New Blocks - AMPL

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How to get a license?

1. Select license type:

Use academic email

Visit page: AMPL Portal → Lisenses → My Licenses

To obtain a license and read the instructions for its further use in various systems.

For additional support, contact the AMPL team at support@ampl.com.

Use academic email

Visit page: AMPL Portal → Lisenses → AMPL for Courses

To fill out the request form

Visit page: AMPL Portal → Lisenses → My Licenses

To obtain a license and read the instructions for its further use in various systems.

For additional support, contact the AMPL team at support@ampl.com.

Use your company email

Visit page: AMPL Portal → Lisenses → AMPL for New Graduates

To fill out the request form

Visit page: AMPL Portal → Lisenses → My Licenses

To obtain a license and read the instructions for its further use in various systems.

For additional support, contact the AMPL team at support@ampl.com.

2. How to install and activate AMPL & Solvers?

AMPL Integration with Python

AMPL and all solvers are available as python packages for Windows, Linux (X86_64, aarch64, ppc64le), and macOS.

Install Pytnon

Download and install the latest version of Python from the Official Python Website.

Activate your AMPL license

To install AMPL with popular solvers like HiGHS, CBC, or Gurobi, just run the following:

				
					# Install Python API for AMPL
$ python -m pip install amplpy --upgrade

# Install solver modules (e.g., HiGHS, CBC, Gurobi)
$ python -m amplpy.modules install highs cbc gurobi

# Activate your license (e.g., free https://ampl.com/ce license)
$ python -m amplpy.modules activate <license-uuid>

# Import AMPL into the Python
$ python
>>> from amplpy import AMPL
>>> ampl = AMPL() # instantiate AMPL object

Learn more…

AMPL in VS Code

Enhance your AMPL workflow with VS Code’s powerful editor and the official AMPL extension, enabling you to write, run, and debug models seamlessly in one environment.

Install VS Code

Download and install VS Code from the official Visual Studio Code website.

Install the Official AMPL Extension

Open VS Code.

Go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows/Linux) / Cmd+Shift+X (macOS) or click on the Extensions icon in the Activity Bar).

Search for "AMPL" or "AMPL (Official)" in the marketplace.

Click "Install" on the AMPL extension tile.

Configure AMPL executable path (Optional):

Go to Settings → Extensions → AMPL.

Specify the path to your AMPL executable in the ampl.pathToExecutable setting (e.g., C:\ampl\ampl.mswin64). Leave empty to use AMPL from your system’s PATH.)

Start using AMPL in VS Code

Open your AMPL (.mod, .run, .dat) files in VS Code.

Use the extension’s features: Syntax highlighting, Model execution, Debugging tools.

				
					from amplpy import AMPL
ampl = AMPL()
ampl.eval("option ampl_license YOUR_LICENSE;")

AMPL Integration with Jupyter Notebook

Install amplpy:

Run the following command in a Jupyter Notebook cell to install the package (Python):

!pip install amplpy

Set Up AMPL License:

If you have an AMPL license, configure it using (Python):

(Replace YOUR_LICENSE with your actual license string.)

Learn more…

AMPL Integration with Coogle Colab, Kaggle, Gradient, and AWS SageMaker

AMPL Model Colaboratory is a collection of AMPL models in Jupyter Notebooks that run on platforms such as Google Colab, Kaggle, Gradient, and AWS SageMaker. In order to be use AMPL on these notebook platforms you just need to following two code blocks at the beginning of your notebook:

				
					# Install dependencies
%pip install -q amplpy

				
					# Google Colab & Kaggle integration
from amplpy import AMPL, ampl_notebook
ampl = ampl_notebook(
    modules=["gurobi", "cbc", "highs"], # modules to install
    license_uuid="default") # license to use

Learn more…

Installing AMPL for Windows

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → Windows" tab.

Install AMPL

Run the provided Windows installer.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits"

Activate your license (The installer will prompt you for your license UUID).

Use Your Favorite IDE for Modeling

AMPL IDE

Official AMPL Extension for VS Code

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Learn more…

Installing AMPL for Windows

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → Windows" tab.

