The OWL API is a Java API and reference implmentation for creating, manipulating and serialising OWL Ontologies. The latest version of the API is focused towards OWL 2

The OWL API is open source and is available under the LGPL License

The OWL API includes the following components:

• An API for OWL 2 and an efficient in-memory reference implementation
• RDF/XML parser and writer
• OWL/XML parser and writer
• OWL Functional Syntax parser and writer
• Turtle parser and writer
• KRSS parser
• OBO Flat file format parser
• Reasoner interfaces for working with reasoners such as FaCT++, HermiT, Pellet and Racer

The original version of the API for OWL 1.0 was developed as part of the WonderWeb Project. Version 2.0.0 of the OWL API for was developed as part of the CO-ODE project and the TONES project. Version 3.0.0 is developed primarily at the University of Manchester.

Contributors

The OWL API is primarily maintained at the University of Manchester, but there have been significant contributions from various groups and companies:

• Clark & Parsia LLC (Explanation code, Modularity code)
• University of Ulm (KRSS2 syntax parser and renderer)