# Equivalent of MDAnalysis in Julia

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/equivalent-of-mdanalysis-in-julia/43070>\
**Category:** Biology, Health, and Medicine\
**Created:** [July 14, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/equivalent-of-mdanalysis-in-julia/43070 "2020-07-14T17:38:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Seanny123](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/seanny123/32/5271_2.png) [@Seanny123](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Seanny123)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/equivalent-of-mdanalysis-in-julia/43070/1 "2020-07-14T17:38:28Z")

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Continuing with the theme of my previous question, [Equivalent to Rosetta in Julia](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/equivalent-to-rosetta-in-julia/32168), I am still trying to understand the Computational Biology tool ecosystem.

Currently, I’m trying to use [MDAnalysis](https://github.com/MDAnalysis/mdanalysis), which is a Python package for reading PDB files and performing analysis on the structures contained therein.

I think the equivalent in Julia is [BioStructures.jl](https://github.com/BioJulia/BioStructures.jl)? I am curious if anyone has used both and what differences they found. I read [the BioStructures.jl paper](https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa502/5837108?guestAccessKey=aec90643-1d43-4521-9883-4a4a669187da), which does list features, but I’m looking for more personal/anecdotal takes.

I also intend to return to this thread with my own experiences!

To be clear, my continued comparison between Python and Julia is not intended to be adversarial! I love Julia and want to clearly understand what types of work I can use it for and where further development is needed. ❤

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**Author:** ![jgreener64](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jgreener64/32/2483_2.png) [@jgreener64](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jgreener64)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/equivalent-of-mdanalysis-in-julia/43070/2 "2020-07-14T17:55:37Z")

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See some discussion from April here: [What is the best molecular dynamics analysis library in Julia?](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-the-best-molecular-dynamics-analysis-library-in-julia/36865)

I would also love to hear personal takes on how BioStructures.jl fares/how it could be improved, and am the first to say that it is nowhere near the maturity of MDAnalysis.

Chemfiles is shaping up nicely, and I think provides the only way to load certain MD file formats in Julia.

Recently I put a few analysis tools into Molly, particularly Makie visualisation, though it is still early days there.