Install or Extract AMPL

Windows Installer: Run the provided installer. (Recommended)

Manual Extraction: Extract the AMPL files to create your AMPL folder. You may rename or move this folder to any convenient location on your computer.

Note

Place ampl.mswin64 in a folder where you have write permissions without requiring Administrator access.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID

Copy the UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits".

Running AMPL

Via IDE: Navigate to the amplide folder in your AMPL directory and double-click amplide.exe.

Via Command Line: Inside your AMPL folder, double-click the sw.exe icon and type ampl at the prompt in the window that appears. Then you will see an ampl: prompt and can proceed to type AMPL commands.

Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits

New Installation (Windows): The installer will prompt you for your license UUID.

Existing Installation: Activate your license by entering the UUID (e.g., for AMPL CE or AMPL for Courses licenses).

Run this command in AMPL to activate your license:

Note: you need to restart AMPL in order to start using the new license.

				
					ampl: shell "amplkey activate --uuid <license-uuid>";
      # replace <license-uuid> by the license UUID

Note

It is recommended to install AMPL in your home folder. Otherwise, if you use dynamic cloud licenses, make sure the AMPL folder is not read-only (e.g., it will not work if installed at "C:\Program Files\AMPL").

Installing AMPL for macOS

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → macOS" tab.

Install AMPL

Run the provided Windows installer.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits"

Activate your license (The installer will prompt you for your license UUID).

Use Your Favorite IDE for Modeling

AMPL IDE

Official AMPL Extension for VS Code

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Learn more…

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → macOS" tab.

Install or Extract AMPL

macOS Installer: Run the provided installer. (Recommended)

Manual Extraction: Extract the AMPL files to create your AMPL folder. You may rename or move this folder to any convenient location on your computer.

Note

You will need to tell macOS that your AMPL software is safe to run.
Double-click your AMPL folder to open it and then follow these steps:

Control-click the ampl.command file and select ‘Open’ in the context menu.
- If a warning message (“macOS cannot verify the developer…”) pops up, click ‘Open’.
- A Terminal window will appear. After a few seconds, you will see ampl: in the last line in the window. You can now close the window.
(If a warning message saying “Do you want to terminate running processes in this window?” pops up, click ‘Terminate’.)

Attention!!!: If this step is skipped, you will get errors such as: “Amplide” is damaged and can’t be opened. You need to run ampl.command to tell macOS that your AMPL software is safe to run.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID

Copy the UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits".

Running AMPL

Via IDE: In your AMPL folder, enter the amplide folder and then double-click the Amplide application (with a black cat’s-head icon) to start the IDE. (The first time you open the AMPL IDE, you might see a few “Amplide would like to access files” boxes at startup; click OK in each box to dismiss it.)

Via Command Line: In your AMPL folder, double-click ampl. You should see an ampl: prompt appear and can now proceed to enter AMPL commands.

Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits

New Installation (macOS): The installer will prompt you for your license UUID.

Existing Installation: Activate your license by entering the UUID (e.g., for AMPL CE or AMPL for Courses licenses).

Run this command in AMPL to activate your license:

For macOS, we have an installer available that asks for the license UUID at the end for the installation process.

In case you have AMPL already installed, activate your license if you received a license UUID (e.g., AMPL CE or AMPL for Courses licenses):

Run this command in AMPL to activate your license:

				
					ampl: shell "amplkey activate --uuid <license-uuid>";
      # replace <license-uuid> by the license UUID

Note: you need to restart AMPL in order to start using the new license.

Note

If you install AMPL somewhere in your home directory, you do not need to worry about the following.

If you use cloud licenses (e.g., AMPL Community Edition licenses), the AMPL directory cannot be read-only. If really you want to have AMPL installed on a read-only directory, you need to set the environment variables AMPL_LICFILE to a location where you store ampl.lic and where you have permissions to write, and set AMPLKEY_RUNTIME_DIR to a temporary directory.

Installing AMPL for Linux

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → Linux" tab.

Install AMPL

Run the provided Windows installer.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits"

Activate your license (The installer will prompt you for your license UUID).

Use Your Favorite IDE for Modeling

AMPL IDE

Official AMPL Extension for VS Code

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Learn more…

				
					ampl: shell "amplkey activate --uuid <license-uuid>";
      # replace <license-uuid> by the license UUID

Note: you need to restart AMPL in order to start using the new license.

