#1 most frequent
United States of America
43.7%9,450 installations of 21,616
What is MATLAB?
MatLab is a predictive analytics and computing platform based on a proprietary programming language. MatLab is used across industry and academia.
Categories & Use Cases
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Who Buys & Uses MATLAB
#2 most frequent
China
7.0%1,522 installations of 21,616
#3 most frequent
Germany
6.8%1,479 installations of 21,616
MATLAB- Fantastic program for visualizing data and complex modelling.
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I have been using MATLAB for quite a long time and we use it quite frequently at Broward. It is constantly used within our research groups and by quite a lot of undergrad and postgraduate students. For the most part, we use the software for simulation purposes and we also interface MATLAB when teaching other program languages such as Fortran, as the engine allows for this. The interface is incredibly intuitive and the modeling of differential equations/integrals allows us to quickly and efficiently process large amounts of data in a short time. Currently, we are running a machine learning course, which teaches the students how to visualize and build neural networks, so building prototypes of these models helps develop an underlying understanding of the mathematics involved.
Pros
- MATLAB is great at providing in-depth models and simulations with very little coding, this is particularly useful to non-coders and potential data scientists who know very little or basic understanding of coding languages. The drag and drop components of the software are ideal and its simplicity allows the user to really understand the math behind the simulations running.
- It is fantastic for visualizing data, without being able to properly visualize data is almost useless, MATLAB allows the users to quickly dissect and understand how different data sets affect different variables and so forth.
- It has a wide range of supportive documentation and the online community is very active and engaged. If you ever have any problems, you can always count on someone being there to help you understand what is going on.
Cons
- I believe the software is quite expensive, so it is not open to independent parties which is a shame as it is fantastic at what it does, if they could find a way to include independent people rather than mass groups, I think it would really benefit a lot of people.
- The responsiveness of the software is not always the best and this can be very hindering to the user, especially when working with sensitive data/models.
- MATLAB is inefficient in some of its works and sometimes it is not the best tool for the job, there are times when it is quicker to write scripts in Python that run and work much better than they would ever do in MATLAB.
Most Important Features
- Documentation and huge support system in place for users of the software.
Return on Investment
- I use MATLAB for most of my research and I enjoy teaching it to students, I think it is very handy in certain situations, and knowing the overall score of the program is a fantastic skill.
- Price is quite expensive- even for a big institution
- Great tool for data visualization and modeling- handy for people that cannot code, but better alternatives for natural coders/certain situations.
Other Software Used
Python IDLE, Jupyter Notebook, Wolfram Data Science Platform
Read my review of MATLAB on @TrustRadius
Pros
- 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.
Cons
- I would want for the library to get updated more regularly.
- MATLAB uses a lot of computer memory for running heavy simulations. Its performance could certainly be optimized.
- Apart from this, I think MATLAB is a very powerful software and helps in almost every scenario of engineering.
Return on Investment
- MATLAB has made me a better coder. I can see the code behind inbuilt functions which helps me improve my own coding.
- The various features offered in the software helped me to understand new topics in a relatively short span of time.
- MATLAB has a rich forum and library which allows exchange of ideas and info with other users. This has certainly broadened my horizon.
Other Software Used
Google Drive, Google Forms, Adobe Acrobat DC
MATLAB - a simple, powerful data analysis tool
Pros
- MATLAB is very good at helping me create files that I can share anywhere and with anyone. It allows me to write a script and then share it with people so they can open it on the notepad app on their Mac or PC.
- I like that MATLAB can be used on both Mac and PC. I prefer to use a Mac when doing work, so it's nice that you can obtain the software for either operating system, and then work seamlessly between the two.
- MATLAB's help network is extremely vast. Inside the manual, you can find pretty much any function that you could possibly need to use.
Cons
- I wish it was easier to go through the help manual to find what you need. If you know the keyword that you need to use, it's very easy to just type that in to the program and it will take you to the proper spot. If you don't know the keyword, it is extremely hard to find what you are looking for sometimes.
- The program itself is not very intuitive for first-time users. Once you get used to the software, it is much more straightforward, but it is hard to just pick it up and begin to use MATLAB.
- Because MATLAB is more of a mathematics and engineering help software, you cannot write a ton of in-depth code using it. If you are looking to develop a whole application for a tablet or something of the like, you need to learn another language.
Return on Investment
- 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.
Alternatives Considered
National Instruments LabVIEW
Other Software Used
National Instruments LabVIEW, SOLIDWORKS, Fusion 360
MATLAB, The Great
Pros
- Very powerful console. You can do anything directly through the MATLAB console with no need to write a whole C/C++ program to do simple things.
- Ease of creating a simple and intuitive GUI with a very powerful wizard.
- A lot of professional packages and toolboxes for complex problems resolutions. Like Signal Processing, Image Processing, Calculus, etc.
- The language of programing is like a very nice version of C/C++.
- The handling of the variables is all making for MATLAB, you don't need to pay attention if you are using more memory that you have, for write one example. MATLAB take care of your stuff and optimize it.
Cons
- When a GUI start to grow up and have many objects, the performance of it starts to decrease very quickly and start to crash sometimes.
- You can not have more than one function in each file. I mean, you can't make a sort of library in one .m file. If you have different functions, you have to have different files.
- I think that a very good improvement is that MATLAB can understand the C/C++ sentence and data types. I mean, if I have an array of hexadecimal values in C/C++, I can't copy that in MATLAB because I can't use "0xA4" for the A4 hex value, for example.
Return on Investment
- MATLAB has a very positive impact in the things that I've do. I can test very quickly (and in some way beautiful) all the electronic stuff that I make.
- The ROI is very high, because you save a lot of time of programming in any other language the whole thing you need to test, and with MATLAB is just open the program and start to write some code.
Alternatives Considered
Kinetis Desing Studio, XCode, SimuLink and CodeWarriors
Other Software Used
Eagle Technology ProTeus, Fusion 360, AutoCAD, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Anaconda, Microsoft Office 2016
MATLAB - great tool for Mathematicians and Engineers
Pros
- Matrix operations
- Numerical methods
- Plotting
Cons
- A bit of a learning curve, especially for those just learning to program
- Error messages could be more informative
Most Important Features
- Ease of use
- Capability
- Plotting
Return on Investment
- Helps students gain a richer understanding of mathematical concepts
- Aids in problem visualization
- Easy to use way of finding numerical solutions to differential equations