The capabilities of the last major release (Version 7) of Rational Software Modeler include: It is integrated with other IBM Rational Software tools, such as ClearCase configuration management and ClearQuest exception handling (defect reports and change requests).

RSM is engineered as a plugin that sits on top of the open-source Eclipse development platform.

Rational Software has a long history in application modeling, beginning in the early 1990s with the work of Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh and Ivar Jacobson.

Rational Software's first visual modeling and development tool was Rational Rose, a stand-alone modeling tool that integrated the application programming interface (API) level with third-party Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) in order to support a variety of programming languages and other implementation technologies.

As more and more capabilities were added, Rational began to reach the practical limits of this style of tool integration.