AutoDock is the most cited docking software
A recent publication in Proteins compared the number of citations of 22 different docking programs using the ISI Web of Science; AutoDock was the most cited, and its share of the top 5 docking programs' citations has increased over the period from 2001 to 2005, from 36% to 48%.
Most Common Docking Programs, 2001-2005. AutoDock is in blue, DOCK is in green, FlexX is in yellow, GOLD is in orange, and ICM is in red. Click the image to see a larger version.
AutoDock Citations
AutoDock is the most commonly cited docking program in the scientific literature, according to Sousa, Fernandes & Ramos (2006) Protein-Ligand Docking: Current Status and Future Challenges Proteins, 65:15-26 . They used the ISI Web of Science to count the number of times any of the original references of each of the following 22 docking programs have been cited, up to and including 2005; the proportion of the total is shown in parentheses:
- ADAM (1%)
- AutoDock (27%)
- DARWIN (1%)
- DIVALI (1%)
- DOCK (6%)
- DockVision (2%)
- EUDOC (2%)
- FlexX (11%)
- FLOG (2%)
- FTDOCK (4%)
- GOLD (15%)
- Hammerhead (3%)
- ICM (6%)
- LIGIN (2%)
- LUDI (6%)
- MCDOCK (1%)
- PRO_LEADS (3%)
- Prodock (1%)
- QXP (4%)
- SANDOCK (0.5%)
- Soft docking (4%)
The top five docking programs, by number of citations, are: AutoDock, DOCK, FlexX, GOLD and ICM. (AutoDock and DOCK are free to academics).
The figure of the proportion of citations of the top five docking programs shows that AutoDock has gained "market share" from 2001 to 2005. The paper also shows the trend over the last five years for all 22 of the programs (not shown).
We have one thing to say to all our AutoDock users: thank you!