Tech Insights

C4

Last updated May 16, 2025, generated by Sumble

What is C4?

The C4 model is a simple approach to diagramming software architecture. It consists of four levels of abstraction: Context, Containers, Components, and Code. Each level provides a different perspective on the system, allowing stakeholders to understand the system at a level of detail appropriate to their needs. It's commonly used for communicating the architecture of software systems to technical and non-technical audiences.

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What other technologies are related to C4?

C4 Competitor Technologies

ArchiMate

ArchiMate is an enterprise architecture modeling language that provides a visual representation for describing, analyzing, and visualizing the various aspects of an enterprise architecture. It can be used to model software systems, infrastructure, and business processes, similar to C4 model.

mentioned alongside C4 in 5% (403) of relevant job posts

UML

UML (Unified Modeling Language) is a general-purpose modeling language used in software engineering to visualize the design of a system. While C4 is focused on visualizing software architecture, UML provides a much broader set of diagrams that can be used for different purposes and phases of software development, including architecture design. In that sense, UML and C4 are competitors for describing a software architecture.

mentioned alongside C4 in 1% (628) of relevant job posts

C4 Complementary Technologies

TOGAF

TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) is a framework for enterprise architecture that provides a comprehensive approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise IT architecture. TOGAF is a framework that can provide a structure, method, and governance to use C4 models as part of broader enterprise architecture efforts.

mentioned alongside C4 in 1% (202) of relevant job posts

SOLID principles

SOLID principles are a set of five design principles intended to make software designs more understandable, flexible, and maintainable. While C4 focuses on visualizing the high-level architecture, SOLID principles guide the design of individual components within that architecture. Thus, they are complementary.

mentioned alongside C4 in 1% (52) of relevant job posts

Serverless

Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. C4 models can be used to visualize the serverless application architectures.

mentioned alongside C4 in 0% (81) of relevant job posts