In the same sense that SQL is a universal way of expressing a large set of problems. I.e. all the implementations speak the same language, but they operate and

In the same sense that SQL is a universal way of expressing a large set of problems. I.e. all the implementations speak the same language, but they operate and prioritize differently. SAT solvers are NP-Hard, so there isn't a single SAT solver to rule them all. Which one you choose matters, same as with databases. CockroachDB, PostgreSQL and SQLite all speak SQL, but are not interchangeable. Same with SAT solvers. I'd agree with OP; the SAT writers should get more credit. It's a hard problem, and I'd bet most of us are either incapable or unwilling to spend ages working on it (myself included, no shade intended). It's also vitally important. To my understanding, SAT solvers underly most package managers. It's how npm or pip or apt know what version to install for each package such that no version violates another packages constraints (if any, it's also where the "no valid version combinations exist" message comes from).