| Stable release | 2.3.2 / July 16, 2010 |
|---|---|
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Platform | Java Virtual Machine |
| Type | Semantic Web |
| License | BSD-style license |
| Website | http://openrdf.org/ |
Sesame is an open-source framework for querying and analyzing RDF data. It was created, and is still being maintained, by the Dutch software company Aduna. It was originally developed as part of the "On-To-Knowledge", a semantic web project that ran from 1999 to 2002. It contains a triplestore.
Sesame supports two query languages: SeRQL and SPARQL. Another component of Sesame is Alibaba, an API that allows for mapping Java classes onto ontologies and for generating Java source files from ontologies. This makes it possible to use specific ontologies like RSS, FOAF and the Dublin Core directly from Java.
Sesame's API differs from comparable solutions in that it offers a stackable interface through which functionality can be added, and in that the storage engine is abstracted from the query interface[1]. Many other triplestores can be used through the Sesame API, including Mulgara, Virtuoso Universal Server, and AllegroGraph. Through the stackable interface, functionality can be added to all of these stores. It can, for example, be used to add indexing and query capabilities to all compatible stores: