Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
MATLAB
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
MatLab is a predictive analytics and computing platform based on a proprietary programming language. MatLab is used across industry and academia.
$49
per student license
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Posit, formerly RStudio, is a modular data science platform, combining open source and commercial products.N/A
Mathematica
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Wolfram's flagship product Mathematica is a modern technical computing application featuring a flexible symbolic coding language and a wide array of graphing and data visualization capabilities.
$1,520
per year
Pricing
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Editions & Modules
Student
$49
per student license
Home
$149
perpetual license
Education
$250
per year
Education
$500
perpetual license
Standard
$860
per year
Standard
2,150
perpetual license
No answers on this topic
Standard Cloud
$1,520
per year
Standard Desktop
$3,040
one-time fee
Standard Desktop & Cloud
$3,344
one-time fee
Mathematica Enterprise Edition
$8,150.00
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MATLABPositMathematica
Free Trial
NoYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscounts available for students and educational institutions. The Network Edition reduce per-user license costs through shared deployment across any number of machines on a local-area network.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Considered Multiple Products
MATLAB
Chose MATLAB
Apart from Matlab, I used Matematica for some of my integral evaluations. Mathematica is also a "clean" and easy-to-use software that solves symbolic math problems (even better than Matlab for symbolic math). I also used Anaconda and Spyder for my career so far.
Chose MATLAB
Those are expensive than MATLAB and their GUI is not great along with editor. However, they have more libraries set as compared to Matlab. However, the place where MATLAB adds value is its user community as well as its support and we can find solutions to any problem with …
Chose MATLAB
MATLAB's neurophysiological data pre-processing third-party packages are more scientifically validated compared to support for other software platforms. It also allows for writing code with a greater level of functionality and more capabilities than R-Studio, which is instead …
Chose MATLAB
How MATLAB compares to its competition or similar open access tools like R (programming language) or SciLab is that it's simply more powerful and capable. It embraces a wider spectrum of possibilities for far more fields than any other environment. R, for example, is intended …
Chose MATLAB
MATLAB has a very large database of embedded functions and it is continually growing. Graphics processing is much easier than other similar product for beginners (such as Jupyter notebook and Python). Although it is not an open-source language, lots of learning materials and …
Chose MATLAB
I like the user interface of MATLAB and find it most intuitive compared to any of the other three programs I listed. However, unlike RStudio and Oracle VM VirtualBox, MATLAB is not open source. I do prefer MATLAB over PyCharm, because I find MATLAB to be a bit more intuitive. I …
Chose MATLAB
MATLAB is very similar to R and Python, but has cleaner syntax than R and more in-built functionality than Python. However, both are free and therefore have that significant advantage over MATLAB. SQL is simpler but much more limited in use.
Posit
Chose Posit
RStudio is the free alternative to MATLAB. It works just as well as the other software, and more features can be accessed but to the open-source nature. This software is more commonplace in the research lab setting due to its free cost.
Chose Posit
I have tried to work a bit with Jupyer notebooks and Spyder, but both are way less agreeable than RStudio.
Once you taste RStudio, you can't go back!
Chose Posit
Far better integrated and easy to use. The only full-blown Python IDE is PyCharm, and it is a monolith. I used Spyder instead. I was very happy when RStudio added Python support so I can ditch Jupyter Notebooks, which really isn't an IDE but is more like RMarkdown, a small …
Chose Posit
While many of these are great, RStudio is the best for R work. There is also native support in the IDE for combining other languages, like Python, into workflows easily so work across languages can be handled in one location.
Chose Posit
Coding in RStudio is more convenient and plot display in RStudio can be more user-defined than JMP Pro.
Chose Posit
In our organization RStudio is the main competitor for STATA. STATA has a larger number of users as it is far more user-friendly and has a large number of canned routines that work really well. RStudio is a niche software ideally suited to work with larger datasets.
