PDBx/mmCIF Software Resources

Entries with green have been updated in the last five years.
Entries with red have not been updated as recently

py-mmcif RCSB Python based mmCIF Core Access Library replacing CIFPARSE-OBJ wrapper (Updated 2025)
GEMMI C++11 macromolecular library with Python and Fortran bindings (Updated 2025)
iotbx.cif and ucif – C++/Python library used by Phenix for reading and writing CIF files, including dictionary validation (Updated 2025)
BioPython Python toolkit for computational biology including support for mmCIF (Updated 2025)
PyCifRW Python CIF read and write methods (Updated 2025)
PDBeCIF PDBe Python package to work with mmCIF formatted files including tutorial and examples.(Updated 2021)
atomium Python package to parse PDB, MMTF and mmCIF formats (Site appears down)
mmLIB Python macromolecular toolkit (including support for mmCIF) (Updated 2011)
Python PDBx RCSB PDB Python light-weight read/write tools for PDBx/mmCIF files and dictioanaries with examples and tutorials (Updated 2013)
CIFPARSE-OBJ Python Wrapper Boost/Python wrapper for RCSB PDB C++ CIFPARSE-OBJ library (Updated 2013)

GEMMI C++11 macromolecular library with Python and Fortran bindings (Updated 2025)
CCP4 MMDB – MMDB is a macromolecular coordinate library, supporting CCP4 applications such as REFMAC and COOT (Updated 2024)
libcif++ C++17 general purpose mmCIF and PDB parser with strict implementations of the mmCIF DDL and PDBx/mmCIF dictionary (Updated 2025)
cif-tools a series of tools for the manipulation, analysis and conversion of mmCIF files (depends on libcif++) (Updated 2025)
CCIF CCP4 C++ library providing FORTRAN77 support and dictionary validation (Maintained)
iotbx.cif and ucif – C++/Python library used by Phenix for reading and writing CIF files, including dictionary validation (Updated 2025)
readcif a fast C++ CIF and mmCIF parser. (Updated 2025)
CBFLib Library of ANSI-C functions providing a simple mechanism for accessing Crystallographic Binary Files (CBF files) and Image-supporting CIF (imgCIF) files (Updated 2025)
CIFPARSE-OBJ RCSB PDB C++ library for accessing and checking PDBx/mmCIF data files and dictionaries with supporting tutorial and examples. (Updated 2013)
XML2PDB Open-source C++ program for converting XML to PDB format (Updated 2022)

ciftools-java Implements reading and writing of CIF files (specification) as well as their efficiently encoded counterpart, called BinaryCIF. (Updated 2025)
BioJava mmCIF package – Java input and output methods for mmCIF and a tutorial for the protein structure modules. Built upon ciftools-java, fully supporting BinaryCIF as well. (Updated 2025)
StarTools Tokenizer Lexical analyser for STAR/CIF/mmCIF data inlcuding a JAVA implementation (Updated 2013)

Perl STAR (mmCIF) Parser Several object-oriented Perl modules to parse mmCIF data files (Updated 2004)

Mol* a modern web-based open-source toolkit for visualisation and analysis of large-scale molecular data.
PDBe Mol* wrapper around Mol*.
RCSB PDB Mol* wrapper around Mol*.
PyMol a user-sponsored molecular visualization system on an open-source foundation.
Jmol Java macromolecular visualization tool supporting mmCIF
UCSF ChimeraX next-generation molecular visualization system, reads and writes mmCIF
UCSF Chimera molecular visualization system, reads mmCIF
OpenRasMol Open source version of RasMol with mmCIF support
Coot Crystallographic Object-Oriented Toolkit
CCP4mg CCP4 Molecular Graphics Package

PDB_EXTRACT Tools and examples for extracting mmCIF data from structure determination applications
MAXIT An application for processing and annotating of macromolecular structure data including many format conversion features
SF-CONVERT A format conversion tool for structure factor files that supports more than a dozen file formats
mmCIF Dictionary Suite Collection of tools to parse, validate, manage data dictionaries used by the PDB. Applications are also included, which convert data dictionaries to XML schema, provide HTML browsing, produce mapping information for relational database loaders (Db Loader) and convert data files between related CIF dialects
DBLoader An application to load mmCIF data into relational databases and XML
PDBML2CIF A tool for converting PDBML data files into mmCIF data files
An online PDBx/mmCIF Editor
Pointsuite A tool for generating BIOMT and CIF symmetry records for macromolecular assemblies with point and helical symmetries.