JAGS

What is JAGS?

JAGS is Just Another Gibbs Sampler. It is a program for analysis of Bayesian hierarchical models using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation not wholly unlike BUGS. JAGS was written with three aims in mind:

To have an engine for the BUGS language that runs on Unix
To be extensible, allowing users to write their own functions, distributions and samplers.
To be a plaftorm for experimentation with ideas in Bayesian modelling

To this last end, JAGS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. You may freely modify and redistribute it under certain conditions (see the file COPYING for details).

News

The JAGS NEWS blog has been launched. If you want to be kept informed of updates to JAGS, then subscribe to the RSS news feed.

Latest version

The latest release is JAGS 1.0.3. It was released on July 17 2008.

Downloads

JAGS-1.0.3.tar.gz	Source code for JAGS. Compilation instructions are included in the manual.
jags-1.0.3-setup.exe	A compiled version of JAGS for Windows.
JAGS-1.0.3u-20090929.dmg	A binary package of JAGS for Mac Os X 10.4 to 10.6. See the ReadMe file for details. This replaces the previous installer which did not work on 10.6
jags_user_manual.pdf	Manual describing the JAGS library and its command line interface. The appendix contains installation instructions.
classic-bugs.tar.gz	Selection of BUGS examples that have been adapted to JAGS.

The binary packages are signed with my gpg signature (ID 97D3544E). The signature files are below. My public key is available from any of the public key servers on pgp.net:

jags-1.0.3-setup.exe.asc (windows installer)

JAGS-1.0.3u-20090929.dmg.asc (new Mac Os X installer)

JAGS-1.0.3u.dmg.asc (old Mac OS X Installer)

RPM packages for various RPM-based Linux distributions (Fedora 9, 10; RHEL 5; OpenSuSE 10, 11; SLES 9) are available here. Thanks to Lars Vilhuber.

Development version

The JAGS source code is hosted on a CVS repository at sourceforge. If you want to keep track of the development version, you can find downloading instructions here.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mcmc-jags

Older releases of JAGS are available here.

This web page is maintained by Martyn Plummer (jags iarc fr) . Last updated 29 September 2009.