Differences between Octave and MATLAB

Question

I m a programmer who knows Python  Ruby and some C who is trying to decide whether to learn GNU Octave or Matlab  I know that they have a lot in common  but it isn t clear to me how similar the syntax is or even the data structures are  The above link shows several examples where they are syntactically similar or identical  is this true for the whole language  I am trying to learn the language in general to do more scientific computing  possibly using some image analysis libraries  Additionally  is Matlab worth the cost

User · Accepted Answer

Rather than provide you with a complete list of differences, I'll give you my view on the matter.

If you read carefully the wiki page you provide, you'll often see sentences like "Octave supports both, while MATLAB requires the first" etc. This shows that Octave's developers try to make Octave syntax "superior" to MATLAB's.

This attitude makes Octave lose its purpose completely. The idea behind Octave is (or has become, I should say, see comments below) to have an open source alternative to run m-code. If it tries to be "better", it thus tries to be different, which is not in line with the reasons most people use it for. In my experience, running stuff developed in MATLAB doesn't ever work in one go, except for the really simple, really short stuff -- For any sizable function, I always have to translate a lot of stuff before it works in Octave, if not re-write it from scratch. How this is better, I really don't see...

Also, if you learn Octave, there's a lot of syntax allowed in Octave that's not allowed in MATLAB. Meaning -- code written in Octave often does not work in MATLAB without numerous conversions. It's also not compatible the other way around!

I could go on: The MathWorks has many toolboxes for MATLAB, there's Simulink and its related products for which there really is no equivalent in Octave (yes, you'd have to pay for all that. But often your employer/school does that anyway, and well, it at least exists), proven compliance with several industry standards, testing tools, validation tools, requirement management systems, report generation, a much larger community & user base, etc. etc. etc. MATLAB is only a small part of something much larger. Octave is...just Octave.

So, my advice:

Find out if your school will pay for MATLAB. Often they will.
If they don't, and if you can scrape together the money, buy MATLAB and learn to use it properly. In the long run it's the better decision.
If you really can't get the money -- use Octave, but learn MATLAB's syntax and stay away from Octave-only syntax. (see note)

Why this last point? Because in the sciences, there are often large code bases entirely written in MATLAB. There are professors, engineers, students, professional coders, lots and lots of people who know all the intricate gory details of MATLAB, and not so much of Octave.

If you get a new job, and everyone in your new office speaks Spanish, it's kind of cocky to demand of everyone that they start speaking English from then on, simply because you don't speak/like Spanish. Same with MATLAB and Octave.

NB -- if all downvoters could just leave a comment with their arguments and reasons for disagreeing with me, that'd be great :)

Note: Octave can be run in "traditional mode" (by including the --traditional flag when starting Octave) which makes it give an error when certain Octave-only syntax is used.

User · Answer

The thing makes Matlab so popular and special is its excellent toolboxes in different disciplines  Since your main goal is to learn Matlab  so there is not different at all if you work with Octave or Matlab   Just going and buying Matlab without any cool toolbox  which basically depends on your major  is not really a reasonable expense    You can definitely have a good start with Octave  and follow tons of tutorials on Matlab on the internet

User · Answer

Octave is basically an open source version of MATLAB  It was written to be just that  MATLAB has a very nice GUI which makes it a bit easier to use but the next stable release of OCTAVE will also have a GUI  which I have tested in the unstable release  and looks fantastic  Octave is much more buggy because it was developed and maintained by a group of volunteers  where the development of MATLAB is funded by millions of dollars by industry  I m still a student and am using a student version of MATLAB  but I am thinking of going over to Octave once the stable version with the GUI is released   MATLAB is probably a lot more powerful than Octave  and the algorithms run faster  but for most applications  Octave is more than adequate and is  in my opinion  an amazing tool that is completely free  where Octave is completely free   I would say use MATLAB while you can use the academic version  but the switch to Octave should be seamless as they use the exact same syntax   Lastly  there is the issue of SIMULINK  If you want to do simulation or control system design  there are probably a million other uses  SIMULINK is fantastic and comes with MATLAB  I don t think any other comes close to this  although Scilab is apparently a  good  open source alternative  I haven t tried it   Peace

