COLASolver creates Particle-Mesh (PM) N-body simulations; the code is fast and very flexible, and can compute a wide range of models. For models with complex dynamics (screened models), it provides several options from doing it exactly to approximate but fast to just simulating linear theory equations. Every time-consuming operation is parallelized over MPI and OpenMP. It uses a slab-based parallelization that works well for fast approximate (COLA) simulations but does not perform as well for high resolution simulations. COLASolver can also be used as an analysis code for results from other simulations.

Hi-COLA runs fast approximate N-body simulations of non-linear structure formation in reduced Horndeski gravity (Horndeski theories with luminal gravitational waves). It is generic with respect to the reduced Horndeski class. Given an input Lagrangian, Hi-COLA's front-end dynamically constructs the appropriate field equations and consistently solves for the cosmological background, linear growth, and screened fifth force of that theory. This is passed to the back-end, which runs a hybrid N-body simulation at significantly reduced computational and temporal cost compared to traditional N-body codes. By analyzing the particle snapshots, one can study the formation of structure through statistics such as the matter power spectrum.