Note

If you install AMPL somewhere in your home directory, you do not need to worry about the following.

If you use cloud licenses (e.g., AMPL Community Edition licenses), the AMPL directory cannot be read-only. If you really want to have AMPL installed on a read-only directory, you need to set the environment variables:

AMPL_LICFILE to a location where you store ampl.lic and where you have permissions to write
AMPLKEY_RUNTIME_DIR to a temporary directory

For instance, assuming that you want to install AMPL on a Linux system in the /opt directory, which is not writeable by normal users. To install AMPL and dynamic licenses, you need to do the following:

Unpack the AMPL tarball into /opt as root user. The executables should then be at /opt/ampl.linux-intel64/.
For each user that wants to use this AMPL installation with their own license:
1. Define environment variables to point to a writeable directory in the user home directory:
```
export AMPL_LICFILE=$HOME/.ampl/ampl.lic
export AMPLKEY_RUNTIME_DIR=$HOME/.ampl
export PATH=/opt/ampl.linux-intel64/:$PATH
```
  and add those definitions to the .bash_profile or .bashrc of each user.
Start a new terminal to load the new environment variable definitions.
Run the amplkey_activate --uuid <license-uuid> command in the terminal.

Use an email that meets your license requirements. For details, refer to '1. How to get a license?' in the FAQ section.

Download AMPL

Download AMPL from the "Step 1: Download AMPL & Solvers → Other → Linux" tab.

Install or Extract AMPL

Linux Installer: Run the provided installer. (Recommended)

Manual Extraction: Extract the AMPL files to create your AMPL directory. You may rename or move this directory to any convenient location on your computer.

Note

Place AMPL in a directory where you have write permissions such as your home directory. Otherwise, please see the note at the end.

Copy Your AMPL License UUID

Copy the UUID from: "Step 2: Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits".

Running AMPL

Via IDE: Inside your AMPL folder, enter the directory named amplide and run the amplide executable.

Via Command Line: In a command window, use cd to go to your AMPL directory, then type ./ampl at the system prompt. Then you will see an ampl: prompt and can proceed to type AMPL commands.

Activate your license to remove AMPL size-limits

New Installation (Linux): The installer will prompt you for your license UUID.

Existing Installation: Activate your license by entering the UUID (e.g., for AMPL CE or AMPL for Courses licenses).

Run this command in AMPL to activate your license:

3. How can I incorporate AMPL into my courses?

Utilize the Free AMPL for Courses Program:

AMPL offers a free bundle of the full-featured software with no limitations on problem size for academic courses. This includes access to commercial solvers like Gurobi, CPLEX, and Xpress, as well as open-source alternatives like CBC. You can easily obtain and distribute this bundle to your students through a license portal request. The licenses are time-limited, expiring after the course concludes.

Introduce AMPL's Python API (amplpy):

Integrate AMPL and solvers directly into the Google Colab environment using your course bundle's UUID. This allows you to use more then 100 ready-to-use models and create examples in Colab and share them easily with students, who can access the full AMPL license without local installations, and save or submit their work in the cloud. Learn more about amplpy and its Colab integration.

Emphasize AMPL's Strengths:

Highlight AMPL's intuitive, algebraic modeling language that closely mirrors mathematical notation. Emphasize the clear separation of model and data, which facilitates easier testing and experimentation. Showcase the wide range of optimization problems AMPL can handle, including linear, nonlinear, and mixed-integer problems. See books for learn the theory and comprehensive examples.

Teach Python Integration:

Teach students how to access AMPL's features from within Python using amplpy. This allows them to integrate AMPL into their data science workflows, using tools like Pandas and NumPy for data manipulation and analysis. You can also teach them to build web applications with Python scripts, amplpy, Pandas, and Streamlit. Check out the amplpy Best Practice guide and Streamlit examples.

Provide Practical Examples and Tutorials:

Use the numerous examples available from the Books, along with the variety of scripts for common iterative schemes, to illustrate different applications of AMPL.

