A blog article is not a product. No, Claude Code can’t understand COBOL applications.
Blog post from Swimm
Swimm's Application Understanding Platform was tested against Anthropic's Claude Code to evaluate their effectiveness in analyzing COBOL programs, revealing significant differences in coverage, accuracy, and consistency. Swimm achieved complete coverage and accuracy in extracting business rules from legacy COBOL applications, while Claude Code demonstrated inconsistent results with notably lower coverage and missed or incorrectly extracted business rules. The analysis highlights the challenges of using AI for understanding complex legacy code, especially when deterministic accuracy is required for modernization in regulated industries. Swimm's platform, which utilizes deterministic static analysis, ensures every paragraph and execution path is accurately covered, offering a more reliable solution for enterprises looking to modernize their systems.