The Alife Database is a searchable database of Alife-related sites on the world wide web. Its initial purpose was to encourage code sharing in the Alife community by making it easy to find Alife code on the net (See the page A Thought about Sharing Alife Code). It is still primarily oriented towards active Alife participation, and therefore it puts an emphasis on sites offering free source code (especially Java) and on sites providing online playing and experimenting.The emphasis on Java is based on the fact that Java supports both cross-platform code sharing and online experimenting better then any other programming language.

The database is implemented in three versions. Two of them are database searching applets, and each has its pros and cons. While the Panel searcher provides more information, the Grid searcher is smaller and seems easier to use. The third version is implemented in plain Html pages, mainly for those who do not have access to Java, but others may find it convenient too. Since all versions are based on the same database, you can use any of them according to your taste.

The panel searcher is based on the InfoBook applet, while the grid searcher is based on the FinditGrid applet. Both are well designed commercial products for displaying database tables on the net.