Explore Different Solvers:

Introduce students to various solvers compatible with AMPL, both commercial (like CPLEX and Gurobi) and open-source (like CBC and HiGHS). Explain the strengths of each solver and guide students in choosing the appropriate solver for different problem types. The ability to easily switch solvers without modifying the model is a key benefit of AMPL. See the AMPL solvers page for comparisons.

Encourage Advanced Modeling Techniques:

Introduce advanced features like using sets, parameters https://mp.ampl.com/model-guide.html MP Interface to model complex systems, implementing constraints and objective functions effectively, and using AMPL's scripting capabilities for dynamic modeling and sensitivity analysis. The AMPL Webinars and video tutorials offer excellent advanced material.

4. Can AMPL be used for academic research and publications?

Yes, AMPL is widely used in academic research and publications across various fields, including operations research, economics, engineering, and applied mathematics. Its flexibility, powerful modeling capabilities, and compatibility with numerous solvers make it an excellent tool for developing, testing and implementation of optimization models.

Why Use AMPL for Academic Research?

Ease of Modeling: AMPL’s intuitive algebraic syntax allows researchers to formulate complex models clearly and concisely.
Solver Compatibility: Works with high-performance solvers (e.g., CPLEX, Gurobi, IPOPT, KNITRO) for linear, nonlinear, integer, and stochastic programming.
Reproducibility: AMPL scripts ensure transparency, making research results easier to validate and replicate.
Educational Use: Many universities incorporate AMPL into coursework and research projects due to its learning-friendly design.

AMPL in Publications

Researchers frequently cite AMPL in peer-reviewed journals and conference papers. If you use AMPL in your work, you may:

Reference the AMPL book (Fourer, R., Gay, D. M., & Kernighan, B. W. (2002). AMPL: A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming.)
Acknowledge the AMPL software and any solvers used.

5. What resources are available to learn AMPL and mathematical optimization?

Learning AMPL and mathematical optimization is supported by a variety of resources, including official documentation, books, online courses, and community forums. Here are some key resources to help you get started:

Official AMPL Resources:

AMPL Website The official site provides downloads, documentation, and example models.
Books for Learning Optimization and Upskilling
AMPL Documentation Includes manuals, tutorials, and reference guides.
100+ ready-to-use models A collection of optimization models across different industries.
Best Practices guide Best Practices for readable and scalable AMPL models, and also to effective usage of the Python API for AMPL.
AMPL support forum A forum for asking questions and sharing knowledge.
Streamlit A free platform for developing and deploying complex optimization solutions in business & scientific applications.

6. What are the most important and common AMPL features used in modern optimization workflow?

AMPL is a powerful algebraic modeling language widely used in optimization for its flexibility, efficiency, and integration capabilities. Key features in modern workflows include:

Algebraic Modeling Syntax

Intuitive, readable formulation of optimization problems using sets, parameters, variables, and constraints

Seamless Solver Integration

Supports commercial (e.g., Gurobi, CPLEX) and open-source solvers (e.g., COIN-OR, Ipopt).

Python Integration (AMPL Python API)

Enables scripting, automation, and embedding AMPL in Python workflows (e.g., data preprocessing, post-processing, and machine learning pipelines).

MP (Math Program) Interface

Allows low-level interaction with solvers for custom algorithm development and advanced control.

Data Handling & Connectivity

Supports CSV, SQL, and other data sources for large-scale optimization.

Rapid Prototyping & Debugging

Features like display and let commands help validate models efficiently.

For modern workflows, combining AMPL’s modeling power with Python’s ecosystem (e.g., Pandas, NumPy) via the AMPL Python API is particularly popular. The MP Interface is favored for solver customization.

7. Still have questions?

STAGE & SUPPORT

PROFESSIONS

INDUSTRIES

Frequently Asked Questions

AMPL Integration with Python

AMPL in VS Code

AMPL Integration with Jupyter Notebook

AMPL Integration with Coogle Colab, Kaggle, Gradient, and AWS SageMaker

Installing AMPL for Windows

Installing AMPL for Windows

Note

Note

Installing AMPL for macOS

Note

Note

Installing AMPL for Linux

Note

Note

Why Use AMPL for Academic Research?

AMPL in Publications

Official AMPL Resources: