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

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* 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

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* 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

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1. ^ 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."
2. ^ "Engine". Techopedia. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
3. ^ "Definition of engine". pcmag.com.
4. ^ "How it works". VirusTotal.
5. ^ "layout-engine · GitHub Topics". GitHub.