MATLAB is a numerical computing environment and programming language. It is a commercial software owned by MathWorks, and is widely used in teaching and research. Although MATLAB has a campus agreement which grants the University unlimited usage of the core MATLAB product and a limited selection of toolboxes, the yearly subscription costs in excess of £100k.
In this scenario, we are investigating potential alternatives to MATLAB in terms of functionality and cost. There is a great variety of mathematical modelling software on the market. Initially we identified a list of more than 20 products including Python, R, SciPy and other variations of these. We shortlisted four major products based on the product features, popularity, maturity and support availability. These four alternative products are GNU Octave, Scilab, Mathematica and Julia. This paper will provide a brief introduction to each product, and compare it to MATLAB in terms of the licensing model, compatibility, programming language syntax, toolbox availability, platform differences and support level.
Finally, we have evaluated each of these products’ advantages and disadvantages. Based on our evaluation, we conclude that it might be possible to replace MATLAB’s core functions with GNU Octave, Scilab, Mathematica and Julia. However, to replicate all the functions (including the toolboxes that MATLAB provides) would require users to use a combination of these alternative products. Moreover, it would force users to learn to use different products, which would require a lot of effort, potentially affecting the effectiveness of their research output.