Free MATLAB Alternatives
The best free alternative to MATLAB is GNU Octave, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to MATLAB and loads of them is free so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free alternatives to MATLAB are Scilab, R (programming language), SciPy & Numpy and Julia.
MATLAB alternatives are mainly Programming Languages but may also be Calculators or IDEs. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of MATLAB.Octave is a computer program for performing numerical computations which is mostly compatible with MATLAB. It is part of the GNU Project. It is free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
GNU Octave vs MATLAB opinions
It is really an alternative since it is compatible with nearly all scripts created on matlab.
ahmed_meeskeGNU Octave uses the same language of coding that MATLAB with a very title difference. But currently GNU Octave do not has any tool like Simulink (for simulation and modul-based disign) that MATLAB uses.
Works just like Matlab (Minus the toolboxes, for those you will need Matlab), but for Matlab 'like' work Octave works great. You can sit down with a Matlab book and go through it with Octave and have few problems. Octave documentation is excellent.
Complete and almost 100% compatible replication of MATLAB.
It is an open source clone of MATLAB. Save for a few features that have yet to be updated/added, the syntax and functionality are identical between the two.
cryoffIt is actively developing open source project
If you are a student and want to perform numerical analysis most of the times Octave is a great alternative to Matlab.
Scilab is a scientific software package for numerical computations providing a powerful open computing environment for engineering and scientific applications.
Scilab vs MATLAB opinions
Scilab has the most features and is the best quality of full-featured numerical computation softwares even though its language is not MATLAB compatible.
R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.
R (programming language) vs MATLAB opinions
Very different syntax, not very efficient for numerical computation outside the libraries available.
SciPy (pronounced "Sigh Pie") is open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering. It is also the name of a very popular conference on scientific programming with Python.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing environments.
Online math solver, equation library, graphing calculator and science/engineering problem helper.
SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It builds on top of many existing open-source packages: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, Sympy, Maxima, GAP, FLINT, R and many more.
Maxima is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including differentiation, integration, Taylor series, Laplace transforms, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, and sets, lists, vectors, matrices, and tensors.
Maxima vs MATLAB opinions
cryoffBest free tool for symbolic computations
Orange is an open-source, cross-platform data mining and machine learning suite. It features visual programming as intuitive means of combining data analysis and interactive visualization methods into powerful workflows.
Orange vs MATLAB opinions
Orange is a GOOD program and valuable addition for data analysts. Can it Replace Matlab. No, but it's very valuable alongside Matlab
Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility. It was originally intended as to allow scientists and students to visualize mathematical functions and data.