Mathematica
Chose Wolfram Mathematica
We selected Wolfram Mathematica as it offers lot of functionality that other products like MATLAB or sageMath do not have. And it also has advantages on the feature that it does share in common with other tools like sageMath, MATLAB etc. It is more powerful than MATLAB. It …
Chose Wolfram Mathematica
MATLAB is an excellent tool, but it can't handle analytic manipulations in algebra, calculus and differential equations. MATLAB is superior when it comes to a less steep learning curve. In terms of using only one tool for analytic and numerical calculations, Mathematica wins. …
Chose Wolfram Mathematica
The ability to manipulate algebraic expressions, nested lists, and data structures in Mathematica was unequalled when I first did the comparison. Since then, I've stuck with Mathematica mostly because it's "the tool I know."
Features
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Platform Connectivity
Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
9.3
27 Ratings
11% above category average
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Connect to Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings8.026 Ratings00 Ratings
Extend Existing Data Sources00 Ratings9.927 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Data Format Detection00 Ratings9.926 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
9.0
27 Ratings
6% above category average
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Visualization00 Ratings8.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Interactive Data Analysis00 Ratings10.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Preparation
Comparison of Data Preparation features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
10.0
26 Ratings
20% above category average
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment00 Ratings10.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Transformations00 Ratings10.026 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Data Modeling
Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
10.0
22 Ratings
17% above category average
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools00 Ratings10.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Single platform for multiple model development00 Ratings10.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-Service Model Delivery00 Ratings10.019 Ratings00 Ratings
Model Deployment
Comparison of Model Deployment features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
9.9
18 Ratings
15% above category average
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Flexible Model Publishing Options00 Ratings10.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Security, Governance, and Cost Controls00 Ratings9.915 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
6 Ratings
20% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings00 Ratings9.84 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings00 Ratings9.94 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings00 Ratings9.96 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
24% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings00 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings00 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings00 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.3
8 Ratings
13% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings00 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings00 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
MATLAB
-
Ratings
Posit
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
24% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings00 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings00 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Small Businesses
IBM SPSS Statistics
IBM SPSS Statistics
Score 8.1 out of 10
Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook
Score 8.5 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Alteryx Platform
Alteryx Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mathematica
Mathematica
Score 7.0 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Alteryx Platform
Alteryx Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Dataiku
Dataiku
Score 8.5 out of 10
IBM Analytics Engine
IBM Analytics Engine
Score 7.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(53 ratings)
10.0
(123 ratings)
9.9
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(4 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(7 ratings)
8.9
(9 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MATLABPositWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
MathWorks
MATLAB really does best for solving computational problems in math and engineering. Especially when you have to use a lot of functions in your solving process, or if you have a nonlinear equation that must be iteratively solved. [MATLAB] can also perform things like integration and derivation on your equations that you put into it.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
In my humble opinion, if you are working on something related to Statistics, RStudio is your go-to tool. But if you are looking for something in Machine Learning, look out for Python. The beauty is that there are packages now by which you can write Python/SQL in R. Cross-platform functionality like such makes RStudio way ahead of its competition. A couple of chinks in RStudio armor are very small and can be considered as nagging just for the sake of argument. Other than completely based on programming language, I couldn't find significant drawbacks to using RStudio. It is one of the best free software available in the market at present.
Read full review
Wolfram
We are the judgement that Wolfram Mathematica is despite many critics based on the paradigms selected a mark in the fields of the markets for computations of all kind. Wolfram Mathematica is even a choice in fields where other bolide systems reign most of the market. Wolfram Mathematica offers rich flexibility and internally standardizes the right methodologies for his user community. Wolfram Mathematica is not cheap and in need of a hard an long learner journey. That makes it weak in comparison with of-the-shelf-solution packages or even other programming languages. But for systematization of methods Wolfram Mathematica is far in front of almost all the other. Scientist and interested people are able to develop themself further and Wolfram Matheamatica users are a human variant for themself. The reach out for modern mathematics based science is deep and a unique unified framework makes the whole field of mathematics accessable comparable to the brain of Albert Einstein. The paradigms incorporated are the most efficients and consist in assembly on the market. The mathematics is covering and fullfills not just education requirements but the demands and needs of experts.