User · Answer

There is not much which I would like to add to Rody Oldenhuis answer  I usually follow the strategy that all functions which I write should run in Matlab    Some specific functions I test on both systems  for the following use cases   a  octave does not need a license server - e g  if your institution does not support local licenses  I used it once in a situation where the system I used a script on had no connection to the internet and was going to run for a very long time  in a corner in the lab  and used by many different users  Remark  that is not about the license cost  but about the technical issues related   b  Octave supports other platforms  for example  the Rasberry Pi  http   wiki octave org Rasperry Pi  - which may come in handy

User · Answer

A more complete link to the list of differences is on the Octave s FAQ  In theory  all code that runs in Matlab should run in Octave and Octave developers treat incompatibility with Matlab as bugs  So the answer to your first question is yes in theory  Of course  all software has bugs  neither Octave or Matlab  yes  Matlab too  are safe from them  You can report them and someone will try to fix them  Octave also has extra features  most of them are extra syntax which in my opinion make the code more readable and more sense  specially if you are used to other programming languagues   But there s more to Octave than just the monetary cost  Octave is free also in the sense of freedom  it s libre  but I don t think this is the place to rant about software freedom   I do image processing in Octave only and find that the image package suits my needs  I don t know  however  what will be yours  So my answer to if it s worth the cost is no  but certainly others will disagree

User · Answer

MATLAB is  first and foremost  a commercial offering   Therefore  everything in MATLAB pretty much works out of the box   All the core functionality is solid  and if you re working on a special project then MATLAB probably has an add-on they can sell you that adds a lot of additional domain-specific  m files for you   It ain t cheap  but it works and it will get the job done without complaint     Octave always shows its open-source  information-wants-to-be-free roots   It s free  and it will remind you that it s free at every opportunity   It s developed by volunteers who hate Windows with a passion   Therefore Octave runs on Windows grudgingly   It s quite surprising that as many MATLAB features exist as they do   But here s the rub   Anytime you try to do something more than trivially complex  Octave suddenly breaks in subtle and hard to understand ways   Oops -- the terminal driver had an overflow somewhere deep in the OpenGL layer   You can t print   Oops -- the figure plots do strange things with their fonts   Good luck figuring out why   Oops -- there s some hidden dependency between Octave and some other obscure bit of free software  so it won t compile   Good luck figuring out which it is   And the Octave response is hey   It s free software   You have all the source code  you can fix all those bugs yourself   Maybe if I had infinite time and resources on my hands  I could spend all my time fixing bugs in free software  but I personally don t   If I worked in academia  I might     So at the core  the issue of whether to choose MATLAB or Octave comes down to one question   Interestingly  that question is always the same  when choosing between commercial vs  free software variants   And the question is   Do you have more money than time

User · Answer

Nested functions and closures are now supported by many languages  including MATLAB  JavaScript promotes closures as a first class design principle   Sadly  Octave does not support closures  nested functions with lexical scoping    According http   osdir com ml octave-bug-tracker 2013-06 msg00210 html one might even get the impression that the developers do not want or are unable to get it right   This will break a lot of code  both ways  No workaround

User · Answer

Octave and matlab have many similarities  But Octave is a command line interface  You have to type each command in the command prompt  while matlab comes with best GUI  I recommend first you use matlab student version  after learning basic lessons use gnu octave permentaly  Now gnu octave comes with  gui  but it is a development version now  There are some gui front end for gnu octave  like guioctave  xoctave not free   DomainMath IDE etc

User · Answer

I just started using Octave  And I have seen people use Matlab  And one major difference as mentioned above is that Octave has a command line interface and Matlab has a GUI  According to me having a GUI is very good for debugging  In Ocatve you have to execute commands to see what is the length of a matrix is etc  but in Matlab it nicely shows everything using a good interface  But Octave is free and good for the basic tasks that I do  If you are sure that you are going to do just basic stuff or you are unsure what you need right now  then go for Octave  You can pay for the Matlab when you really feel the need

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