PTC Mathcad vs. Wolfram Mathematica

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
PTC Mathcad
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
PTC Mathcad Prime is a digital engineering notebook enabling engineers, mathematicians, and scientists to solve, analyze, document, and share their calculations. It helps users to solve problems accurately the first time numerically and/or symbolically, and then reuse important intellectual property with templates to save time on the next project.
$735
per year
Mathematica
Score 8.2 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
PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
Editions & Modules
Mathcad Prime 10 License
$735
per year
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
PTC MathcadMathematica
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo 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
PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
Features
PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
PTC Mathcad
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
Ratings
16% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
PTC Mathcad
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
Ratings
22% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
PTC Mathcad
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.3
Ratings
10% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
PTC Mathcad
-
Ratings
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
Ratings
20% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
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PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
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User Ratings
PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PTC MathcadWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
It is definitely a must have for every design engineer. The formulas can be written in the expanded format which facilitates the process. The measurement unit feature is very useful and helps prevent errors in formulas. Mathcad is now equipped with a decent spell checker which is also very helpful.
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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.
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Pros
  • MathCad has a relatively easy to learn and easy to use programming language.
  • It is easy to deploy and manage seats of MathCad.
  • Documentation and support are reasonably strong.
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  • Doing the analysis is very good, plotting the data, getting the insight from data using this is easy and output looks pretty good
  • Solving mathematical problems, with detailed solutions step by step (mainly calculus problems)
  • You can also query this knowledge engine in simple English. It has ability to interpret that and will give you answer accordingly
  • Nowadays, it provides API to use, so you can do image processing, video/audio using this
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Cons
  • A limited number of file formats for export, especially those that support visual graphics in vector format
  • Interfaces for mathematics and equations with MathType and LaTeX / MikTex / Tex
  • Limited functionality for visualization of data in a 3D format
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  • 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.
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Usability
Higher-order math, despite symbolics, become tedious and variable nomenclature isn't as forgiving as other programs. Due to it's sheet-like nature, the greater the complexity the more bothersome the screen usage becomes. But it's a trade-off between a sketchpad-like interface or lines and lines of code. Pick your poison but MathCad was our choice.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
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.
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Alternatives Considered
I have not found an alternative that is as useful as [PTC Mathcad]. In fact it is exactly what I've been looking for for some time.
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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."
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Return on Investment
  • Mathcad has allowed us to take legacy hand written calculations and document them in an electronic format. Now we can quickly run different design scenarios using the legacy calculations. It allows us to quickly vet new design options.
  • Sharing new design concepts is quicker and easier within our various design groups.
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  • Mathematica is our "go to" environment for developing solutions for our clients, so I suppose you could say that it is solely responsible for our revenues. On occasion we do use other platforms but Mathematica is a core component of our offer to clients.
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