Mathematica is incompatible with other systems for mCAx and therefore the borders between the systems are hard to overcome. Wolfram Mathematica should be consider one of the more open systems because other code can be imported and run but on the export side it is rathe incompatible by design purposes. A better standard for all that might solve the crisis but there is none in sight. Selection of knowledge of what works will be in the future even more focussed and general system might be one the lossy side. Knowledge of esthetics of what will be in the highest demand in necessary and Wolfram is not a leader in this field of science. Mathematics leves from gathering problems from application fields and less from the glory of itself and the formalization of this.
Read full review
Pros
MathWorks
  • It has a very user friendly library which helps users learn this software fairly quickly in a short span of time.
  • The graphical user interface provided by the software is really good.
  • The code that a person writes allows options for debugging.
  • One can visualize the flow of control of their code inside MATLAB.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • The support is incredibly professional and helpful, and they often go out of their way to help me when something doesn't work.
  • The one-click publishing from RStudio Connect is absolutely amazing, and I really like the way that it deploys your exact package versions, because otherwise, you can get in a terrible mess.
  • Python doesn't feel quite as native as R at the moment but I have definitely deployed stuff in R and Python that works beautifully which is really nice indeed.
Read full review
Wolfram
  • It allows straightforward integration of analytic analysis of algebraic expressions and their numerical implemented.
  • Supports varying programmatic paradigms, so one can choose what best fits the problem or task: pure functions, procedural programming, list processing, and even (with a bit of setup) object-oriented programming.
  • The extensive and rich tools for graphical rendering make it very easy to not just get 2D and 3D renderings of final output, but also to do quick-and-dirty 2D and 3D rendering of intermediate results and/or debugging results.
Read full review
Cons
MathWorks
  • MatLab is pricier than most of its competitors and because of this reason, many organizations are moving towards cheaper alternatives - mostly Python.
  • MatLab is inefficient when it comes to performing a large number of iterations. It gets laggy and often crashes. Python is better in this regard.
  • There is a limited number of hardware options (mostly NI) that can be connected directly to the data acquisition toolbox.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • Python integration is newer and still can be rough, especially with when using virtual environments.
  • RStudio Connect pricing feels very department focused, not quite an enterprise perspective.
  • Some of the RStudio packages don't follow conventional development guidelines (API breaking changes with minor version numbers) which can make supporting larger projects over longer timeframes difficult.
Read full review
Wolfram
  • Should include more libraries and functions.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Machine Learning.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Data Science.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
MathWorks
No answers on this topic
Posit (formerly RStudio)
There is no viable alternative right now. The toolset is good and the functionality is increasing with every release. It is backed by regular releases and ongoing development by the RStudio team. There is good engagement with RStudio directly when support is required. Also there's a strong and growing community of developers who provide additional support and sample code.
Read full review
Wolfram
No answers on this topic
Usability
MathWorks
MATLAB is pretty easy to use. You can extend its capabilities using the programming interface. Very flexible capabilities when it comes to graphical presentation of your data (so many different kinds of options for your plotting needs). Anytime you are working with large data sets, or with matrices, MATLAB is likely to be very helpful.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
For someone who learns how to use the software and picks up on the "language" of R, it's very easy to use. For beginners, it can be hard and might require a course, as well as the appropriate statistical training to understand what packages to use and when
Read full review
Wolfram
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
MathWorks
No answers on this topic
Posit (formerly RStudio)
RStudio is very available and cheap to use. It needs to be updated every once in a while, but the updates tend to be quick and they do not hinder my ability to make progress. I have not experienced any RStudio outages, and I have used the application quite a bit for a variety of statistical analyses
Read full review
Wolfram
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
MathWorks
The built-in search engine is not as performing as I wish it would be. However, the YouTube channel has a vast library of informative video that can help understanding the software. Also, many other software have a nice bridge into MATLAB, which makes it very versatile. Overall, the support for MATLAB is good.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
Since R is trendy among statisticians, you can find lots of help from the data science/ stats communities. If you need help with anything related to RStudio or R, google it or search on StackOverflow, you might easily find the solution that you are looking for.
