Software engine

Core component of a complex software system

A software engine is a core component of a complex software system. The word "engine" is a metaphor of a car's engine. Thus a software engine is a complex subsystem.

There is no formal guideline for what should be called an engine, but the term has become widespread in the software industry.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Notable examples

Antivirus engine^[4]
Chess engine
Correlation engine^[1]
Database engine
Graphics engine^[1]
Layout engine^[5]
Physics engine
Polymorphic engine
Reasoning engine
Recommendation engine^[1]
Regular expression engine
Search engine
Workflow engine

Multi-engine systems

Mainstream web browsers have both a rendering engine and a JavaScript engine.

Video games are often based on a game engine. Some of these also have specialized physics or graphics engines.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "10 Types of Software Engines That You Should Know About". spiceworks.com. In different contexts, software engines can mean different things.
^ "Engine". Techopedia. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
^ "Definition of engine". pcmag.com.
^ "How it works". VirusTotal.
^ "layout-engine · GitHub Topics". GitHub.