drools rule engine before implementing it.
2. Drools is suggested for projects with a lot of condition-based logic or frequent logic changes.
3. Users recommend using Drools in a microservice architecture and having APIs to call for specific functionality.
4. It is advised to practice more with Drools to improve proficiency.
5. Pairing Drools with software that groups alarms based on rule attributes can help reduce noise in reporting.

Drools, developed by Red Hat, is a Business Rules Management System (BRMS) designed to streamline and automate decision-making processes. According to the vendor, Drools caters to a wide range of professionals including business analysts, software developers, and data scientists, and finds application in various industries such as the financial services and healthcare sectors.

## Key Features

**Drools Workbench (web UI for authoring and management)**: According to the vendor, this web-based application provides a user-friendly interface for creating, editing, and managing business rules. It supports collaboration among team members, version control, and rule deployment.

**Drools Expert (business rules engine)**: The core component of Drools, it executes business rules written in the Drools rule language (DRL). According to the vendor, it supports both forward and backward chaining rule execution, complex rule conditions and actions, and provides rule evaluation and inference capabilities.

**Drools Fusion (complex event processing features)**: According to the vendor, Drools Fusion enables real-time event processing and complex event detection. It supports event correlation, pattern matching, temporal reasoning, and allows the definition of event-driven rules and actions.

**jBPM (process/workflow integration for rule orchestration/flow)**: With integration to the jBPM workflow engine, Drools allows the seamless integration of business rules with business processes. According to the vendor, it supports the definition and execution of rule-driven workflows, provides flexibility in defining rule execution order, and allows the integration of human tasks and decision points.

**OptaPlanner (automated planning)**: The integration with OptaPlanner constraint solver enables the optimization of resource allocation and scheduling problems. According to the vendor, it supports the definition of optimization constraints and objectives, provides various optimization algorithms and strategies, and allows the integration of automated planning with business rules.

**Decision Model and Notation (DMN) support**: According to the vendor, Drools offers full runtime support for Decision Model and Notation (DMN) models at Conformance level 3. It allows the execution of DMN decision tables and models, provides a graphical representation of DMN models, and supports the definition of decision logic using DMN expressions and decision tables.

**Eclipse IDE plugin for core development**: The integration with Eclipse IDE provides a dedicated plugin for Drools rule language (DRL) development. According to the vendor, it offers syntax highlighting, code completion, rule validation features, and enables remote debugging of rule execution.

**Maven Central repository availability**: Drools is available in the Maven Central repository, simplifying dependency management and integration with Maven-based projects. According to the vendor, it provides access to the latest stable releases, simplifies inclusion in project build configurations, and allows seamless integration with other Java libraries and frameworks.


Drools is an open source business rules management system developed by Red Hat.

Drools

Business Rules Management Systems are software used to define and automate the deployment and execution of business rules, policies and requirements to be used in applications when they are acted upon. The BRMS contains a repository for retaining decision logic externally from core application code, a runtime environment to act on the business logic, and an interface allowing the users to define and manage business rules. The related Business Rules Engine executes business rules in a runtime environment.

Business Rules Management

Drools 6.2 (Beta1) Execution Server Demo

The Drools and Guvnor Workbench has been rebuilt using UberFire.

I've made a small video to show the UI improvements for Drools and Guvnor. It's only short, as  I used it in a snippet demo, during a talk. It's recorded in 1024x768, to ensure it worked on the project, so it's slightly more cramped, people typically have their UI's open larger than that these days. Don't forget to turn on Youtube HD settings:

Guvnor and Drools Workbench Demo (Beta3)

Drools Tutorial |  Drools Training |  Drools Online Training - Youtube

jBPM | jBPM Tutorial For Beginners | jBPM Training | Introduction To jBPM Drools | Intellipaat

Transparent Machine Learning (with Drools and AIX360)

JBoss BRMS (BPM) Car Insurance Demo

[KieLive#17] Understanding DRL (Drools Rule Language)

[KIELive#49] Event Driven Drools: CEP (Complex Event Processing) Explained

Likelihood to Recommend

Open Source

Google App Engine

Angular Feature Flags

Feature Flags

Ionic

Drools 2022-04-19 16:40:02

WebStorm

Drools 2019-01-09 15:19:34

TrustRadius is a technology and business research firm based in Austin, Texas. The company is known as a review platform for verified B2B technology and software reviews through a proprietary algorithm and human verification.

TrustRadius

Error handling

Technical people

Big projects

Non technical people

Small projects

Business users

Not very accurate

Users complain

High availability

Complex projects

Well integrated

Real time

Programming language

Time data

Complex business

Open source

Real time data

Business environment

Open source version

Improved a lot

Home

Business Rules Management Systems (BRMS)

Drools is used to manage business logic and to make it easy to understand and maintain. Drools helps you manage logic without complete knowledge of code. You concentrate on business logic only. It is very efficient when it comes to rules evolution when logic evolves with new business problems or capacities.

Writing rules with business focus
Rules evolution and maintenance
separate business logic from program code

Error handling may be difficult
Accurate for big projects, for small projects it may be too much effort

Separation between code and rules make it easy to evolve with business agenda
Error handling was sometimes tricky and required expertise

Ionic, Angular Feature Flags, Google App Engine

In our company, some IT teams adopted JBoss Drools as the rule engine. The applications implemented based on that technology stack, is cross couple of key business departments, from the clearance one to the package sorting automation and control. In both use cases, we have complex data-driven rules to be applied and the rules are frequently adapted or added. Also, the business scenarios require very high system performance.

We started using the Drools since its early open source version, now Drools has grown to one application suite. We are majorly using the rule engine core Expert. It is very well integrated with our corporate programming language standard - java.
We also use Fusion to write rules about events that occur over time, which enhance our capability of dealing with static data and dynamic events for some complex business environment. Also, we like the fact that Fusion fully implements all first-order logic operators, which helps us deal with CEP very well.
The new editor UI Guvnor has been improved a lot and the optimization module Solver does a good job to "compile" complex rule flows to gain more performance.

Fusion doesn't support persistence of working memory, which brings some extra high availability risk to our business.
Guvnor still has a lot room to be implemented, it is not so user-friendly for non-technical people, so a lot of business users complain it is hard to master.
Rule execution server doesn't even have JMX implemented, hard to be monitored.
Drools is still lacking support for key Web services standards.

The IT department quickly adopted Drools as it is a very good java-based rule engine, which saves a lot of time to meet the project timeline and balanced our business requirements.
Recently we start considering the OpenRules, which may be more business user-friendly.

Drools

Overview

What is Drools?