Read full review
Wolfram
Wolfram Mathematica is a nice software package. It has very nice features and easy to install and use in your machine. Besides this, there is a nice support from Wolfram. They come to the university frequently to give seminars in Mathematica. I think this is the best thing they are doing. That is very helpful for graduate and undergraduate students who are using Mathematica in their research.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
MathWorks
No answers on this topic
Posit (formerly RStudio)
We did it at the individual level: anyone willing to code in R can use it. No real deployment involved.
Read full review
Wolfram
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
MathWorks
How MATLAB compares to its competition or similar open access tools like R (programming language) or SciLab is that it's simply more powerful and capable. It embraces a wider spectrum of possibilities for far more fields than any other environment. R, for example, is intended primarily for the area of statistical computing. SciLab, on the other hand, is a similar open access tool that falls very short in its computing capabilities. It's much slower when running larger scripts and isn't documented or supported nearly as well as MATLAB.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
RStudio was provided as the most customizable. It was also strictly the most feature-rich as far as enabling our organization to script, run, and make use of R open-source packages in our data analysis workstreams. It also provided some support for python, which was useful when we had R heavy code with some python threaded in. Overall we picked Rstudio for the features it provided for our data analysis needs and the ability to interface with our existing resources.
Read full review
Wolfram
We have evaluated and are using in some cases the Python language in concert with the Jupyter notebook interface. For UI, we using libraries like React to create visually stunning visualizations of such models. Mathematica compares favorably to this alternative in terms of speed of development. Mathematica compares unfavorably to this alternative in terms of license costs.
Read full review
Scalability
MathWorks
No answers on this topic
Posit (formerly RStudio)
RStudio is very scalable as a product. The issue I have is that it doesn't necessarily fit in nicely with the mainly Microsoft environment that everybody else is using. Having RStudio for us means dedicated servers and recruiting staff who know how to manage the environment. This isn't a fault of the product at all, it's just part of the data science landscape that we all have to put up with. Having said that RStudio is absolutely great for running on low spec servers and there are loads of options to handle concurrency, memory use, etc.
Read full review
Wolfram
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
MathWorks
  • MATLAB helps us quickly sort through large sets of data because we keep the same script each time we run an analyzation, making it very efficient to run this whole process.
  • The software makes it super easy for us to create plots that we can then show to investors or clients to display our data.
  • We are also looking to create an app for our product, and we will not be able to do that on MATLAB, therefore creating a limiting issue and a new learning curve for a programming language.
Read full review
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • Using it for data science in a very big and old company, the most positive impact, from my point of view, has been the ability of spreading data culture across the group. Shortening the path from data to value.
  • Still it's hard to quantify economic benefits, we are struggling and it's a great point of attention, since splitting out the contribution of the single aspects of a project (and getting the RStudio pie) is complicated.
  • What is sure is that, in the long run, RStudio is boosting productivity and making the process in which is embedded more efficient (cost reduction).
Read full review
Wolfram
  • Easy to solve huge mathematical equations, so it saved time there
  • Doing analysis and plotting graphs is also another plus point
  • Learning is very slow, and it took lot of time to learn its scripting language
Read full review
ScreenShots

Posit Screenshots

Screenshot of Posit runs on most desktops or on a server and accessed over the webScreenshot of Posit supports authoring HTML, PDF, Word Documents, and slide showsScreenshot of Posit supports interactive graphics with Shiny and ggvisScreenshot of Shiny combines the computational power of R with the interactivity of the modern webScreenshot of Remote Interactive Sessions: Start R and Python processes from Posit Workbench within various systems such as Kubernetes and SLURM with Launcher.Screenshot of Jupyter: Author and edit Python code with Jupyter using the same Posit Workbench infrastructure.