Directory of Numerical Software

This is a small, hand-maintained, directory of numerical software: spreadsheets, statistical analysis software, computer algebra systems (CASes), matrix/tensor-based packages, etc.

• MATLAB (Wikipedia Entry) - a commercial and non-open-source, very comprehensive package, which runs on Windows, Linux and other UNIXes.

• GNU Octave (Wikipedia Entry) - an open-source (GPLed) and incomplete MATLAB clone.

• SciPy - a package offering similar tensor-based functionality for the Python programming language.

• PDL - The Perl Data Language - a package offering tensor-based functionality for the Perl programming language.

• IDL (Wikipedia Entry) - a programming language used for data analysis. Seems much more limited and baroque than Matlab and friends.
  

  • GNU Data Language - an open-source IDL-clone.

• Microsoft Excel - part of Microsoft Office, a proprietary and commercial spreadsheet program which is still considered the de-facto standard. Available for Microsoft Windows. A different version is available for Mac OS X with different (more limited?) functionality.

• LibreOffice Calc - part of LibreOffice, a gratis, open-source and cross-platform office suite. Can read and export many proprietary spreadsheet formats.

• Gnumeric - a free and open source and cross-platform spreadsheet program from the GNOME project.

• Calligra Sheets - an open source and cross-platform spreadsheet program that is part of the Calligra Suite that is part of the KDE project.

• SIAG - an open source lightweight spreadsheet for POSIX-like systems that is part of the Siag Office suite.

• Google Sheets - a gratis web-based spreadsheet program offered by Google. Has some web APIs for use by HTTPS clients.

• pyspread - an open source (GPLv3) Python-based and oriented spreadsheet that uses python formulae.

• Mathematica (Wikipedia Page) - a comprehensive commercial and proprietary CAS.

• Maple - a comprehensive, commercial, and proprietary CAS. Allows editing a proof in Mathematical notation.

• Maxima - an open-source and free-of-charge CAS written in Lisp.

• Sage - a comprehensive open-source mathematics software application based on Python and many other programs. Very large download with all the dependencies included in the package.

• Axiom - a comprehensive CAS for UNIX systems, with instructions on how to set it up on Windows. Open-source.

• Mathomatic - an open-source (LGPLv2.1) CAS written in the C programming language.

• PARI/GP - an open-source (GPLv2) CAS intended primarily for Number theory.

• R - an open-source and gratis program for Statistics. Should be very complete.

• S-PLUS/S+ - a commercial statistics package, implementing the same “S” language as “R”.

• GMP - GNU Multiple Precision - a library for bignums, supporting big integers, big rationals and big floats. LGPL licence (open source).

• The GNU MPFR Library - a “library for multiple-precision floating-point computations with correct rounding” based on GMP. LGPL licence (open source).

• GNU Scientific Library (GSL) - a numerical library for C and C++ programmers. GPLed (technically open-source, but restrictive).

• PARI/GP - a library for fast computations in number theory and other functions like Matrices, polynomials, power series and algebraic numbers. GPLed (technically open-source, but restrictive).

• Free [as in beer] Statistical Software

• Linux.com - “In search of bigger, stronger calculators” - feature about desktop calculators with many comments.

This document is Copyright by Shlomi Fish, 2009, and is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-by) 3.0 Unported (or at your option any later version of that licence).

For securing additional rights, please contact Shlomi Fish and see the explicit requirements that are being spelt from abiding by that licence.