The aim of this paper is to indicate and explore the similarities betw
een three different subspace algorithms for the identification of comb
ined deterministic-stochastic systems. The similarities between these
algorithms have been obscured, due to different notations and backgrou
nds. It is shown that all three algorithms are special cases of one un
ifying theorem. The comparison also reveals that the three algorithms
use exactly the same subspace to determine the order and the extended
observability matrix, but that the weighting matrix, used to calculate
a basis for the column space of the observability matrix is different
in the three cases.