What is the difference between The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and the NATO Architecture Framework (NAF v4)?

NAF v4 and TOGAF answer two different questions.

NAF v4 answers “what does the enterprise look like and how do its parts connect?” It’s a content/description framework — a structured set of viewpoints (Concepts, Service, Logical, Physical Resource, Architecture Foundation) that let you model and communicate an architecture so it can be compared, integrated, and made interoperable across NATO nations and coalition partners. Its center of gravity is the model itself.

TOGAF answers “how do we get from business strategy to a governed architecture?” It’s a process/method framework — the ADM is a repeatable lifecycle (Preliminary → Vision → Business → Data → Application → Technology → Opportunities → Migration → Governance → Change Management) for producing and governing architecture in an organization. Its center of gravity is the journey, not any one artifact.

That’s the fundamental split: NAF v4 is primarily a modeling/description standard (what to capture, in what views, using what metamodel), while TOGAF is primarily a method/governance standard (what steps to follow, who decides what, how change is controlled). NAF v4 does include a methodology chapter, but it’s there to support consistent use of the viewpoints — it isn’t TOGAF’s reason for existing the way the ADM is for TOGAF.

That’s also why they pair well rather than compete: an organization can run TOGAF’s ADM as the process wrapper while populating it with NAF v4 viewpoints as the content, if they need NATO-standard interoperability outputs from a TOGAF-governed program.