FAST (Fitting and Assessment of Synthetic Templates) fits stellar population synthesis templates to broadband photometry and/or spectra. FAST is compatible with the photometric redshift code EAzY (ascl:1010.052) when fitting broadband photometry; it uses the photometric redshifts derived by EAzY, and the input files (for examply, photometric catalog and master filter file) are the same. FAST fits spectra in combination with broadband photometric data points or simultaneously fits two components, allowing for an AGN contribution in addition to the host galaxy light. Depending on the input parameters, FAST outputs the best-fit redshift, age, dust content, star formation timescale, metallicity, stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), and their confidence intervals. Though some of FAST's functions overlap with those of HYPERZ (ascl:1108.010), it differs by fitting fluxes instead of magnitudes, allows the user to completely define the grid of input stellar population parameters and easily input photometric redshifts and their confidence intervals, and calculates calibrated confidence intervals for all parameters. Note that FAST is not a photometric redshift code, though it can be used as one.

Forcepho infers the fluxes and shapes of galaxies from astronomical images. It models the appearance of multiple sources in multiple bands simultaneously and compares to observed data via a likelihood function. Gradients of this likelihood allow for efficient maximization of the posterior probability or sampling of the posterior probability distribution via Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. The model intrinsic galaxy shapes and positions are shared across the different bands, but the fluxes are fit separately for each band. Forcepho does not perform detection; initial locations and (very rough) parameter estimates must be supplied by the user.