Software Cost Estimation: A Literature Review and Current Trends

Software cost estimation is a challenging and complex task during software development. It directs project managers and developers to analyze and predict costs at the beginning of the software development life cycle. The most important job for developing software projects is correctly estimating cost, time duration, and needed effort. This paper aims to review different models used for software cost estimation, including algorithmic, non-algorithmic, and learning-oriented models, which have been published over the last ten years (i.e., from 2011 to 2022). The comparison is done based on the methods, selected datasets, and metrics used in different techniques. We observed that machine learning-based models perform better compared to other existing methods. However, to the best of our knowledge, analysis, and literature survey, we found that no technique in the literature provides a fit-all solution.