Comparison of numerical analysis software

INRIA : The Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique
GNU : General Public License
OSI : Open Source Initiative

MATLAB is a widely used program for performing numerical calculations. It comes with its own programming language, in which numerical algorithms can be implemented. Several programs use a similar syntax: COMSOL Script, FreeMat, GNU Octave, LabVIEW (in MathScript blocks), O-Matrix, Rlab, Scilab, and Sysquake.

GNU Octave can generally run scripts written for recent versions of MATLAB; has an active user community. (free software, GNU GPL license).

Scilab is similar to MATLAB and Octave. Distributed with source (under their own license, which is not approved by the Open Source Initiative).

FreeMat, an open-source MATLAB-like environment with a GPL license.